Distributive environmental justice: examining the relationship between disadvantaged communities and municipal conservation

By integrating environmental justice principles, municipal governments can ensure that land-use and conservation planning accounts for the needs of all residents, including those in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Using a distributive environmental justice framework, we analysed associations between municipal conservation efforts, environmental burdens, and population vulnerability in the Hudson River estuary watershed in New York State. The study incorporated two indicators of disadvantaged communities (DACs) defined by the NYS Climate Justice Working Group (CJWG): (1) Environmental Burdens and Climate Change Risks and (2) Population Characteristics and Vulnerabilities. We also developed a Municipal Conservation Efforts Index (MCEI) to document strategies used by city, town, and village governments to conserve natural areas and biodiversity. We applied Pearson correlation tests using ArcGIS Pro and R to assess the strength and direction of relationships between the MCEI, environmental burdens and climate risks, and population vulnerability across municipalities in the Upper, Middle, and Lower Hudson Valley. In the Middle and Lower Hudson Valley, we found that municipal conservation efforts are lower where population vulnerability is high. Across the entire watershed, conservation efforts show no association with environmental risks as defined by the CJWG. These findings provide insight into how municipal conservation planning and policy relate to population vulnerability and environmental risk, and they improve our understanding of where these factors coincide. The results also highlight opportunities to target future funding and technical assistance to enhance distributive environmental justice. Based on the analysis, we recommend prioritising support for municipalities with high population vulnerability and low MCEI scores.