Fostering Anti-racism in Ecology, Development and also Preservation Biology

Academic departments in ecology, evolution and preservation biology are progressively aware of the need to deal with persistent barriers and challenges faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in these subjects. A diverse group of professors, staff, and students in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at UC Santa Cruz has put together a set of tools and methods that departments can use to address drawbacks in equity and inclusion.

The recommendations, published August 9 in Nature Ecology & Evolution, are based upon a literature review to identify evidence-based interventions for promoting anti-racism in the class, within research labs, and department-wide.

“There is absolutely nothing unique in our suggestions. These are empirically-based concepts developed by people who study these issues, and we have put them all in one place as well as customized them for the subjects of ecology, evolution, as well as preservation biology,” stated lead author Melissa Cronin, a Ph.D. candidate in ecology as well as evolutionary biology at UCSC.

According to Cronin, she and elderly writer Erika Zavaleta, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, saw an increasing need for a readily available set of resources to assist departments wishing to address historical and current inequities in their areas.

” Now, there is better awareness, and many more departments are considering just how to address these concerns, so we thought this would certainly be a useful contribution,” Cronin stated. “This paper is not an ideal response to the systemic bigotry we see in the scientific space today, but we wish it is a beneficial tool for those scientists as well as departments seeking to act at the local level.”

The paper acknowledges the problematic records of racist policies and ideas in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology, such as using pseudoscientific interpretations of evolutionary biology to promote eugenics and racist ideologies. These historical legacies have contributed to racial voids by preventing BIPOC participation in those fields.

Cronin remarked that, while people of color lack representation in science usually, the gaps are more significant in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. “Underrepresented groups are even more invisible in these subjects than in other areas of scientific research, so these subjects are the main priority,” she said.

Cronin and Zavaleta enlisted a diverse group of students, faculty, and staff within their department to develop the paper, which has 26 coauthors.

“It was an extremely positive and constructive experience for our department to collaborate on this paper,” Cronin claimed. “We built on this amazingly rich tradition of scholarship at UC Santa Cruz in critical race research studies, an area which historically has not intersected with the STEM areas.”

Originally published on News Center. Read the original article.

Reference: Melissa R. Cronin et al, Anti-racist interventions to transform ecology, evolution, and conservation biology departments, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01522-z