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Environmental justice (EJ), which can be loosely defined as equal access to clean water, clean air, and green space, emerged in the sociological realm and thus has a large amount of research and consideration in the social sciences (Sze and London 2008, Mohai et al. 2009, Schlosberg et al. 2025), while conservationists less often incorporate EJ into research and planning, although there are some calls to do so (Montgomery et al. 2024). However, at heart, these are equally social and environmental issues. The conservation community can tackle environmental justice with the same enthusiasm as our social-focused counterparts by consistently incorporating people’s needs into environmental planning and increasing the weight of sociological considerations in environmental decision making. Sociological concepts can help us better visualize how to integrate people’s needs into environmental justice. The hierarchy of needs, introduced in the format most known today by Maslow (1943), focuses on explaining people’s needs. According to this construct, we first need to take care of our basic physiological needs, that is, food, water, shelter, before we can focus on safety, social, and esteem needs. Once we have addressed these “deficiency needs,” then we can begin to grow, pursuing knowledge, the arts, and self-actualization. The ultimate goal of this framework is self-transcendence, where we are in a place of self-certainty and can reach beyond ourselves to help others. If we frame conservation decision-making and actions with this hierarchy in mind, we realize a large portion of our current conservation decision-making is based on aesthetic needs, for example, preserving scenic greenspaces or iconic species because of their intrinsic value. There is a much larger focus, for instance, on conserving adorable or awe-inspiring endangered species like pandas or butterflies than on the many small insects in equal need of conservation efforts. We are much more likely to preserve beautiful sweeping mountain views than flat uninspiring shrubland. However, rather than being a one-time achievement or linear progression, addressing our needs is a never-ending cycle (Fig. 1). Those with more privilege and wealth can spend much less of that cycle addressing their deficiency needs, with wealth, food, and shelter relatively easy to achieve, leaving more free time for growth such as learning, art, or spirituality. The less privileged are forced to spend more time addressing their basic needs, leaving less time for growth. Therefore, in order to make conservation relevant and beneficial to these communities, we can increase our focus on humans’ physiological needs in conservation projects. This could look like prioritizing wetland restorations in urban areas lacking clean water despite higher costs than wetlands in outlying areas. Or, we could incorporate food resources into restoration plantings and also include foraging access and education on utilizing those food resources. A recent example of this is the 1.5-billion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2023 by the US government. This act (currently in the process of being dismantled) includes a focus on urban forestry and vulnerable communities. For these communities, the act identifies how planting trees can meet physiological needs and improve human health outcomes through improving air and water quality, and mental health by improving aesthetics. Regardless of what needs are addressed, even considering the needs of vulnerable populations when making decisions will improve conservation’s ability to address environmental injustices. While these needs are sometimes considered in conservation programs, this should be standard. We need to reverse the legacy of generations where low-income and marginalized people’s needs were largely ignored by environmentalists and city planners alike. However, this is just the first step. The hierarchy of needs as posed by Maslow was based upon the Blackfoot Nations concept (Winsor 2021). This was called the “breath of life theory” by Dr. Cindy Blackstock (2011). In this perspective, self-actualization, rather than being the pinnacle, is the first step (Blackstock 2011). Next comes community actualization (the concept that meeting basic needs is a community responsibility), followed by cultural perpetuity (passing knowledge of how to achieve community actualization forward to establish a sustainable culture). Dr. Blackstock (2011) applies these concepts to our child welfare system. However, if we apply these concepts to conservation, we can better achieve lasting conservation impacts while simultaneously improving societal justice and addressing inequalities. First, we need to understand how conservation can meet people’s basic needs and aesthetic needs. This has largely been accomplished; for example we understand how wetlands can clean water and why greenspace helps mental and physical health. The next step, community actualization, I believe is currently in its infancy. At the moment, many conservation programs are operated by governments or conservation organizations, and the voice of the community is limited in decision-making. As ecosystems are increasingly seen as a community resource, the role in conserving and utilizing these ecosystems is expanding beyond conservation organizations. We have begun the process of empowering and engaging local communities to feel connected to and responsible for stewardship rather than individual landowners. For full environmental justice, we need to expand this empowerment process so that it becomes standard for neighborhood residents to be involved in designing, planning, and planting greenspace projects. Once we have ecosystems which are restored, protected, and cared for by the community, we will better ensure conservation in perpetuity by making sustainability and conservation actions part of people’s way of life. For example, if trees are planted by the neighborhood residents, not an outside organization, then it is more likely that the residents will feel connected with the trees. When residents are part of selecting them, they can guide choosing species that will provide for their needs; for example, avoiding high pollen trees that might induce asthma, a common infliction in high air pollution areas. This process will also empower them to speak up if the trees are threatened, be it by a vandalizing bored teenager breaking branches or by a construction worker driving too close to the tree, compacting its roots. For example, I recently met a resident of a low-income community which had a low tree canopy and a history of a lack of care of those trees by the city. They planted a tree to commemorate losing their son to gun violence. When someone came to do tree trimming, they were out there advocating for their tree, to ensure that it was safely cared for, while some other trees were overly trimmed, leaving them damaged. Many holistic and interdisciplinary approaches to the human–animal–environment interface exist, such as “Planetary Health,” “One Health,” and “Eco-Health,” each of which has a slightly different focus. These types of approaches naturally integrate many of these concepts and therefore increase the intertwining of conservation and environmental justice. Interdisciplinary actions are growing with time, and conceptualizing these actions through the breath of life theory and considering vulnerable people’s needs will help us to continue to grow these movements. However, we should not leave implementing these concepts solely to global interdisciplinary movements; local grassroots actions can achieve this as well. Any conservation action, no matter how small, can incorporate consideration of people’s needs and thought for perpetuity. The adaptive management cycle is often used to provide an analytical framework for improving ecosystem restorations (Greig et al. 2013). This cyclical structure as a way of understanding complex ideas has similarities to other cultural frameworks including the Native American medicine wheel (Mashford-Pringle and Shawanda 2023), Hindu and Buddhist mandalas (Shakya 2000), the African cosmogram (Adejumo, n.d.), the Egyptian ouroboros (Assmann 2019), and Chinese yin-yang (Wang 2013) symbology, among others. Cycles are common in nature, and humans have used a cyclical concept to better understand processes throughout human history. We can integrate vulnerable people’s voices into conservation using a cyclical framework such as the adaptive management framework, making sure that community members are involved in all stages of the wheel and that part of evaluation and monitoring includes evaluating human needs in addition to ecosystem metrics (Fig. 2). Community education or other components could be designed and implemented to ensure a legacy for both humans and the ecosystem. These types of cyclical concepts can also help integrate vulnerable people’s voices into conservation. We might have a desired conservation action—planting trees, protecting wetlands, etc. The best restoration path can be defined based on current ecological knowledge and considering the needs of the constituents, including wildlife, plants, and local and vulnerable peoples. And then we can “do” our action: plant trees. We then evaluate the success of the project, both ecologically (Did the trees survive? Are wildlife utilizing the trees?) and socially (Are the community members happy about the tree planting? Do they feel engaged with the trees? Has there been vandalism?). We can continue to learn about the environment (social and ecological) and improve our methods. We can cycle through the hierarchy of needs and breath of life concepts as we grow and learn, about people’s basic needs, and then about aesthetics, moving upward to community actualization, and cultural perpetuity, only to cycle back to thinking about basic needs again. Utilizing this cyclical framework will help us continually zoom in and out, covering small details and the larger picture. If we want our projects to last in perpetuity, what else do we need to consider, such as community education, in order to ensure a lasting legacy? Just as with adaptive management, this is a never-ending cycle, which requires us to constantly reevaluate our actions—are the right voices involved in the decision-making? Are the environmental processes occurring as planned? Do we need to adapt or change our plan for a better environmental or social outcome? While we have made progress, we can do more to ensure that conservation actions better support environmental justice, continuing to cyclically rotate through the adaptive management wheel and consider perspectives. Instead of viewing cycles as being “stuck in a rut,” we could instead conceptualize each loop around a cycle as one turn on a growing spiral, each revolution we are moving upward or outward as we improve our understanding and actions. By doing so, we will also increase the diversity of contributing voices and the likelihood of long-term success of conservation. Once we consider vulnerable people’s needs and prioritize diverse voices in all levels of conservation decision-making, we will create a society which values environmental services and works to protect them—and achieving environmental goals will simultaneously achieve social goals. Sharing the burden of protecting the environment with everyone will also give conservationists relief from our seemingly never-ending work! Conversations with many people, including fellow volunteers at Food Not Bombs central Ohio, students in restoration and veterinary courses at Ohio State University, and many, many ecologists and friends at conferences and in casual conversations contributed to the development of these ideas. Specifically, Julia Kays introduced the initial idea of considering helping people from the perspective of the hierarchy of needs and the breath of life. Feedback from Juliana Medeiros was greatly appreciated. Graphic design from Gia Beggini created Fig. 1. Beck M. Swab was the only person writing the article and fully formulating the concepts. No conflicts of interest to declare. No data were collected for this study.