Climate justice begins with racial justice

The Healthy Ocean Coalition firmly stands in the knowledge that racial justice is imperative, period. You will find us working (imperfectly) to apply that lens through everything we do in the federal ocean conservation and climate policies we champion and voices we center and amplify.

We know white supremacy has a home in every American institution, from education to environmentalism. We denounce it, its legacy and actively work against it, in ourselves, our communities, and the environmental movement.

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On MLK Jr Day we repost our commitments to our community.

OUR COMMITMENTS

●  We commit to focusing on ocean conservation policies that center the ocean and people in the fight against climate change.

●  We commit to lifting the voices of the HOC network members closest to the impacts of climate change and the burdens of past ocean policies.

●  We commit to centering the solutions of these network members, ocean and climate scientists in HOC priority issues.

●  We commit to enhancing our long-standing promise to remove barriers that keep people from becoming ocean advocates by keeping every HOC training free of charge and providing resources to network members.

●  We recognize the historical and current inequities found within the ocean conservation community.

●  We commit to doing our part to rectify these inequities both within the HOC and the ocean conservation community.

●  We commit to infusing the principles and ideas of ocean justice into the HOC’s goals and strategies.