EarthTones is an environmentally-focused digital content hub. Founded by sisters, Aliza (a Landscape Architect) and Aliya (an Environmental Journalist) aimed to combine their skill sets to disrupt the polished euro-centric style of environmental storytelling. EarthTones, as a content hub for environmental communications, has been developed in response to the Landscape Architecture Foundation Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Call-to-Action on targeted outreach to the next generation.
EarthTones uplifts interdisciplinary environmentally-focused storytellers from around the world, using handheld mobile devices, as the central medium for creation and consumption of content. It gives a look inside global cultural landscapes, amplifying historically underrepresented voices and bringing new perspectives on decolonization within the field of design, as well as the history of our environment and our relationships to it. Pressing information is no longer restricted to the academic elite, but - through the EarthTones content hub - can now reach the masses who tend to consume short, faced-paced, and easy to understand, digital stories.
Inspired by the Canadian Landscape Charter core principles, the content will be appealing to many demographics, but our hope is to be extremely accessible to a young BIPOC audience. The reason for this focus lies in current data which indicates that communities of colour are most impacted by environmental issues and the climate crisis, and they are statistically less knowledgeable about it. We believe knowledge is power in order to uproot systems of oppression and we want to close that gap.