The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Environmental Justice

  • Cal Poly Humboldt campus hosts Food Summit

    Cal Poly Humboldt campus hosts Food Summit

    by Angel Barker

    A three-week-long Food Summit is on campus, and you’re invited. On-campus organizations El Centro, HEIF, Umoja Center, the Food Sovereignty Lab, Oh Snap!, WRAPP, and La Comida Nos Une all collaborated to make this event happen.

    Liszet Burgueno, Developmental Manager for the Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF) and environmental resource engineering major, talked about the nature of the event.

    “The Food Summit is a collaborative event where multiple campus organizations came together to start conversations about food justice, food sovereignty, and to give people food,” Burgueno said.

    The first week was about the general topics to introduce people to the issues of food sustainability and justice. This week is about jobs and exploration in the food industry, and next week is about environmental justice and social justice.

    HEIF is funding the Food Summit according to Katie Koscielak, Cal Poly Humboldt’s sustainability analyst and advisor for the event.

    “The campus has done other food summits, but not in several years, and this is the first one funded by HEIF,” Koscielak said.

    Photo by Angel Barker | Katie Koscielak, sustainability analyst for the campus, and Liset Burgueno, development manager for HEIF and environmental resource engineering major at the table for HEIF at the food summit on April 6.

    HEIF funds sustainability projects on campus through instructionally related activities fees that students pay for each semester. Past projects have included water refilling stations, compost bins, lots of lighting upgrades throughout campus, hand dryers, and many more. These projects take effect when students submit proposals to the organization.

    “Last semester, El Centro came to HEIF and submitted an idea paper, where they wanted to get reusable utensils,” Burgueno said.

    Darin Torres, criminology and journalism major, pitched the idea this semester for a food summit. Torres spearheaded the ideas and planning, and after months of collaborating with many campus groups and local organizations, the event planning has been successful.

    “I am really proud of what we’ve done so far,” Torres said. “Education is power.”

    This event is not only to educate, but to get students involved with interactive events to help make the planet a better place. This event is really important to Torres, as food insecurity is a huge part of the greater Humboldt community.

    “We have issues with indigenous cultures’ food not being respected,” Torres said. “Food is a major insecurity in Humboldt County, we have students who face hunger and homelessness so much. So we just wanted to incorporate it all into the food summit.”

    “We have regenerated, and hopefully it will continue,” said Fernando Paz, coordinator for El Centro.

    According to Paz, the event itself is, a way to really reflect on our carbon impact in terms of food that we use.

    This Thursday, April 14, there will be a film screening of Gather hosted on Zoom, and on Friday there is a plant tour on campus and an opportunity to volunteer at Bayside Farm. Many more events are also scheduled throughout the week. To find the whole event schedule, go to https://lcae.humboldt.edu/food-summit.

    “This event is made for you in mind, it was made for students, by students,” Torres said.

  • Humboldt State presents Social Justice Summit

    Humboldt State presents Social Justice Summit

    The MultiCultural Center presented their 24th annual Social Justice Summit at Humboldt State on Saturday.

    Deema Hindawi is an HSU student and a co-event coordinator of the summit.

    “The theme for the summit this year is ‘Who Am I? [Back to Our Roots],’” Hindawi said. “We want people to look beyond their skin color and look into their roots. That is the purpose of this event.”

    HSU student Lizzie Philips is also a co-event coordinator of the summit.

    “We want to give students here at HSU a platform to hear their voice,” Philips said. “There are those who feel like their voices are not heard, but we want to change that with Social Justice Summit.”

    Various workshops hosted by the MultiCultural Center were open to anyone. Topics ranged from social identities, sexual orientation and environmental justice.

    Alixa Garcia and Namia Penniman are multimedia hip-hop artists from the group Climbing PoeTree. They came all the way from Brooklyn, New York to share their thoughts on environmental justice.

    “Since we were kids we’ve been advocating for environmental justice,” Garcia said. “We came to Humboldt to highlight environmental issues and create awareness that there are groups that are fighting for the environment.”

    One of the projects that Garcia and Penniman shared with those who attended the workshop was their S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D. workshop, a mural made of fabric where strangers wrote uplifting and positive messages that others can read.

    “In a way, we [Garcia and Penniman] want to show how art can empower social and environmental activism,” Garcia said. “Because we’re all living [on] planet earth, right? We only have one shot at fixing it. If we don’t, where can we go? Mars?”

    For those who missed the chance to meet Garcia and Penniman, they will deliver a keynote performance in the Kate Buchanan Room at 7 p.m. tonight.

  • Finding an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability

    Finding an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability

    Armed with their usual commitment to sustainability and an updated mission statement, the Waste Reduction and Resource Awareness Program (WRRAP) is starting to integrate intersectionality into their brand of environmentalism.

    WRRAP started as an on-campus recycling program in 1989. Their goal has always been to reduce waste coming from HSU through environmental education. Since its inception, the organization has expanded into compost diversion, water quality assurance and a reusable office supply exchange.

    This semester, the organization is attempting to bring together two important fields of activism by designing this semester’s projects with inclusive sustainability in mind.

    “Environmentalist” is a label that comes with a dark history of eugenics, exclusivity and barriers that WRRAP is attempting to dismantle on a local level. The campus-based organization WRRAP recently hired an environmental justice intern with the intention of making sustainability more accessible for all HSU students.

    Lauren Wardle, the newly hired environmental justice intern, has experience running an intersectional feminist club and wants to bring those concepts to her position.

    “Social issues go hand in hand with environmental problems,” Wardle said. “Environmental justice and intersectionality will bring in the voices of the communities that are most affected.”

    The program’s main goal is to ensure that HSU students are using their available resources to the fullest extent. WRRAP’s first environmental justice project will be a campus-wide survey to assess students’ access and understanding of sustainability.

    Shanti Belaustegui Pockell, an environmental studies major, WRRAP’s education director and intern coordinator, hopes the internship will help shift environmentalism into something more accommodating for everyone.

    “Instead of trying to get more people into this little space we have created, we want to expand the circle,” Pockell said. “We are reimagining what sustainability can look like, because a lot of people are living sustainably, just without the label.”

    Irán Ortiz, environmental studies major and director of the student-led campaign Take Back the Tap, credits WRRAP’s leadership and innovations for social justice.

    “We need to bring together the communities that are affected, but ignored,” Ortiz said. “I hope this new position helps address the problems we see in our institution by creating a new perspective and understanding of intersectionality.”

    When environmentalism is executed with an intersectional lens, social and environmental issues are looked at as one. To put it another way, it is the understanding that all oppressions exist under the same hegemonic systems.

    Ryan Sendejas, environmental studies major and community garden coordinator at Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, realizes the importance of incorporating environmental justice into an institution.

    “In society and bureaucracies specifically, we tend to compartmentalize everything in an attempt to understand it,” Sendejas said. “Nothing is truly singular. So, we need to start thinking in terms of interconnectedness.”

    WRRAP will be hosting a Zero Waste Conference on Feb. 9 and 10. Look out for flyers around campus for more details!

    For more information about WRRAP, visit their website HERE.