Environmentalism and Social Justice: Challenging Stereotypes As the world grapples and slowly winds down from an unprecedented public health crisis pandemic, we begin to refocus our attention and concerns for our natural environment. Most researchers studying the environmental movement base their analyses on historical accounts that advance a dominant perspective that often marginalizes communities of color. Indigenous communities have been more successful with environmental conservation based on their more profound understanding of local ecosystems and reciprocal relationships with nature viewed through the lens of human existence created to preserve the earth. Through intensive research Carolyn Finney, Linda Coombs, Camile Madison, Jedidiah Purdy, and Dr. John Kucich, have traced the origins of modern environmentalism using the history of colonialism. These researchers have identified a historical connection between Indigenous land grabs and a racialized idea of nature-dominated spaces, controlled and valued by humans and defined as white.