Dear Community,
As climate-fueled forest fires, floods, and heat waves decimate communities and ecosystems the world over, the newly released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), confirms what we already knewconditions will only get worse.

This week, the IPCC issued a special report that evaluates the scientific knowledge on climate change. The report verifies what many of us have been saying for decades, that climate change is unequivocally the result of human action and that it is accelerating far more rapidly and unpredictably than previously thought. Please read WECAN's full response to the report on our blog.

As we sit with the harrowing details of the report, we also know there is a path forward for securing our collective future— however we must act rapidly.

We know solutions exist to combat the climate crisis because frontline communities have been demonstrating them for years, but we must also address root causes to the crisis and dismantle barriers to community-led solutions.

In the era of Climate Emergency, we stand unwavering in our honesty and in our fierce dedication to call for justice and action to halt the trajectory toward irreparable climate chaos. As the world prepares for the most important UN Climate talks since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, we are not waiting for governments - we are taking action now!

Please continue forward in this newsletter for more opportunities to take action today and in the coming months.

We also invite you to support WECAN's work as we continue to uplift the leadership and solutions of women worldwide fighting for climate justice and the defense of the planet for current and future generations.
Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice
September 25 - 30, 2021
In the context of diverse peoples' movements continuing to organize and rise-up in advance of the UN Climate Talks in Glasgow at the end of 2021, and other international gatherings over the next critical years, the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is organizing the ‘Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature’, a free, gender-diverse, public forum to take place virtually September 25-30, 2021, in parallel to the UN General Assembly.

Please share the invitation to the Assembly far and wide to your networks, we want as many people as possible to join us!

This event will be live-streamed globally in four languages. Esto se transmitirá en vivo a nivel mundial en cuatro idiomas. Ce sera diffusé en direct dans le monde entier en quatre langues. Isso será transmitido ao vivo globalmente em quatro idiomas.

Register at the link below! ¡Regístrese en el enlace de abajo!
Inscrivez-vous sur le lien ci-dessous! Cadastre-se no link abaixo!
During the Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, grassroots, Indigenous, Black, Brown, and frontline women leaders, global advocates, and policy-makers will join together in solidarity to speak out against environmental and social injustice, draw attention to root causes of multiple interlocking crises, and present the diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks and strategies with which they are working to shape a healthy and equitable world. The Assembly is an inclusive space across identities and the gender spectrum.

The climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and socio-ecological injustices have emerged from interconnected systems of capitalism, racism, the commodification of nature, colonialism, imperialism, and patriarchy. To confront these deepening crises and accelerate a path forward, we need to have collective coherence to address the protection and defense of human rights and nature, and uphold community-led solutions.

Within this struggle, women and feminists must stand at the forefront of policy-making and action. Due to unequal gender norms globally, women are simultaneously the most adversely impacted by climate change and socio-ecological degradation, and yet are indispensable actors and leaders of just and effective solutions. Assembly topics will include the intersectionality of gender, racial and environmental justice; Indigenous rights and resistance efforts; the just transition to renewable, regenerative energy; feminist global policy; women and forest protection and regeneration; fossil fuel resistance campaigns; agro-ecology/farming/soils; environmental racism; feminist care economics and policy agendas; rights of nature; challenging corporate power; and women and feminist leadership across all sectors.

The Assembly will call for urgent action within a climate justice framework and produce an online collection of actions, policy frameworks, and solutions presented at the Assembly to be delivered to global governments, financial institutions and media outlets.

We are deeply honored to be joined by a growing group of amazing panelists including: Former Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, Indigenous leaders Sonia Guajajara from the Brazilian Amazon and Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation, Ruth Nyambura feminist leader from Kenya, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, Climate Leader Naomi Klein, and many other leaders. You can learn more about the amazing group of speakers here. 
WECAN Invites Legal Researchers to Participate in Our Escazú Agreement Campaign
WECAN is excited to announce that we have invited the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Environment Program, to participate in our ongoing Escazú Agreement campaign.

The Escazú Agreement is a groundbreaking multi-lateral accord that can help protect women land defenders under attack for defending their lands, and preserve biodiverse ecosystems across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Along with other organizations, WECAN has been advocating for the Escazú Agreement since 2016 and we are very pleased that it was ratified in 2020, and is now going under a process of implementation. Please learn more about our Escazú Agreement campaign here.

The Vance Center is collaborating with WECAN in a research project to evaluate how the Escazú Agreement can be best implemented in specific countries where Indigenous and local land defenders in the LAC region are most at risk in defense of highly important biodiverse areas and forests in their territories. The Vance Center, with the assistance of five partner law firms, is researching the domestic legal frameworks in Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru to determine the extent to which existing laws comply with the treaty and are being enforced. WECAN plans to use the country reports to support our advocacy and on-the-ground projects to implement the Escazú Agreement, trainings and workshops, and further efforts for the protection of women land defenders. WECAN has a specific campaign for women forest defenders of the Amazon rainforest.
WATCH & SHARE
Growing Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Okla Hina Ikhish Holo Network in Bvlbancha & the Gulf South
At the end of the Mississippi River, in the place the Chahta (Choctaw) call Bvlbancha, the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, People of the Sacred Medicine Trail, a network of femme and nonbinary Indigenous gardeners, is working urgently to respond to the climate crisis. Please watch our most recent video detailing this work of resilience and regeneration below!
As climate catastrophes worsen, and extreme droughts and flooding become the new normal, it is imperative that Indigenous communities lead as we develop renewed systems for climate justice and food sovereignty. Globally, 80% of biodiversity existing within Indigenous territories, and several studies confirm that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of their homelands, with Indigenous women and femmes providing the backbone of their communities and holding vast knowledge and skill gleaned through their traditional role as healers, culture shapers, and caretakers of water and land.

Okla Hina Ikhish Holo is re-establishing old trade routes and networks while adapting and co-designing new future paths for tradeways that strengthen decentralized systems of support, build circular economies, and support local biodiversity, food sovereignty, and stewardship of their traditional territories.
In the Mississippi River Delta, lndigenous territories are disappearing at one of the fastest rates on earth, due to a legacy of extractive practices and a changing climate. Developing and supporting local Indigenous food networks is crucial for ensuring the continuation of sacred and long-standing cultural practices connected to food, medicine, and the land.

Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, in collaboration with the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), is working to defend and protect and to restore their lands and waters in the Mississippi River Delta and within the ancestral territories of the Chata and Mvskoke. Network members include: Ida Aronson (United Houma Nation), Dr. Tammy Greer (United Houma Nation), Angela Comeaux (Mvskoke / Cherokee / Chahta), Sasha Irby (Osage / Lakota / Mvskoke), Jenna Mae (Eastern Siouan / Mvskoke / Cherokee), Kellyn LaCour-Conant (Clifton Choctaw/Cane River Creole), Virginia Dove Richard (MOWA Band of Choctaw) and Monique Verdin (United Houma Nation). Learn more here!

Many thanks to:
The amazing gardeners of the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo Network
Monique Verdin (United Houma Nation), Project Leader and Co-Coordinator of WECAN Food Sovereignty Program; Director of the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange
Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of WECAN, Co-Coordinator of WECAN Food Sovereignty Program
Filmmaker Teena Pugliese
TAKE ACTION:
Stop Line 3 Resistance Efforts Continue to Grow!
With smoky haze lingering in the air, Indigenous Water Protectors and allies take action to stop an Enbridge water pump, taking water from the drought stricken headwaters of the Mississippi River to Line 3 pipeline construction areas. Photo by Cheryl Barnds/WECAN International.
Direct actions continue along the frontlines of the Line 3 pipeline in northern Minnesota. Line 3 is currently being constructed in Minnesota on Indigenous lands without consent from local tribes. It is set to run from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the shores of Lake Superior, crossing more than 200 bodies of water and 800 wetlands. If built, the tar sands pipeline will release 193 million tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every single year. Additionally, Enbridge has received permits to use 5 billion gallons of water from local water sources for construction.

As fires burn and droughts worsen worldwide, local waterways are increasingly important for ensuring clean drinking water, healthy ecosystems, and food security. The newly released IPCC report confirms once again that fossil fuels are a main contributor to the rise in greenhouse gas emissions and recommends that the only way forward is if we have a global rapid decline off of fossil fuels. Building more fossil fuel pipelines, like Line 3, will only further perpetuate the climate crisis while harming communities, ecosystems, and our global climate.

Water Protectors are taking action every day to stop this pipeline, despite escalating police brutality. Water Protectors have been tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets and detained without medical support, please see the Giniw Collective Facebook page for more updates. Support the bail fund here: http://stopline3bailfunds.org

Enbridge, the company behind Line 3, has given Minnesota law enforcement $2 million to fund the policing of protests against construction of its pipeline. Now more than ever, we must stand with frontline Water Protectors who are literally risking their lives to end the era of fossil fuels. In solidarity with Indigenous leaders, WECAN will continue to advocate with the Biden Administration and in other arenas to stop Line 3.

Please take action below and support this Indigenous-led resistance effort!
We Protect The Water - Take Action to Stop Line 3
In solidarity with frontline organizers, join us in calling on President Biden and the Army Corps of Engineers to honor the tribal treaties, take bold climate action, and immediately intervene to Stop Line 3.

Since 2014, thousands of people have shown up at hearings, talked to neighbors, written letters, and organized in their communities to oppose Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. Line 3 is a clear danger to our climate, water, and land, and would undermine the Indigenous treaty rights of the Anishinaabe people. Enbridge’s route crosses the 1854 and 1855 treaty territory where Anishinaabe people retain the right to hunt, fish, gather medicines, and harvest wild rice. The impact of construction - or worse, an oil spill - would permanently damage their ability to exercise these rights.

The proposed route for Line 3 crosses 227 lakes and rivers, including the Mississippi River and rivers that feed directly into Lake Superior, putting those waterways at risk of a spill from the 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil that would flow through Line 3 every day.
A recent ad in the New York Times highlighting Stop Line 3 leaders. Photo Credit: Ne-Dah-Ness Greene.
Construction of Line 3 cannot continue. Click the button below to write to Jamie Pinkham of the Army Corps of Engineers to call for a full federal environmental impact statement to assess threats to treaty rights, water protection, and climate.
Actions continue to take place on the frontlines to stop Line 3. Please follow, donate, and support frontline water protectors at the links below:
SIGN THE PETITION to Wall Street & President Biden: Defund Climate Chaos
On November 1st, the most important international climate talks since Paris will begin in Glasgow, Scotland. National leaders from around the world will gather and make new climate commitments; many corporations will release their latest climate plans.

That is why WECAN is taking action with other allies at the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition to launch Deadline Glasgow: Defund Climate Chaos.
The Glasgow Climate Talks at COP26 are a historic opportunity for the world to act on climate. When the Paris Agreement was signed five years ago, every nation on earth agreed to meet five years later and “ratchet up” their climate ambition. We’re now at that moment ― and it is vital that we hold the world’s leaders to their promises.

Between now and the start of COP26, we’re going to build a massive people-powered campaign that forces the funders of climate chaos, and the Biden Administration to act. In the past twelve months, many financial institutions ― from banks to insurance companies; asset managers to pension funds ― have made new climate commitments, such as “net-zero” emissions by 2050. Yet, at the same time they are providing loans, insurance and billions in investment capital, to corporations expanding the fossil fuel industry and deforesting the Amazon and other tropical forests ― companies that are guilty of human rights abuses and violations of Indigenous sovereignty.

Major new fossil fuel projects, such as Line 3, the TransMountain pipeline, the Formosa plastics plant, and major deforestation projects, could not get off the ground without the support of the financial sector and the US government.

So we’re calling on all financial institutions & the US government to end their support for companies engaged in climate destruction and human rights abuses by the start of the Glasgow Climate Talks.

Sign the petition and join the campaign: In order to take climate change seriously, we cannot continue to accept empty promises. Stop funding climate change NOW!
Media Highlights
Please be welcome to read and share some recent pieces featuring the voices and campaign efforts of WECAN below:

"Get involved. This is no time to be on the sidelines...It’s time for everyone to find our passion and courage, find an entry point, and jump in. "

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director spoke with Outdoor Alliance to discuss the importance of Indigenous rights, intersectional and feminist analysis, and systemic change for climate just solutions. Please read the full interview at the link above.

“The Tongass Forest is my home. Home to the ancient Tlingit and Haida Indigenous Peoples,” said Kashudoha Wanda Loescher Culp, a Tlingit activist and WECAN Tongass coordinator. “The air we breathe, the water we depend on, the land we live upon, all pristine. It is a life to cherish. It is a way of living worth fighting for.”


In July, the Biden Administration’s USDA announced it will restore full Roadless Rule protections, and end large-scale old growth timber sales across the entire 16 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The announcement comes after many years of advocacy by tribal leadership, and local and national groups, including WECAN. Learn more about the announcement and our ongoing program to protect the Tongass here.

"The administration must do everything in its power to ensure the drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by public and private actors in ways that promote climate, racial, and economic justice."

This week, 84 Stop the Money Pipeline organizations and allies, including WECAN, send a letter to President Biden with outlining expectations for the Administration climate finance strategy. Priority expectations include Respecting Indigenous Rights, No public money to fossil fuels and deforestation, and investment in BIPOC communities. Please read the full letter here.
Join the Team:
WECAN is seeking a Social Media Intern!
Are you interested in helping amplify women’s voices and contribute to WECAN’s social media and online presence? Apply to join our team as the WECAN Social Media Intern today!

The Social Media Intern will work as a volunteer, with WECAN International's Communications Coordinator to contribute to storytelling and advocacy.

In this position, the Social Media Intern will have the opportunity to strengthen their skills in online organizing, communications strategy, and creative storytelling, while connecting with a diverse international network of powerful climate women.

This is a 5-7 hour per week, remote internship with a 4-6 month commitment. Learn how to apply and read the full position description here!

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY! Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
For the Earth and All Generations,

Women's Earth and Climate Action Network
(WECAN) International Team
S T A Y C O N N E C T E D