House of Truth: Skewed race relations in the global environmental movement

By Ryan Fortune

ONE of the things that has always annoyed me about the environmental movement is the pallor of its people. Things are slowly changing, yes, with greater efforts being made in recent years to foreground the voices and perspectives of peoples of colour, but the majority of those who occupy leadership positions in environmental organisations are still those of the palm-coloured variety.

Like Tarzan of the Jungle or Tippi of the Desert, it seems that Caucasians are the only ones endowed with a special connection to the plants and animals and can therefore speak on their behalf. Darker-hued peoples, on the other hand, remain mere extras in the global psychodrama of man vs. nature.

While Sir David Attenborough explains the mating habits of the Arctic Tern, or Steve Irwin's son wrestles an alligator in the Australian Outback, the natives who have occupied the landscape for millennia scrounge around in the dust offscreen, waiting for their cue to clap politely or perhaps offer a wise, cryptic proverb about living in harmony with the Earth.

It’s a curious thing, isn’t it? The very systems that have brought us to the brink of ecological collapse—colonialism, capitalism, and consumerism—are now being “solved” by the descendants of those who built and benefitted from them. The environmental polycrisis—climate change, mass extinction, plastic pollution, and the rest of the apocalyptic buffet—is the natural outcome of centuries of exploitation, extraction, and entitlement. Yet, somehow, the architects of this disaster have appointed themselves as its saviours. How convenient! It’s like setting your neighbour’s house on fire, then showing up with a bucket of water and expecting a medal for your heroism.

Let’s not forget that colonialism was not just about stealing land and resources; it was also about erasing entire ways of life. Indigenous peoples across the globe—from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Africa to Australia—have lived sustainably for thousands of years, viewing themselves not as masters of nature but as part of it.

Their cosmologies, traditions, and practices were rooted in reciprocity, not domination. But when Europeans arrived with their Bibles, their guns, and their divine right to subjugate, these ways of life were dismissed as primitive, pagan, or worse. Fast forward to today, and the descendants of those colonisers are now preaching to the rest of us about sustainability. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a machete.

Take, for example, the concept of “wilderness.” In the Western imagination, wilderness is a pristine, untouched Eden, a place where humans are absent and nature reigns supreme. This idea is not only ahistorical but also deeply colonial. What Europeans called “wilderness” was often land that had been carefully managed by Indigenous peoples for generations. The Amazon rainforest, often touted as the “lungs of the Earth,” was shaped by human hands long before Europeans set foot on the continent. But acknowledging this would mean admitting that the colonisers didn’t “discover” anything—they just destroyed it.

And then there’s the issue of who gets to speak for the environment. The global environmental movement is dominated by white voices, white perspectives, and white solutions. Whether it’s Greta Thunberg scolding world leaders at the UN or Leonardo DiCaprio flying his private jet to climate conferences, the faces of environmentalism are overwhelmingly pale. This isn’t to say that these individuals don’t care about the planet—they clearly do. But their prominence reinforces the idea that environmentalism is a white man’s burden, a noble cause that requires the enlightened few to save the ignorant masses.

Meanwhile, the people who are most affected by environmental degradation—Indigenous communities, people of colour, and the global poor—are often sidelined or tokenised. They are invited to sit on panels, contribute to reports, or perform traditional dances at conferences, but their voices are rarely given the same weight as those of their white counterparts. It’s as if the environmental movement is saying, “We’ll take your wisdom, but not your leadership.”

This dynamic is particularly galling when you consider that many of the solutions to the environmental crisis already exist; they’re just not being taken seriously because they come from the wrong people. Indigenous land management practices, for example, have been shown to be far more effective at preserving biodiversity and sequestering carbon than Western conservation methods. But instead of centring these practices, the environmental movement often prioritises techno-fixes and market-based solutions that align with the status quo. Carbon trading, geoengineering, and electric SUVs might make rich countries feel better about their consumption habits, but they do little to address the root causes of the crisis.

The truth is, the environmental movement will never succeed if it continues to replicate the same power structures that created the problem in the first place. Decolonising environmentalism isn’t just about adding more people of colour to the roster; it’s about fundamentally rethinking our relationship with the natural world. It’s about listening to the people who have been living sustainably for millennia, rather than assuming that the West has all the answers. It’s about recognising that the environmental crisis is not just a scientific or technical problem, but a moral and political one.

So, the next time you see a white environmentalist waxing poetic about saving the planet, ask yourself: Who is really being saved here? And at whose expense? The environmental movement has the potential to be a powerful force for change, but only if it confronts its own complicity in the systems it claims to oppose. Otherwise, it’s just another form of colonialism—greenwashed, perhaps, but no less oppressive.

In the words of the great Arundhati Roy, “The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out.” So let’s speak out. Let’s demand a more inclusive, equitable, and just environmental movement—one that doesn’t just save the planet but also honours the people who have always known how to care for it.

Ryan Fortune is an AI implementation consultant who helps businesses to use AI to streamline their processes. He is contactable via his website: https://payhip.com/ryanfortuneinc