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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2022
- Title: Assessing the Relationship Between Land Protection and Nature Loss in New England Through an Environmental Justice Framework
- Author: Miranda D Fernandez (Simmons College)
- Abstract:
Access to open space and the development of natural areas are disproportionately distributed across the population according to factors of social marginalization, including income level, race, and levels of English proficiency. Existing data on trends of both forest loss and land protection indicate that individuals with marginalized identities are more likely to live in communities with less access to green spaces that are protected from development and are more likely to live in communities experiencing the highest levels of nature loss. However, less is understood about the relationship between these two phenomena. Understanding this relationship is an essential step in supporting the aims of environmental justice, which is a movement that seeks to address disparate exposures to environmental harms and unequal access to environmental benefits. We investigate (1) trends of nature loss and land protection in New England from 1990 to 2020; (2) how nature loss correlates to land protection (POS) in New England from 1990 to 2020; and (3) how these trends relate to key demographic variables. We used land cover and protected open space data available across New England to quantify nature loss and land protection at the census tract level. This data is joined to census tract level demographic data sourced from the American Community Survey Using a quartile approach, we compare % nature loss and % POS to environmental justice factors in each census tract. We expect that high forest loss and low land protection will co-occur in areas where marginalized communities are concentrated.
- Research Category: Conservation and Management; Historical and Retrospective Studies; Regional Studies
