Many countries make rules to protect the environment. These rules can be laws, guidelines, or regulations. Ideally, these rules affect all groups in society in the same way. When this is not the case, and one group or community is affected more than the others, this is known as environmental racism. As is common with racism, the groups are defined based on race, or skin color; sometimes on income. Very often, all the people decide on these rules. When some groups are excluded from the decision-making process, this is also known as environmental racism. 