Launch Post: Toward an Inclusive Environmental Narrative

Lauret Savoy illustrates how many environmentalist essays have derived from the Euro-American oppression of indigenous people and nature. "The idea of wilderness as untouched land to be preserved," she says, "was accomplished hand-in-hand with its forced de-peopling and removal of native peoples to reservations." She argues that much of our current environmental works therefore lack a large part of our society's voice and perspective. Savoy also tells us to think of "environment" as "sets of circumstances, conditions, and contexts in which we live and die," not just earth, wind, fire, and water.

So, what can we do to ensure our writing is not isolating to others? How can we truthfully write about the history of the land, especially when we weren't alive to witness most of its history? Thinking about these topics may also help us think of how we can write the land's current history, the history that is being made as we live and breathe. How can we change the way we write about the environment today to be more inclusive than the way it's been written about in the past?