Indigenous peoples and people of color are disproportionately affected by our global climate crisis. But in the mainstream green movement and in the media, they are often forgotten or excluded. This is Tipping Point, a new VICE series that covers environmental justice stories about and, where possible, written by people in the communities experiencing the stark reality of our changing planet.

When Harold Terrance found a small plot of land for sale in New Roads, Louisiana, just a couple of miles from the west bank of the Mississippi River, it seemed too good to be true. It was 1969, and he was 19 years old, living on what he calls the “sharecropping side” of the False River. But by the time Terrance graduated high school, the days of tenant farming had come to an end and he was looking for land of his own.