Health and culture at risk.(note from the guest editor)

You can hardly open a newspaper or turn on the radio without learning about conflicts over environmental policies--oil drilling in Alaska, limits on diesel emissions, global warming. What most of these stories miss, however, is how environmental degradation--air pollution, contamination of water, erosion of ozone--is often more hazardous to low-income communities and people of color because of where black, Latino, Asian and Native American people tend to live.

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The people-of-color-led environmental justice movement continues to shift the frame of the debate to include environmental dangers in urban centers and rural areas. It's in these communities where human health and traditional cultures are often most at risk.

That's what the articles illustrate in this issue of ColorLines, which I'm honored to guest edit. In "The Artic Dilemma," writer Yereth Rosen explains how a confluence of environmental and social changes have undermined the age-old food gathering practices of different Native Alaskan groups. The result is not only the loss of food-hunting and gathering skills, but also a rise in diabetes and other diseases as indigenous people abandon traditional diets. In response, many Native Alaskan groups have organized to oppose further damage to their environment, while they also take steps to keep their cultural heritage alive.

Similarly, in "Gone Fishing," environmental educator and activist Sharon Fuller discusses how she has worked with youth of color to investigate and document contamination of Richmond Harbor in California. The harbor, a Superfund site, has been a dumping ground for numerous toxic facilities and industrial activities. Despite the danger, many local fishermen continue to consume fish they catch in the harbor, as they have for generations. ...