To cultivate a diverse and equal community within soil science we need to act together, calling out discriminatory language and behaviour, listening and responding to issues that are raised and enacting EDI and code of conduct policies. Some of these conversations can be difficult, and we need to respect others’ effort and not “All lives matter” the conversation. Simple steps that we can do include stopping engaging in all-male, all-white, or in some way homogeneous panels; promoting the voices of underrepresented communities within soil science in our conferences and other events; and including non-English research in meta-analyses.
Further reading
- Race and racism in soil science. Berhe and Ghezzehei (2020) EJSS, DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13078
- International gender equity in soil science. Dawson, Brevik and Reyes-Sanchez (2021) EJSS, DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13118
- Anti-racist interventions to transform ecology, evolution and conservation biology departments
- Actions to improve racial diversity, equity and inclusion in our school. Pancost (2020), Link
- Nunez and Amano (2021) Nature Eco & Evo
- An actionable anti-racism plan for geoscience organizations. Ali, H.N., Sheffield, S.L., Bauer, J.E. et al. (2021) Nat Commun DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-23936-w