How does racial inequality manifest within public greenspaces? The accessibility of natural spaces is not just a matter of social status; race matters too. Our CEO reflects on how race matters within greenspaces and remind us that diversity always wins in the natural world.
As we write, the world faces a time of extraordinary crises; locked into a system which has insubstantial plans for a green recovery, a cost of living crisis, Brexit and war in the Ukraine. Climate-induced ecosystem collapse is less than a decade away and we are still facing severe discrimination and entrenched racism in our societies.
One of the cornerstones of The Orchard Project’s mission is addressing inequality around accessing quality green spaces* and training and employment opportunities. We work primarily in cities – the most racially diverse parts of the UK – where we aim for every household to be within walking distance of a community orchard.
All welcome: Orchards as inclusive spaces
“We’re a real mix of ethnic backgrounds, from all over the world, but we all love gardening and that’s what’s unites us.”
These are the words of a resident on the Wenlock Barn estate in Hackney, where we planted an orchard back in 2012. She strongly feels that the orchard provides a space for people from different races and backgrounds to feel comfortable, safe and equal.
We have a responsibility at The Orchard Project to ensure the orchard training sessions and events we create with community groups are psychologically safe and inclusive spaces. We focus our orchard work where there is the most need. Over three quarters of the orchards we plant are in parts of the UK with the highest indices of deprivation. We work with these communities to improve the local environment and create bountiful orchards together. It is life-affirming work.
Those involved get more opportunities to meet their neighbours, contribute to their local area in a tangible way, learn new skills, slow down and connect with nature. It’s worth noting that the UK’s rich history of orchards stems from racially diverse beginnings. It is only thanks to the work of indigenous farming communities across the world that traditional orchards exist: apples themselves originate from Kazakhstan and the skill of grafting came from China. Our modern and heritage UK fruit varieties are the product of generations of observations, tending, and stewardship from growers in the UK and beyond.
Orchards that reflect local diversity
We are passionate about celebrating local distinctiveness and diversity. Every orchard is as unique as the community it supports. When we design a new orchard with a local group, we choose varieties and species of fruit that both reflect local history (like the Hounslow Wonder that was developed in that area) and the people who live there now. A great example of this is the Ashburton Estate orchard in South London, planted a few years ago in partnership with Putney Community Gardens, Ashmead Care Home, Boyd Court Community Centre and the local Ahmadiyya group. In amongst the more traditional apples and pears we have a pomegranate, an almond, grape and passion fruit vines and – perhaps most experimental of all – an avocado!
There is huge strength in diversity, both for people and for wildlife. It is curious how many of the ecological benefits we talk about in regards to community orchards are often mirrored in the communities who benefit from them. The underground network of mycorrhizal fungi that connect all the trees above them, sharing nutrients and providing mutual protection, are, like the network of people connecting around the trees, stronger by working and being together.
How are we welcoming diversity and inclusivity within our team?
At The Orchard Project, we recognise that our staff and trustees are currently not a balanced reflection of the communities we serve, and that needs to change. We know that a diversity of voices adds to an organisation’s potential, helps to generate a greater variety of ideas and creative problem-solving approaches. Moreover, white middle-class people are generally substantially over represented within the environmental NGO charity sector.
How do we address white privilege and ensure our organisation is doing everything we can to deliver on diversity, equity and inclusion? We are thinking a lot about this, including:
- Paths to employment:
- We deliver funded training programmes to help people get into jobs in the environment sector. For example, the current Orchard “A” level (our Certificate in Community Orcharding) offers bursaries to people from the global majority or people who are economically disadvantaged. We have had a huge success rate with these courses, with an amazing third of participants progressing into work or further training.
- We have developed follow on train the trainer programmes for our student graduates, many of whom are now working directly with The Orchard Project as paid tutors.
- Paid internships: we do not use unpaid interns; all our interns are paid the living wage. This is to reduce barriers to people who can’t afford to enter the environmental sector through volunteerism
- Recruitment:
- Our job requirements don’t stipulate higher education. This means we focus more on skills rather than formal education
- We introduced blind recruitment to overcome our unconscious biases. We track diversity data through each recruitment round to identify where we can improve our process with each recruitment
- We have changed the language and where we advertise for staff and trustees to make our recruitment process more accessible.
- At work:
- Reasonable adjustments: we are committed to flexible working and supporting the wellbeing of our staff through our wellbeing programme, supportive line management and a collaborative team culture. Staff are encouraged to work in ways that work for them.
We still have a lot of work to do and are still learning. At the moment we are completing feasibility work with new partners, who are black or global majority led, to develop orchard programmes that better reflect need in these communities. We know we have a long way to go in terms of truly addressing racial injustice through our work and also that we may not always get things right. But we are led by a vision that as a biodiverse orchard system teaming with wildlife is much more resilient, so are diverse organisations. We need everyone’s voices, strengths and solutions to help create the equitable, resilient sustainable societies we desperately need.
By Kath Rosen
*Around 98% of the UK’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations live in urban areas (UK Census 2011) yet a study in 2017 found that only 26% of black people and 25% of Asian participants visited ‘the natural environment’ in a given week compared to 44% of white people and 39% for mixed race inhabitants (Natural England, 2017).
Manual workers accessed greenspace over 20% less than their higher managerial counterparts, with just 32% white and 22.6% of non-white manual workers accessing greenspace in the week measured. People living in deprived urban areas appreciate greenspaces, but their local greenspaces are often poor quality and feel unsafe (CABE, 2010).