Program builds minority interest in conservation

...Okwu, who is African-American, is among 26 students from a variety of backgrounds who took part in a program at the University of Washington this summer aimed at broadening the diversity of students who choose careers in conservation and ecology. The concern: More than 80 percent of people in conservation jobs — like the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and private groups such as the Nature Conservancy — are white, and come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Students who go into conservation jobs often have a passion for nature and a mind for science, said Sean Watts, director of the summer program called Conservation Scholars. But they may lack people skills or the flexibility to consider an issue from different policy and social perspectives. And because few conservation workers come from diverse backgrounds, they may approach a problem with a limited understanding of how different communities are affected by the potential solutions, he said. The program drew nearly 400 applicants, and Watts said the students were carefully chosen from a range of ethnic and racial backgrounds — white, black, Asian American, Native American, Latino. Five were white; nine were multiracial. Some had parents who never graduated from high school, and others came from families where both parents went to graduate school...more