“Collective black self-recovery takes place when we begin to renew our relationship to the earth, when we remember the way of our ancestors. When the earth is sacred to us, our bodies can also be sacred to us.” – bell hooks

Black people have a rich legacy of environmental action that is inspired by our historically holistic relationship with nature. A holistic relationship with nature sees people and nature as equals who are connected to each other; what happens to nature, happens to us.

Holistic environmental action prioritises community action for the environment. By engaging the collective rather than individual interests, communities can build their own agency to address issues that affect them and nature, such as economic poverty, political corruption, and racism.

There are numerous examples of black women environmentalists who have made meaningful change by practising holistic environmental action. In 1977, Wangarĩ Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement to support women in rural Kenya to organise and plant trees in order to restore the health of their lands that had been degraded as a result of industrial farming introduced under British colonial rule.

Today, the Green Belt Movement has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya alone by continuing to engage and support women and local communities, build and exercise their agency and relationship with the land.