San Gabriel Mountains Chapter

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

The following statement was adopted by our chapter's Board of Directors at their meeting on November 19, 2020:

We, the board of the CNPS San Gabriel Mountains Chapter, would like to share this message with our chapter. Over this long and difficult year we have been reflecting on our role in our community. We believe that in order to fulfill our mission to preserve California’s native plants, we need to strengthen our commitment to environmental justice and community engagement.

We join with countless voices in support of Black Lives Matter and racial equity.

We acknowledge a lack of diversity in our chapter leadership and membership, with an accompanying failure to connect with people of color in the San Gabriel Mountains area.

We recognize the need to use our platform to promote safe and equitable access to the outdoors, and support environmental education for underserved communities.

We pledge to examine our structure and programs to determine how we can become an actively anti-racist organization.

We reaffirm our commitment to creating a safe, inclusive, and equitable space for all people, especially people of color, to share appreciation for and learn about California native plants.

We pledge to ask ourselves hard questions, to listen carefully and thoughtfully, and to make lasting changes that benefit and uplift our entire community.

Our next steps will be forming a committee who will work to develop a specific action plan. We invite our community to reach out to us with any feedback, suggestions or to join us in our ongoing work. You can reach us at info@cnps-sgm.org. We look forward to hearing from you.