The role of non-governmental organizations in achieving environmental justice for green and blue spaces

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103970Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Many NGOs in California seek to advance environmental justice (EJ) for green and blue spaces (GBS).

  • More GBS NGOs work on procedural and interactional justice than distributional justice.

  • Distributional justice NGOs have an urban focus, a higher revenue, and a work locally.

  • EJ-focused NGOs might help reverse the inequitable effects of neoliberal governance for GBS.

  • Findings have implications for GBS funding agencies, NGO management, and GBS government agencies.

Abstract

The governance of green and blue spaces (GBS) has gradually shifted from public agencies to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide. Scholars have attributed this shift to the increased adoption of neoliberal governance involving reduced public spending for GBS. Although NGOs’ work on GBS has raised environmental justice (EJ) concerns, some GBS NGOs have formed to advanced EJ goals. To date, limited research has compared GBS NGOs striving to advance different EJ pursuits, namely distributional justice (equal provision of GBS), procedural justice (engagement of marginalized people in GBS decision-making), and interactional justice (meaningful experiences in GBS for marginalized people). Focusing on California, where NGO coalitions have achieved significant EJ victories, we examine which GBS NGO characteristics are associated with their involvement in different EJ pursuits. We identify 121 GBS NGOs working in coalitions and analyze their websites and tax returns to extract information about their EJ focus, scope of work, revenue, and other characteristics. We find that working in urban settings, having higher revenue, and having a smaller geographic scale of work are associated with the odds of coalition-member GBS NGOs working on distributional justice. Few NGO characteristics are associated with the odds of working on procedural and interactional justice, suggesting that a broader range of coalition-member NGOs work on these tasks than on distributional justice. We also find that significantly fewer GBS NGOs outside coalitions focus on EJ than NGOs in coalitions. These findings from California can inform funding agencies, NGO management, and GBS government agencies worldwide.

Introduction

Over recent decades, the governance of green and blue spaces in countries around the world has gradually shifted from government agencies toward non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including incorporated nonprofits and organized volunteer groups (Boulton et al., 2018, Joassart-Marcelli et al., 2011, Mattijssen et al., 2018). Green and blue spaces (GBS) describe urban and exurban settings characterized by natural elements such as vegetation and water, including parks, greenways, community gardens, tree-lined streets, rivers, natural preserves, lakes, and beaches (Raymond et al., 2016, Taylor and Hochuli, 2017). Research shows that GBS have important benefits for human health, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation (Jennings et al., 2019, Wolch et al., 2014).

NGOs engaged in GBS governance are increasingly undertaking several tasks in conjunction with public agencies or on their capacity (Cheng, 2019, Mattijssen et al., 2018). Specifically, NGOs create and upkeep GBS, including building, improving, and maintaining urban parks and gardens (Connolly et al., 2013, Mathers et al., 2015, Rigolon, 2019), planting and caring for trees in cities (Molin & Konijnendijk van den Bosch, 2014), and protecting open space in exurban areas (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Di Giminiani and Fonck, 2018, Gazley et al., 2019, Logan and Wekerle, 2008, Mattijssen et al., 2018). NGOs also work on GBS advocacy, including improving access to GBS in marginalized neighborhoods (Anguelovski, 2015, Buijs et al., 2019, Rigolon, 2019). Further, NGOs run programs to increase the use of parks for marginalized people (Gibson et al., 2019, Loukaitou-Sideris and Mukhija, 2019) and community garden programs in cities (Anguelovski, 2015, Fox-Kämper et al., 2018). Shifts in GBS governance from public agencies to NGOs have been documented across several Global North and Global South countries (see the above citations).

Scholars argue that the rise of NGOs in GBS governance has resulted from the neoliberal turn in public governance, involving cuts in public spending for GBS in the context of laissez-faire economics (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Joassart-Marcelli et al., 2011, Perkins, 2013). Yet more recently, other scholars have found GBS NGOs have formed to address environmental justice concerns such as unequal access to parks for marginalized people (Anguelovski, 2015, Fernandez, 2018, Rigolon, 2019). Here, marginalized people include those experiencing disadvantage such as low-income people, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, older adults, and people with disabilities (Rigolon, Fernandez, Harris, & Stewart, 2019). And marginalized neighborhoods refer to places with high shares of marginalized people, particularly low-income people and people of color.

Although significant research has examined the links between neoliberal governance and GBS NGOs (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Perkins, 2011, Perkins, 2013), fewer studies have investigated NGOs that seek to achieve environmental justice (EJ) for GBS. Specifically, we have limited knowledge about the similarities and differences between NGOs that seek to achieve EJ goals, including building GBS in marginalized neighborhoods, advocating for the inclusion of marginalized people in GBS governance, and engaging marginalized people in meaningful outdoor experiences (Gibson et al., 2019, Low et al., 2013).

In this study, we investigate GBS NGOs working in coalitions in California, many of which seek to advance EJ. We specifically examine whether NGO characteristics help explain NGOs’ EJ focus and their different EJ pursuits. The case of California is particularly compelling because GBS NGOs coalitions have achieved important EJ victories recently (see Carter, 2016, García, 2013, Rigolon, 2019), and studying such NGOs can help pave the way to similar achievements elsewhere. Thus, by examining the GBS NGOs that led to EJ victories in California, we contribute to the international bodies of literature on GBS management, environmental justice, and NGO management, informing the work of GBS funding agencies, NGOs themselvs, and government agencies.

Section snippets

NGOs in GBS governance between neoliberalism and environmental justice

The rise of neoliberal governance has been linked to the increased role of NGOs in creating, managing, and activating GBS globally (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Joassart-Marcelli et al., 2011, Perkins, 2013). Starting in the 1970s, “roll-back” neoliberal governance led to reduced government spending for urban and exurban GBS (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Buijs et al., 2019, Joassart-Marcelli et al., 2011, Mathers et al., 2015). Concurrently, “roll-out” neoliberal governance involved public

GBS and environmental justice in California

The context of California’s efforts to achieve environmental justice for GBS has some unique traits but also some commonalities with other states and countries. Like many other cities around the world (Rigolon, 2016, Rigolon et al., 2018, Wolch et al., 2014), California’s major urban areas experience unjust distributions of parks, including Los Angeles (Sister et al., 2010, Wolch et al., 2005), San Diego (García & Strongin, 2010), Orange County (García, Strongin, Brakke, & Recinos, 2011), and

Inclusion criteria and sampling process

We focused on two distinct samples of GBS NGOs: organizations that are part of coalitions working to achieve EJ goals (henceforth, Sample 1) and organizations outside of such coalitions (henceforth, Sample 2). We used Sample 1 to answer Research Questions 1 and 2, and we used the combination of the two samples to answer Research Question 3.

Results

Table 2 reports the descriptive statistics for the 121 NGOs included in Sample 1 (within coalitions). The geographic scale of work of such NGOs is tilted towards smaller geographies (mean = 2.02 on a 1–5 scale). GBS advocacy is the scope of work that most NGOs engage in (66%), followed by GBS activation (59%), GBS construction (44%), and GBS maintenance (40%). Also, 58 percent of NGOs work on GBS for the enjoyment of people as one of their primary goals. Acquiring land (20%) and working on only

Conclusion

In this paper, we build on the growing literature on the role of NGOs in GBS governance by analyzing how NGOs’ characteristics help explain whether they engage in different EJ pursuits in California, including distributional, procedural, and interactional justice. Although several studies suggest that the emergence of GBS NGOs is linked to neoliberal governance, with negative impacts on EJ (Apostolopoulou et al., 2014, Joassart-Marcelli et al., 2011, Perkins, 2013), we show that many GBS NGOs

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Alessandro Rigolon: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - review & editing. Stephen Gibson: Conceptualization, Methodology, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review & editing.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Vinit Mukhija at UCLA for their comments to an earlier version of this manuscript. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments, which strengthened the manuscript significantly.

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