Globally communities are rising for people and planet in the coming months. Please join us for upcoming events and ways to take action!

Many thanks to the amazing leaders who will be joining us for the panels. Please see the Forum Agenda below, to learn more about each event and register individually. All in-person events will also be live-streamed.

Right now the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are calling for public comments in response to President Biden’s Earth Day Executive order on mature and old growth forests. This is an opportunity to help shape future policies to ensure forests remain standing for current and future generations.

Please join WECAN in submitting a comment by August 30. Submit your comment here.

Your comment can support the development of lasting protections for public forests that are vital in the fight against the climate & biodiversity crises. Your voice matters in this process, and each comment submitted represents support for President Biden protecting our remaining mature and old-growth forests.

We are celebrating the recent passage of the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, a bill to reduce forest fires and help Western communities conserve water. The legislation includes the text of the Roadless Area Conservation Act (RACA), which will codify protections for inventoried roadless areas. We have been advocating for RACA since 2018 through the WECAN Indigenous Women’s Tongass Hub, and we are thrilled that the bill will further protections for the Tongass National forest and old-growth forests throughout the United States. This provision will enhance conservation goals and access to clean water while also allowing for responsible forest management. 

At the end of July, the Kichwa People of Sarayaku held a gathering for the Kawsak Sacha (The Living Forest), called Kawsari, with the participation of more than 200 people with representatives of peoples and nationalities from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.

Kawsari served as a platform for the official launch of the Autonomous Law on the exercise of the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Original Kichwa People of Sarayaku , which will be part of the regulations that will strengthen the self-determination of the people and that will be binding and mandatory compliance in the territory of Sarayaku (province of Pastaza, in the Ecuadorian Amazon). WECAN was honored to support this ongoing effort. Please learn more about the meeting here.

Recently, the U.S. passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes important provisions for renewable energy, climate and health, but also dangerous investments in false climate solutions and fossil fuel expansion, which will harm and sacrifice frontline communities and ecosystems.

As part of the recent passage of the IRA, Senator Joe Manchin made approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline a part of his conditions to support the IRA through a dirty side deal that seeks permitting changes to fast-track fossil fuel infrastructure.

Please join us in taking action with frontline communities to stop the upcoming side deal that locks in further fossil fuel Infrastructure, worsens sacrifice zones, and seeks to strip vital environmental protections. 

Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a proposed 304-mile-long fracked gas pipeline which, if built, would span from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. 

The MVP is years behind schedule, billions of dollars over budget, and missing multiple federal authorizations. The pipeline has already brought destruction to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and communities impacted by the proposed pipeline are continuing to unite and call for solidarity and support. Together, we can stop MVP! Take action below:

This week, Indigenous women leaders held a second meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the impacts of the proposed Line 5 pipeline. WECAN is honored to organize and convene these meetings, and we are continuing to work with local coalitions to support efforts to stop the Line 5 pipeline.

The current Line 5 Pipeline, which is long past its lifespan, is pumping tar sands oil under expired permits, transporting 22 million gallons of crude oil each day through northern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and under the Straits of Mackinac. Currently, Enbridge is proposing to expand the Line 5 pipeline, despite the strong opposition of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and other Tribes. The new Line 5 pipeline expansion and re-route would threaten local aquifers and waterways, Treaty Rights, and our global climate.

The Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that they will start the process for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Line 5 pipeline in the Great Lakes Region, for only one segment of the project. The EIS is open for public comment until October 15. Please join us in submitting a comment opposing this destructive pipeline by clicking here. WECAN will be sharing further information on the comment period in the next newsletter.

At the beginning of August, thirteen civil society organizations, including WECAN, sounded the alarm about the corporate greenwashing on nature that the work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) might facilitate.

The TNFD is a voluntary initiative led by business but endorsed by various actors on the international stage. Like its sister initiative, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, TNFD will likely serve as a blueprint from which government regulators will draw information, as public concern continues to build about the nature and biodiversity crisis and the trillions of dollars in financing that drive it. Learn more in this press release.

“This is just another step in protecting the sacred waters which are the life sources of all things on Mother Earth, not just for our tribe. We have so much to learn from our waters, everything upstream impacts everything downstream, we are all connected.” Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca Nation Environmental Ambassador and WECAN Board Member.

On July 6, the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma Business Committee unanimously adopted a new statute recognizing the “immutable Rights of Rivers’’ for two rivers and other water bodies that flow through their territory.

In September local and national tribes will gather to celebrating this victory for Indigenous Rights and Rights of Nature. WECAN is honored to help co-sponsor this gathering, coordinated by WECAN Board Member Casey Camp-Horinek and our friends at Movement Rights. For more information, please see Movement Rights website here.

Please join us in welcoming WECAN's Women Speak Researchers: Britt Wilson, Ilinca Drondoe,

Dilisha Gunawardena, and Emily Miller. As Researchers they will support the ongoing efforts of the WECAN Women Speak Database, documenting the many struggles and solutions of women worldwide for climate justice. Learn more about Women Speak here.

We are also welcoming Social Media Intern Juyeon Shin, who will support WECAN's social media and communications efforts.

We send gratitude and appreciation to our outgoing WECAN social media intern, Selma Baradat, based in France. Thank you!

If you are interested in learning more about WECAN intern and volunteer opportunities, please see our website.

Please find below highlighted media coverage for WECAN campaigns, programming, and coalition efforts: