In a Manchester neighborhood, children live in housing with lead paint, with poor air quality, with ancient pipes. Cars race down the two-lane, one-way ‘neighborhood highway,’ making the walk to school unsafe. Their neighborhood lacks tree cover: in summer, it’s hotter there than in leafier parts of town, and the children don’t have access to space where they can safely take their shoes off and feel the grass beneath their feet.

The environment these children live in is so different from the pastoral mountains, lakes, and forests of New Hampshire's image.

People in low-income communities, communities of color, and people with limited English proficiency often suffer first, and worst, from climate and environmental perils. New Hampshire is no exception to this unfair environmental burden, and many New Hampshire communities lack resources to help prevent negative environmental impact, build resilience, and improve quality of life. And environmental hazards do not only affect children in Manchester, nor do they only affect cities. For-profit companies are more likely to place landfills – and all their associated dangers – in rural, low-income communities. Water pollution affects fish spawning grounds in the White Mountains and in coastal estuaries.

"Environmental justice” is the condition of fair, equitable access to environmental benefits – like clean air and water, safe housing, shady streets, and green places to play – and freedom from the burdens of an unhealthy environment. In New Hampshire, a growing movement is working to ensure that everyone, regardless of income, race, primary language or social status, has access to a healthy environment.

Communities are organizing, building power, and putting down deep roots of self-determination. In Manchester, communities are tackling unsafe street designs in the urban core and working with the city on an urban forestry program so that everyone can share the benefits of trees and green spaces. Nashua communities have organized to fight the placement of an asphalt plant in a residential neighborhood, which would cause noise and air pollution and increase traffic tenfold on residential streets. In the Upper Valley, church communities frequently provide food programs for elders and for residents in rural areas affected by flooding.

Ensuring environmental justice for our New Hampshire community requires collaboration, dedication, and resources. As a statewide funder concerned with health and well-being, the Endowment is committed to working with communities and organizations across the state that are identifying problems and finding solutions within their communities and neighborhoods. At virtual monthly Environmental Justice Roundtables – organized by members of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England Grassroots Environment Fund, University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, and the Endowment for Health, among others – participants from across the state come together to learn from each other, share resources, and work collectively to build a statewide environmental justice movement.

Together, we are working to ensure a sustainable, equitable, and just future for generations of Granite Staters to come. Together, we can secure New Hampshire’s future as a beautiful and welcoming state, a state where everyone has an equitable share of environmental benefits, where streets are shady during a hot summer, where families in Colebrook and families in Manchester can breathe clean air. Together, we are working towards a state where all children can go outside and feel the grass between their toes.