South Bronx Sustainabilty Program Highlighted in First Seminar In the South Bronx, 50 percent of residents live below the poverty line and the asthma rate is seven times higher than the national average. Dirty air, abandoned lots and even a prison barge have marred the landscape, but the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training Program (B.E.S.T) is working to turn that around by training residents for “green-collar” jobs and rejuvenating community open spaces. Annette Williams, director of the B.E.S.T. program and activist for environmental justice for the past 20 years, spoke to students, faculty and staff at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently about the need to solve problems of social justice and environmental justice together. “No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other,” Williams said. “Unfortunately, race and class are reliable indicators as to where one might find good stuff like parks, trees, fruits and vegetables in their corner stores and the bad stuff like power plants and waste facilities.” B.E.S.T. projects train low-income individuals in jobs that benefit the environment, such as cleaning and restoring river banks, maintaining trees, turning vacant lots into parks, and building green roofs. Green roofs, a layer of plants and foliage planted on rooftops to reflect the sun’s energy and improve air quality, combat the urban “heat island” effect, which contributes to higher energy use. Williams’ focus on improving the community by providing worthwhile jobs and beautifying the landscape goes hand in hand with protecting and improving the environment we need for the health of humans and non-humans alike. “We need to save the polar bears, yes we do!” Williams said. “But, guess what. We need to save mankind too. How can we save them if we’re not saving us?” The lecture, the first in a series on Connecting Health and Sustainability, was jointly sponsored by CLF, the JHSPH program on Global Sustainability and Health and the Department of Health Behavior and Society. For more information about the series, go to CLF website. More information on Williams and B.E.S.T. can be found at Sustainable South Bronx website.
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