For this Mother’s Day month, please join us in honoring, celebrating and standing in solidarity with matriarchs around the world rising for our communities and the sacred Mother Earth! From the Congo rainforest to the Great Lakes region of North America to the Amazon in South America, matriarchs are taking action together to protect forests, water, and land while advancing just climate solutions. 

We also honor our collective home, Mother Earth, this beautiful planet that provides us all with deep love, nourishment, and care. We are Nature, and we are committed to working together diligently across movements and continents to build a just, thriving and liberated world. This includes advancing policies, advocacy, projects and solutions to stop the expansion of fossil fuels, deforestation and extraction, ending the violence towards Mother Earth, frontline communities, and our global climate. 

Please continue on in this newsletter, to learn more about our recent campaigns, events, and actions to support frontline movements and organizing!

On May 15, Indigenous leaders and international climate justice groups delivered a letter signed by nearly 300 organizations and over 6,000 individuals to date, to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Canadian Parliament Members calling for Canada to withdraw its invocation of the 1977 pipeline treaty and shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline.  

Read our joint press release and letter from the Cross Boundary Working Group here: https://bit.ly/3Mur5Kn

Leaders met with Member of Parliament Mike Morrice to deliver the letter, and spoke out about the dangers of Line 5 to communities, water and the climate.

Line 5 pipeline was originally built in 1953, and continues to operate 20 years past its engineered lifespan, transporting crude oil each day through the heart of the Great Lakes, which are a drinking source to over 40 million people and hold 84 percent of North America’s surface freshwater. Canada has formally invoked the 1977 Pipeline Treaty twice to keep the 70 year old Line 5 operating. Please join us in calling for the Canadian government to stop impeding the efforts to uphold the inherent rights of the Indigenous Nations of the Great Lakes while honoring all of the treaties with Indigenous Nations north and south of the border!

WECAN has been very honored to facilitate the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance, a group of Indigenous women leaders from the Great Lakes region and to be part of the Cross Boundary Working Group of the Line 5 Coalition, to resist the advancement of the Line 5 pipeline. Please learn more and stay connected here: https://www.wecaninternational.org/stop-line-5

Efforts to shutdown Line 5 continue to multiply. Due to recent flooding and erosion, The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is currently seeking an emergency shutdown and purge of Line 5, filing a claim in federal court, to be heard this week.

Rapid erosion of a riverbank over the past month has left the Line 5 pipeline just a few yards from being exposed to the powerful river current. This could imminently result in an oil leak into the Bad River, which flows into Lake Superior, and the Great Lakes which account for one-fifth of the world's freshwater. The Band has long relied on fishing, wild rice, medicines, and other plants and animals from the Bad River and Lake Superior. A rupture and oil spill would pose a catastrophic threat to their community, the wider public, the river, and Lake Superior. Please stay tuned as the verdict on this emergency shutdown will be decided this week or next, and could impact the overall progress of the Line 5 expansion.

Join us for a national week of action June 8th - 11th 2023 to demand Biden use his executive powers to end the era of fossil fuels and declare a climate emergency! Starting this June, we’re mobilizing to turn up the heat and make Biden take real climate action – by ending the era of fossil fuels.

Find an action here: https://tinyurl.com/actionmap-EndtheEra

Biden promised to be a climate president – yet under his watch, the U.S. continues to be the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world. His administration has approved new oil and gas projects, like the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska and multiple oil and gas export terminals in the Gulf. Frontline communities and global scientists have been abundantly clear – we cannot avoid the very worst impacts of the climate crisis if we allow for any more fossil development.

More info: https://tinyurl.com/actiontoolkit-endFF

LETTER AND REPORT ON PURSUING A JUST AND RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM

"We believe that there is a better path forward — one that ends the status quo dominance of the fossil fuel industry, empowers federal agencies to use their authorities to accelerate the transition to a just, resilient, and equitable power system, champions the principles of environmental justice and preserves our core environmental laws." 

On May 10, WECAN joined 290+ groups to send a letter to the Biden Administration & Congressional Democratic leaders sharing a menu of positive actions that Congress can take for our communities and planet. Read the full letter here: http://tinyurl.com/DirtyDealsLetter

In addition to the letter WECAN was honored to join our partners in sharing a new policy brief detailing how the US Administration and Congress should advance a distributed, renewable, and equitable energy future. The document is from Center for Biological Diversity, Indigenous Environmental Network, Climate Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch, WECAN, The Center for Popular Democracy, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, NYLPI, Greenpeace, Climate + Community Project, and Friends of the Earth.

Read the report here: https://bit.ly/41riv3b 

From the report it is clear that there is a path forward that embeds justice into our renewable energy future, instead of entrenching the unjust and extractive practices of our current energy system.

TONGA JOINS THE CALLS FOR THE FOSSIL FUEL TREATY!

In May, Tonga has joined Tuvalu and Vanuatu in supporting the development of a global alliance of nation states who would seek a negotiating mandate for an international agreement for the managed phaseout of coal, oil and gas.

Read more about their powerful statement: fossilfueltreaty.org/tonga

As the third most at-risk country for climate impacts, limiting warming to 1.5ºC is critical to Tonga’s future. Cyclones, floods and sea level rise are their lived reality, and its effects will only be exacerbated with more fossil fuel expansion. We must look towards Pacific leadership to steer the path towards a global just transition before it is too late.

We hope to see more nation states join this growing bloc of governments in taking forward the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty proposal over the coming months, including pushing for a formal negotiating mandate. WECAN is honored to serve on the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Steering Committee, learn more about the Treaty's work here.

LAST CHANCE ALLIANCE TAKES ACTION TO RESIST BIG OIL IN CALIFORNIA

On May 13th, WECAN Executive Director Osprey Orielle Lake joined the Last Chance Alliance for a tour highlighting resistance to Big Oil in California. Since 2018 WECAN has been part of the Last Chance Coalition, which represents 900+ community, environmental, and public health organizations worldwide.

In California, Big Oil is polluting the air and water, poisoning communities, and setting us on a path toward climate destruction. Oil and gas companies just spent over $20 million to put a lifesaving environmental justice law on hold. Meanwhile, communities along the refinery corridor in the Bay Area bear the daily health impacts of our fossil fuel economy. Oil refineries and neighborhood drilling sites are running up hospital bills for community members and threatening climate progress. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, thus it is vital for the state to demonstrate and lead as an example of a Just Transition. 

From the frontlines of the climate and biodiversity crises to the halls of international forums, Indigenous women leaders are advancing Indigenous and human rights, protecting global biodiversity, and defending our global climate!

In April, the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network travelled to New York City to advocate at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) Twenty-second Session. As part of our advocacy efforts WECAN released a set of recommendations to the UNPFII and calls to action for governments, financial institutions, and corporations regarding respecting Indigenous rights and self-determination.

During the UNPFII, we called on governments, financial institutions, and corporations to:

• Uphold all treaties with Indigenous Peoples and immediately halt the violation of treaty rights. Defend Indigenous Peoples’ rights to inhabit traditional lands undisturbed by industrial projects and extractive industries.
• Respect and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent in all cases.
• Prioritize Indigenous Peoples’ decision-making power at the national and international levels.
• Learn from and follow Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
• Invest in Indigenous People’s global leadership to protect and promote healthy relationships with life-sustaining ecosystems.

As part of our advocacy efforts at the UNPFII we participated in critical dialogues, met with partners, and hosted events highlighting the strategies and solutions of Indigenous women leaders. Learn more about our advocacy efforts and find event recordings here. 

Also, following discussions with Tribal and First Nation Leaders, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released a recommendation for Canada and the United States to decommission Enbridge's Line 5 oil pipeline. Learn more about this news here.

During the UNPFII, WECAN highlighted efforts to shutdown Line 5 in our events and organized a banner action to call for the end of the Line 5 pipeline project.

Our partners also held an important webinar featuring Indigenous Water Defenders on Line 5 speaking to how the pipeline is threatening the Great Lakes region, please watch the webinar here.

Please join us in raising your voice and join hundreds of thousands across the United States calling for permanent protections for mature and old-growth forests on federal public lands.

On Earth Day 2022 President Biden issued an Executive Order calling on the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to conserve mature and old growth forests as a climate solution. This was a momentous step towards meaningful protections, but now it’s up to us to ensure that this first step turns into real and lasting changes in how federal agencies manage older forests. In response to the President’s Executive Order, both USDA and DOI have taken strides towards permanent protections of federal mature and old-growth forests, and now it’s up to us to ensure the trees most critical in the fight against climate change receive the lasting protections they deserve. Both the USDA and DOI have opened public comment periods through June 20th, 2023, please join us in submitting a comment today!

Please join WECAN in celebrating and welcoming Sophia Lovato and Allison Fabrizio to the WECAN Team who will support our work to accelerate the global women's climate justice movement. Learn more about Sophia and Allison below!

SOPHIA LOVATO

Food Sovereignty Program Associate

Sophia Lovato (she/her) was born and raised in Colorado and is a proud citizen of the Osage Nation. She has dedicated her education to study human-environmental connections through Ethnobotany, Psychology, and Global Environmental Sustainability in the belief that nourishing these connections will cultivate a sustainable future. As part of Sophia’s own healing and reconnecting journey, she has grown passionate in the fight for food security and food sovereignty, as food is medicine and a cornerstone of cultural identity. As WECAN’s Food Sovereignty Program Associate, Sophia is coordinating, researching, and supporting projects centering women’s leadership in all of their diversity in food sovereignty and security. She brings with her Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge to advance sustainable agriculture and foster our relationship to the land.  

ALLISON FABRIZIO

Research Associate

Allison Fabrizio is a Grenadian-Italian researcher, teacher, dancer, and climate justice advocate from New Jersey. Growing up, she was taught the necessity to connect with diverse groups of people and to use our collective actions to create a better future. She studied Environmental Analysis at Washington University in St. Louis. She has centered marginalized communities in her work and strives to shed light on voices that are too often neglected in the climate movement. As Research Associate for the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, she is providing critical analysis for WECAN programs and campaigns and supporting the leadership of frontline women.