Others before us have tackled this challenge. In 1986 the United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development—often known as the Bruntland Commission—published a document called Our Common Future. In that seminal report, the commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The President's Council on Sustainable Development took this general definition to a more detailed level when it released its report on sustainable development in 1996. Sustainable America: A New Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the Future had, at its core, a very simple notion: that for development to be sustainable we must seek policies that ensure “economic prosperity, environmental, and social equity together.”

This perspective, I believe, highlights the crucial role social equity and environmental justice must play when it comes to developing a shared approach to protecting the environment and biodiversity.

California has been making important steps toward achieving that goal. In 1999, Governor Davis signed historic legislation making California the first state in the nation to define, establish, and fund a statewide environmental justice program. This law defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and income with respect to development, adoption, and implementation of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” California has also established an Office of Environmental Justice requiring government agencies to develop strategies which incorporate environmental justice into their business practices. For further details on the State’s environmental justice efforts visit www.opr.ca.gov/ejustice/EJustice.shtml.

For California government agencies the process toward adopting environmental justice is a welcome challenge and a continual learning experience. We are also discovering that this is more than an urban issue. Addressing environmental justice means understanding that we need to attend to the concerns of the widest possible range of groups when it comes to understanding the potential impacts of a new project or policy—whether we are discussing the siting of a power plant, the conservation of endangered habitat, the protection of open space or parkland, or the restoration of a cultural or archeological site.

From this perspective, environmental justice becomes an important exercise in active listening, in learning about the concerns of all communities. This requires a greater balancing of interests and more deliberations, but it also means that our efforts at conserving biodiversity will not only be more equitable, they will ultimately be more effective.