Portland, OR

When the Messenger is As Important As the Message

Portlanders Say all Colors Should Lead to Green

When Marcelo Bonta started working at Defenders of Wildlife in Portland, Oregon, he immediately noticed something unusual. While his undergraduate and graduate schools had plenty of people who looked like him, his new colleagues were nearly all white.

This was true not only in his Portland office, but also at the large, national environmental conferences he attended.

“I kept finding that I was the only – or one of the few – people of color,” says Bonta, who is half Filipino.

Bonta’s personal experience bears out statistically.

A July 2007 report by the United States Census Bureau shows people of color made up more than one third of the U.S. population. Yet, about 90 percent of staff and board members of organizations belonging to the National Resources Council of America are white, according to a 2004 study conducted by Robert Stanton for the Council. And perhaps most telling: more than one-third of environmental organizations--and a fifth of green government agencies in the U.S. – don’t have a single person of color on staff, according to a 2004-06 University of Michigan study.

This is what led Bonta, now 35, to leave his work in conservation policy and planning and devote his full attention to diversifying environmental institutions.

“Oftentimes the messenger is more important than the message,” says Bonta. “If we could get more [non-white] messengers, then we could really bridge the gaps that are happening.”

Bonta founded the Portland-based Center for Diversity and the Environment and started a network for young environmental professionals of color. He writes and speaks locally and nationally about the importance of having people of color involved in sustainability efforts. He teaches organizations how to reach out to and – most importantly – retain minorities in their ranks.

He is joined in his efforts by fellow Portlander Charles Jordan, 71, the first African American chairman of The Conservation Fund. Jordan is also the former city commissioner of Portland and the former parks and recreation director.

Bonta and Jordan co-wrote the keystone chapter of Diversity and the Future of the U.S. Environmental Movement, a new book by the Yale School of Forestry.

Jordan rouses groups around the country, encouraging them to get involved in conservation and sustainability efforts. Locally, he’s taken to speaking to black and Catholic clergy and congregations.

“I knew there was no way we could do something like hold off a global warming with as many blacks and browns who are not involved in the movement,” says Jordan.

Jordan and Bonta agree that the paucity of people of color involved in environmental organizations is not due to a lack of interest or to being preoccupied with other concerns. Exit polls show that people of color support environmental ballot initiatives at much higher rates than Caucasians, they say.

So why is it that we see less color in green groups?

As Maryland-based diversity consultant Iantha Gantt-Wright points out, the Civil Rights Act and the Wilderness Act were passed the same year.

“The same year as the Wilderness Act passed, you had people out there fighting just to be seen as human beings,” she says.

People of color were historically left behind by what Gantt-Wright calls the “traditional” green movement. As a result, people of color today gravitate toward non-traditional organizations, like grassroots environmental justice groups.

Bonta and Jordan hope to bring these groups together.

“We’ve got to have all hands on deck,” says Jordan. “There’s just no way we can stop something like a global warming [while leaving] that many people out.”

Photo Caption: Portland resident, Marcelo Bonta, is committed to diversifying the green movement in the US. Bonta is shown here with daughters Stella (left) and Kyra, who inspire him. (Photo by Micia Bonta).

Learn More: