Earth Defenders

In a celebration of the amazing ways people of colour are defending and protecting the planet, Anuradha Rao features 20 environmental defenders from around the world and from a variety of cultures in One Earth: People of Colour Protecting Our Planet. This book could not have come at a better time. When we are being bombarded with frightening news about wildfires, moon wobble, burning seas and white billionaires going to space, we all need some hope that we can turn things around, that we can protect our planet for the future.

Broken into six different chapters, young readers get to learn about people who are land and water defenders, who are organizers, who are protecting animals, and who are cleaning up the earth. Each and every person featured has an interesting story and a unique perspective on how to protect the planet. All draw from their cultures and backgrounds to challenge the status quo and show us new, and sometimes not so new, ways of respecting the earth and fighting for cleaner ways of going about our lives. I was especially inspired by the ways in which the people featured were able to think beyond just themselves and what they could do. If we are to protect and heal our planet it’s going to take not only the voices of people like Ken Wu, Sameer Muldeen and Hazil’Hba (Saul Brown) but our collective power. For young readers to be inspired by the work of all of these people and to hopefully continue on the work they have started is inspirational.

Anuradha Rao focuses on sharing the stories of people of colour because so often children are told about the stories of people like Jane Goodall, John Muir and Greta Thunberg however, if readers cannot see people who look like them doing this vital work they won’t have role models to know that they can follow in those footsteps. There is so much untapped traditional knowledge that businesses and governments need to begin to listen to in order to avoid devastation.

Be sure to check out the virtual FOLDKids presentation celebrating the book One Earth: Youth Rally for the Planet HERE.