The extent of systemic oppression transcends human experience, and can cause disruption in the natural world. Poverty, gender based violence, environmental degradation, and racism all contribute to an individual's likelihood to engage in illegal natural resource consumption and suffer from prosecution for such engagement (Homewood, Nielsen, & Keane, 2020; Doubleday, 2020; Carruthers, 1993; Checker, 2008). By understanding how gender and race intersects with “dynamics of poverty, underdevelopment, dispossession, and violence resulting from processes and practices of capitalism, colonialism, and conservation to re-shape human-environment relations and related consequences for men, women and households'' can allow for a deeper understanding of the socio-ecological dimensions of the gender-race-environment nexus (Massé, Givá, & Lunstrum, 2021). This session seeks to highlight emerging scholars within the racial, gendered and environmental nexus, center the socio-ecological nexus of identity and the environment, so as to serve as a paradigm for decolonizing environmental research. The session objectives are as follows:1. To highlight current knowledge on the intersections between social inequities and various environmental challenges;2. Reinforce ecologists’ suitability for collaboration and action to tackle these multi-sectoral issues;3. Stimulate discussion among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers about the value and challenges of associating racial and gender disparities with environmental problems.4. Invoke sense of responsibility amongst individuals who are not in academia or policy and enforce necessity to integrate intersectionality in environmentalism 5. Create a platform to encourage equal relations and cooperation among researchers and communities they are conducting research with.