On this episode of the podcast I’m joined by Damani Eubanks. Damani is a 2nd year PhD student at the University of Maryland in the Swenson Ecology Lab. His current research focuses on collecting long term tree data to create quantitative definitions of forest ecosystem health around the world. In addition, Damani is very passionate about social justice and African American empowerment here in the United States. With the current Black Lives Matter protests happening around the country, we decided to discuss these issues and how they relate to the fields of science, research, and conservation. We have a fascinating conversation about the impact of race on the inception of the conservation movement around the world and current misguided conservation practices utilized around the world that ignore local communities. We then dive deep into black representation in the natural sciences and how to effectively recruit and support the next generation of conservationists.