Majora Carter is a force of nature.  The environmental justice advocate and founder and former Executive Director of the non-profit group Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX), has taken her mission to transform environmentally challenged communities into thriving ones global, with the creation of the Majora Carter Group (MCG) Consulting Firm.  Now the MacArthur ''genius'' who is credited with revitalizing her native South Bronx by turning a former illegal dumping ground into The Hunts Point Riverside Park, and with developing one of the nation's first urban green jobs training programs (BEST), is working on revitalizing Detroit through urban farming and a national brand of locally grown urban produce.

Greenopia talked with the green trailblazer about her work to create livable urban communities.

Greenopia:  You began your work as an environmental justice advocate by developing the Hunts Point Riverside Park.  What was your motivation for spearheading this project?

Majora:  Many people talk about environmental policy and statistics.  But when folks are dealing with personal unemployment, poverty, and lack of opportunity, it's important to make visible projects that demonstrate the benefits of a healthy built-environment.  Creating a safe space like that park and the 11-mile South Bronx Greenway that it's attached to, employed neighbors while it connected them to the outdoors and each other.  It seemed like the best way to get more people on board in the quest for environmental equality for everyone.  The park is so beautiful that my husband and I got married with 300 friends and relatives on the first day it opened after a $3M renovation!

Greenopia:  You came up with the slogan “Green the Ghetto”.  What does “being green” mean to you?

Majora:  It means being positive towards yourself and everyone around you, and even towards people you'll never see. Dirty energy powers almost everything we do, buy, and eat.  In almost all cases, the toll those practices take on the environment is paid by low income people.  They are the ones living nearby the fossil fuel burning power plants, the diesel truck dependent trans-shipping centers, the waste handling, the sewerage treatment facilities, refineries, the mega-hog and mega-chicken operations, downstream from big agri-business pesticide use and mountain-top-removal coal mining.  We pay enormous public health costs associated with degraded environmental quality.  Those areas are also the point sources for green house gas emissions.  When we green those areas - when we green the ghettos - irrespective of race, we help people locally and globally, simultaneously.

Greenopia:  You’re working on the American City Farms Project in Detroit, and planning to start a locally grown brand of food.   Why is food justice such an important part of environmental justice?

Majora:  Well first of all, I agree that food justice is an intrinsic part of environmental justice; however, there are people who are doing brilliant work in that area already.  MCG's American City Farms is centered on building a corporate structure that allows for owner/operators of urban micro-farms to maximize their competitive advantages in the areas of food quality, less transport, and on-the-vine inventory tracking to reduce refrigeration and damage losses.  Within that small business model, we also want to devise a national financing system to get new farmers on the ground and running as smoothly as possible.  Most American cities are about 20% vacant lot these days.  Much of that area can put to immediate productive uses like this, and re-converted easily if the local economy makes it less practical in the future.  We want to help create more and more responsible small business owners, and collect their power to negotiate with bigger customers and investors.

The more jobs in healthy food production that we can create, the more likely those people and their friends & families will seek out healthier food choices for themselves, attracting better grocery stores and restaurants, and eating away at food-justice disparities as it grows.

Greenopia:  You’ve gone global with your goal to transform environmentally challenged areas into thriving communities through the creation of the Majora Carter Group Consulting Firm.  In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, what types of environmental programs or infrastructure would you like to see implemented in Haiti?

Majora:  I am glad you ask!  I have been thinking about this a lot since B.E.T. asked me to come to DC on Thursday, March 11 to speak at their Leading Women Defined Summit about this and other topics.

Of course the earthquake was such a tragic loss, but so were the near constant fires in the South Bronx of my childhood.  It took us decades to climb out of that, and we are still not done.  I hope that in Haiti, we will learn from past disasters of impoverished communities everywhere, so that we can rebuild better and faster.  I want to see Landscape Design take a leading role in how infrastructure is created.  Re-forestation, food production, public space and building codes all have a new chance to be much better than they were.  I hope people there will benefit from new projects and policies that put people's quality of life first.  I would be very proud to play any useful role in helping that happen.

Greenopia:  Do you celebrate Earth Day?  What are your plans for Earth Day 2010?

Majora:  On April 22, not really.  It's sort of a 365 thing for me, but I am always happy to contribute the voice of environmental equality during that time of year when people come together to help make things better.  I will be speaking at a TIME Magazine event at Bentley Univ. in Boston that day.  I think I'm the warm up act for Dr. Mehmet Oz - which is pretty cool!  I hear he's really nice, so I hope to meet him.

>> Check out Greenopia's Eat's it Up Section for healthy recipe ideas and restaurant reviews!