An interview with: Jimmy Flatt, Hunters of Color

Hunters of Color is a nationwide hunting nonprofit working on increasing Black, Indigenous and People of Color participation in hunting for the sake of conservation, food sovereignty and to preserve ancestral traditions. Below, we spoke with Jimmy Flatt, a co-founder of Hunters of Color looking to make hunting and conservation accessible to more people — to make "The Outdoors for Everyone" as their website notes. (Editor's note: This interview has been lightly edited for length.)

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Land Trust Alliance, its staff, its board of directors or any other individuals associated with the organization.

Land Trust Alliance: To start, tell us a little about yourself and growing up.

Jimmy Flatt: Baseball was a huge part of my life. I guess a good image, a good illustration of my priorities as a kid growing up in the Bay Area was, I'd have a baseball bag on me, and out of one of the bat loops was a bat and out of another was a fishing rod. And so, I would ride my bike around town, and I would stop by the creek to catch a fish and if there was a pond, I’d stop at the pond, (laughing) at least until someone would yell at me to stop fishing in their pond.

Where I grew up, Sonoma Valley, was a suburb on the outskirts of the Bay Area, and at the time there were only about 10,000 people in the town. So, it was small, I could get around on a bike because it was only three or four miles from corner to corner. And because of the smaller population, there was more access to land. People and private landowners were easier to find, and easier to ask to go onto their property.

It was also extremely diverse, so growing up, I didn’t perceive any racial differences until I moved away from my hometown. When I moved away to pursue a career, I had time to find other hobbies but I had also moved to a place that was much less diverse. Hunting was one thing that filled the hole where baseball had been for me as a kid, but there weren’t many people in the hunting world who looked like me. I was trying to find community and people who were like-minded and welcoming, but it was difficult. That’s what pushed me into the work I’m doing now with Hunters of Color, because I was in need of community and I couldn’t find it.

Land Trust Alliance: Tell us about your own personal connection to the land. What are some of your favorite ways to spend time outdoors?

Flatt: My favorite ways to spend time outdoors are, honestly, just anything outdoors. It could be hunting or fishing, but those are also more so to put food on the table. And when the freezer is full, I love just hiking and bird watching, mushroom hunting and foraging and just being outside. The other day, I brought my fishing rod to a creek and I cast it once and then decided, I'm just going to sit here and watch the water. And that was a good enough experience for me.

Land Trust Alliance: How has or how does your culture contribute to that connection?

Flatt: I grew up in a multicultural household. My mom's family is from Venezuela, and she moved to the United States when she was 18. My dad's family is from the Philippines. My dad is ex-military, and his father was a big outdoorsman. My dad gravitated more toward sports than hunting and fishing, although he did teach me how to fish. He laid the foundational skills for me, as ex-military and coming from that background, he wanted me and my sister to be safe around guns and be able to defend ourselves and also put food on the table when we needed to.

He and my mom, when they saw how much drive I had to be in the outdoors, they said ‘Let's channel that, let's get him out on a hunt and see if he likes it.’ So, at eight years old, there I was in a hunting blind, experiencing hunting for the first time. And my dad shot a couple of ducks. It was his first time hunting since he was like 12 years old. We had our dog there too, and he had no prior hunting training or anything, but he immediately knew what to do. And seeing this whole interaction, I was like, yeah, this is something I want to do.

So, we took the ducks home, and my dad prepared this amazing wild game dish. And to me, this is the best meat I've ever had. And I could see the whole path, the circle of life happening at that point. This animal was living free, but now it's dead and feeding me and my family.

And then my mom, her family is from Venezuela and a big ranching family, conservation was taught from generation to generation. She asked me something like, ‘So now that you've taken, how are you going to give back?’ And so, my mom was the one who really introduced to me the idea that you can't just be extractive. You have to give back to the land.

Land Trust Alliance: How did those personal familial connections grow into Hunters of Color?

Flatt: It started with that simple statement, ‘you have to give back to the land.’ My parents weren't engaged in any nonprofits at that point, but we eventually got involved with a local land trust and we did some cleanup days. One of our very close family friends had a conservation easement on their property and part of the land management plan was to reduce the turkey population because as the number of turkeys had increased, they were harming the local habitat. They invited me and my dad to come and help them manage the turkey population. And so, for me, conservation became intertwined with the concept of being outdoors and being a hunter.

And then, as I mentioned earlier, the idea of land being a place where you’re able to find community and connect with people that have similar interests to you. And moving to a much less diverse community and there not many people there, hunters, who looked like me. As an engineering-minded person who sees a problem and wants to solve it, I saw a problem, and I wanted to solve it. And I created what I thought to be the best solution, which was a nonprofit organization in partnership with a couple of my closest friends to provide an avenue for others to get into the thing that I have loved and that shaped my life.

Land Trust Alliance: When you first reach the website for Hunters of Color, you’re greeted by a big banner image and the message “the outdoors are for everyone.” What are some of the challenges or barriers that individuals of color face when seeking access to the outdoors or certain activities outdoors?

Flatt: That statement, you know, it's such a simple statement, and you'd think that there'd be no pushback against it, but there is. You know, we get pushback from the existing outdoor and hunting community about our mission, and we also get pushback from our own communities.

And so, one of the things that I can attest to from my experience is that there is this perceived notion that the outdoors is dangerous or that outdoor recreation is only for white people. When I was younger, I heard everything under the sun when I was trying to get my other friends of color to go and like, shoot a shotgun for the first time at the trap club in Sonoma, or go fishing with me and my dad, there was always this trepidation. There's a long and established history of, you know, systemic exclusion from the outdoor spaces that has contributed to this perceived notion.

Luckily, we live today in a world where policies have been struck down that once kept communities of color from accessing certain activities outdoors, but there is still that perceived notion and a lack of knowledge bearers and knowledge keepers within our communities who are those individuals that will say, no, no, no, no, this isn't a white person thing to do. This is a human thing. So, let's go do it, let's go fishing for the first time. Let me show you that this is something that you can do. Let me show you how to tie a knot for the first time on a fishing line. Let me show you how to bait a hook.

That's why, for our organization, the main focus is to provide education so that Latino and BIPOC communities realize that the outdoors is for everybody. And, specifically on the hunting side, one of the larger barriers we face is access to land. So that also contributes to the lack of demographic representation in hunting, but land trusts, I think land trusts are one of the greatest tools to combating the access problem. We have a very, very good relationship with The Nature Conservancy. We have worked with other small land trusts in the past as well, regional land trusts and others. And we one day hopefully will become a land trust of our own.

Land Trust Alliance: How can land conservation and the conservation community better tailor programming to meet the needs of Latino communities?

Flatt: I'll throw out a baseball analogy — the ‘if you build it, they will come’ kind of mentality. If you build an environment that is suited and welcoming to the BIPOC community, they will naturally come.

I think holistic cultural easements, too, need to be considered. Hunting has been culturally significant forever. And I know that not everybody can be hunters and for most, it's not the primary way you put food on the table. But creating hunting access is huge to truly connect to that portion of our culture. All my family members on my Venezuelan side are hunters. And then the second they got to the United States, they stopped for reasons similar to why I stopped hunting for a while — the familiarity with the hunting regulations and the hunting landscape completely changed. You have to relearn and reestablish that connection, especially if you don't have deep-rooted ties to the land.

Having a land trust provide opportunities for hunting or other culturally significant ceremonies is important. My family, for example, would talk about hunt camps, where the whole family would get together and the kids and the moms would stay in camp and the dads would go out and come back with birds or deer. The whole weekend was centered around community and feeding the family and just being together. But that's something I didn't grow up experiencing, only hearing stories about. And so, that's what I want to see, the land trust community start thinking, okay, what is our role in providing access? What is our role in creating these opportunities for these ceremonies, these activities, to take place?

Land Trust Alliance: How can people support the work that Hunters of Color is doing?

Flatt: Donate, that's one thing. And then, if you hear somebody internally or externally to your community say that no, these people don't do that or we don't do that, push against it. Because I think that is probably one of the most hurtful things to our mission, the continued and perceived notion that it isn't accessible to certain people. And if you're a land trust or another conservation organization, reach out, partner with us, and let's figure out how to get more folks involved in conservation.