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Many people of color in the United States have grown up without a connection to the outdoors, writes Fast Company's Elizabeth Segran. This is the result of a number of sociopolitical factors, including our country's history—which pushed Black people outside to work in the fields and looked down upon Indigenous people who lived off the land, stigmatizing the very act of spending time outdoors—as well as financial barriers, such as the cost of buying gear to go camping.
"As a person of color, I am far from alone in feeling uncomfortable in the great outdoors," Segran writes. "For decades, camping in the United States has been an overwhelmingly white pastime."
Indeed, as recently as 2012, 88% of campers were white, according to research from KOA. But that began to change during the pandemic. KOA reports that in 2020, 63% of campers were white; 12% were Black, 13% were Hispanic, and 7% were Asian. KOA also found that 60% of first-time campers in 2020 were non-white.
This is obviously a historic shift, and the results no doubt carry over to our public lands. While the federal agencies that manage reservable campgrounds on public land don't collect info about race, a recent Center for Western Priorities analysis found that camping at campsites on public lands skyrocketed last year, indicating more people were enjoying being outside than ever before.
Colorado Latinos care about climate change
A recent poll conducted by a group of environmental and racial advocacy groups in Colorado found that the vast majority of Latinos in the state care about cutting emissions and expediting the clean energy transition. For example, 86% of respondents supported setting strict caps on emissions for all businesses in Colorado whose operations impact air quality, including the construction, transportation, oil and gas, and electricity industries. And 84% of respondents support a clean energy transition that includes stricter regulations on industries contributing to climate change.
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“People say that [African Americans don't recreate outdoors] as though there is some kind of natural law at play: that African Americans naturally don’t want to do these things, while white people do... But the truth is that white people have socially engineered their ownership of outdoor culture.”
