04 Jun Serving People – the importance of prioritizing underserved communities

During this past month of May in my internship with the U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest Regional Office of Communications and Community Engagement, I have continued. my work in community engagement specifically working with partnerships in the Portland metropolitan area. This work includes everything from event and activity planning, ordering materials, managing agreements, checking in with partners, and more. I have gotten to be a part of this work through my internship with the regional office.

“Caring for the land and serving people”

This is the motto of the Forest Service. Beyond just protecting our American forests and grasslands, the U.S. Forest Service serves the American people. This has become an important value of the day to day work we do in the Office of Communications and Community Engagement. For many people, there are often great barriers to accessing nature and our public lands. This lack of access is a major environmental issue. Part of the work of the Forest Service is focusing on reducing these barriers. One significant way that the Forest Service works to do this is by fostering partnerships with organizations which focus on these underserved communities. These partnerships allow us to collaborate and expand our work of minimizing barriers to underserved communities and get them out on local public lands! I really have appreciated the ways in which the Forest Service prioritizes partnerships with organizations that have a strong mission of increasing access to our public lands. Supporting access to National Forests is a major part of the Forest Service’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility plan which seeks to expand DEIA in the Forest Service through a multitude of programs and partnerships, both internal and external.

During my time in the Office of Communications and Community Engagement, some of the work we have done to increase access to public lands ranges from translation services of important press releases and safety messages, webinars to teach people about recreational opportunities, outreach and invitation to events on the forests, and more! Being a part of this work and effort to reach these underserved communities has been extremely fulfilling work for me. Often times the communities that experience more barriers to access to public lands are BIPOC communities. Increasing access to nature for BIPOC communities is something I want to continue to work on throughout my career and life. Environmental justice issues plague our modern day society and is something that is always on my radar.