http://blackgirlnerds.com/the-privilege-of-being-an-environmentalist/

By Yordanose Solomone

One theme that has impacted me to get involved with environmental reform is the issue of food. I am going to use my own community that I was brought up in as an example and try to explore how it changed my perspective and definition of environmentalism and food.

I grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia- a country that has had multiple food crises in the past three decades. Food is sustenance. For many who are lucky, the shortage of food doesn’t even cross their minds, as they are able to find it in the fridge, and that is the end of it. It’s one of the most essential needs for survival, yet there are still people around the world (that includes the US too) who have no source of it because of multiple bureaucratic reasons and a lack in infrastructure within different regions.

While the act of conserving natural resources such as soil, vegetation, and endangered animals is very crucial for the ultimate lengthening in age of the planet- in a country like Ethiopia, it’s difficult to balance that and the distribution of food to all citizens. It’s not that Ethiopia doesn’t have food, on the contrary the land is fertile and the farmers over harvest. The problem is, the inability to distribute the food as a result of poor transportation from rural areas to the cities and other aid based NGO’s that are crippling communities like mine. While the land in southern Ethiopia is fertile and abundant these problems prevent the food from getting distributed, which means the hungry will either die off or move out of that area causing slums to form. All these factors result in the disinterest and the lack of prioritization in conservation, as the first problem of feeding the community is not taken care of yet.

There is this idea of conservation that environmentalists rarely speak about by the name of “luxury of conservation.” This means that unless one is able to feed themselves and complete their basic needs, preserving the environment for the future life of the planet becomes irrelevant and unimportant. For most developing communities such as mine, it’s a burden to tackle conservation because for us it’s truly a luxury. You can’t tell my community that we should work on preserving endangered species of rhinos or care too long about exotic gorilla populations when we have issues that are more pressing to our survival. It’s just not really fair.

Yordanose Solomone is a student creator and writer.

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