Soil and Water Conservation Society Releases DEI Guidebook

The Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) recently released a guidebook titled A Conservation Professionals’ Guide to Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Conservation Delivery With Historically Underserved Producers and Communities. This guidebook serves as a resource for conservation professionals and policymakers to understand the barriers historically underserved communities face in implementing conservation practices. The publication explains how to equitably address these barriers to provide community‐led conservation technical assistance that meets the specific needs of historically underserved producers and communities.

The involvement of historically underserved producers in conservation programming has been very low throughout the USDA’s history. Addressing this issue and advancing conservation requires acknowledging the past injustices and inequities that created barriers for historically underserved communities to access and participate in conservation programs.

The guidebook adds a preparatory phase that includes self‐education on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, trust and relationship building, and intentional outreach. It also provides language and national policy recommendations, term and acronym explanations, and helpful reading materials and resources.