Dear Community,

As Women's History Month continues, we want to share several upcoming events and report backs on women leaders taking action to protect water, ecosystems, communities, and our global climate!

WECAN will be on the ground at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York this coming month, April 15-20.

Indigenous women leaders globally fighting for healthy and thriving ecosystems and communities are a solution to interlocking crises! Please join us for our upcoming events:

UNPFII In-Person Event: Indigenous Women Upholding Indigenous Rights and Leading Climate Solutions

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

5:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT

777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY

Indigenous women and youth leaders from around the globe will converge to discuss and uplift the urgent issues facing their communities and our planet. Speakers will discuss and share the impacts of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the climate crisis in their communities and how they are implementing climate solutions, practicing traditional knowledge systems, upholding Indigenous rights, promoting the right to self-determination, and advancing policies and practices of care and climate justice.

UNPFII Virtual Event: Indigenous Youth Leading Solutions for Climate Justice

Thursday, April 18, 2024

11:00 AM - 12:15 PM EDT

Virtual Zoom Event

During this virtual event, young Indigenous women leaders from around the world will gather to share their strategies and solutions for addressing fossil fuel extraction, deforestation and the climate crisis. Drawing upon Indigenous knowledge, panelists will discuss efforts to defend Indigenous rights, champion self-determination, and promote climate justice and care for the Earth.

Let’s take action to support young women globally who are fighting for their future and imagining a different world!

In-Person Book Event: The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis

Friday, April 19

7:00 - 9:00 PM EDT

Patagonia UWS, 426 Columbus Ave, New York, NY

Join WECAN founder and author Osprey Orielle Lake for an evening of transformative discussion with Indigenous leaders Taily Terena (Terena Nation) and Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation), and a special presentation of Osprey’s new book The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice can Remake a World in Crisis—hosted by Patagonia.

Space is limited! RSVP at the button above!

On March 13 in Washington DC, the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance and environmental groups delivered a petition with 9,000+ signatures calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a robust environmental review of the Line 5 crude oil pipeline reroute. During the petition delivery, the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance brought attention to the cultural and environmental impacts of the Line 5 pipeline, the need for a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Line 5 reroute, and the urgent calls to shutdown and decommission the pipeline permanently. Please find a livestream of the rally here. 

The petition was delivered by members of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance, alongside allies from WECAN, Sierra Club, and the broader community. Since 2022, WECAN has been honored to facilitate the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance, a group of Indigenous women leaders from the Great Lakes region. The petition remains open and you can sign it here to stop line 5!

Speakers included Rene Ann Goodrich, Bad River Ojibwe, Native Lives Matter Coalition and Wisconsin Department of Justice MMIW Task Force Member, and Member of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance; Alexus Koski, Bad River Ojibwe Youth Leader, Water Protector, Stop Line 5 Advocate; Gaagigeyaashiik - Dawn Goodwin, Gaawaabaabiganigaag, White Earth-Ojibwe, Co-founder of R.I.S.E. Coalition, Representative of Indigenous Environmental Network, Line 3 Representative and Member of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance; Nookomis Debra Topping, Nagajiiwanong (1854 Treaty Fond du Lac), Co-founder of R.I.S.E. Coalition, Line 3 Representative and Member of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance; with opening comments by Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). Quotes from the speakers can be found here.

Ahead of the delivery, members of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance, WECAN and Sierra Club met with Congressional leaders and representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the Line 5 pipeline, and why it needs to be shutdown permanently.

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline has continued to operate illegally through the Bad River Band’s land in northern Wisconsin and the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan, and threatens 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater and violates Indigenous sovereignty. Despite strong opposition, Enbridge is moving forward with a proposed reroute and expansion of the pipeline. The existing Line 5 pipeline must be shut down and decommissioned, not simply re-routed and expanded. 

In addition the petition delivery and Congressional meetings, the delegation also participated in the premiere of the BAD RIVER documentary film, which was attended by Bad River Tribal leaders, community advocates, environmental groups, and Congressional and other government leaders. 

Please head to our facebook page for full coverage of our activities in D.C. and learn more about our work to stop line 5 here.

Our advocacy builds on growing momentum to shut down Line 5. We must protect our climate, water, communities and Indigenous rights!

On March 20 and March 21, WECAN and BankTrack organized a series of workshops for EP Limited financial institutions to align with human and Indigenous rights, phasing out fossil fuels, and efforts for a Just Transition. 

The EP Limited is a consortium of 128 of the world’s largest banks that have adopted the Equator Principles (EP), a risk management framework used for “determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in projects and is primarily intended to provide a minimum standard for due diligence and monitoring to support responsible risk decision-making.”

Workshop presenters include frontline women leaders, policy researchers, and global advocates. The first set of workshops examined climate solutions for financial institutions with a specific focus on the problems of market-based carbon schemes in achieving climate goals and alternatives. The second set of workshops focused on due diligence challenges and opportunities, and highlighted voices of impacted community leaders from Peru, Uganda and the United States who are fighting to protect their communities from fossil fuel projects. 

These workshops are a continuation of ongoing engagements with EP Limited facilitated by WECAN and BankTrack since 2021. Learn more in the press release here.

Please join us this year at Bioneers for it's 35th-anniversary conference. Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director will be speaking during a panel at Bioneers, please see further event details below!

Closing the Gates to Hell: A Global Plan to Phase Out Fossil Fuels and Accelerate a Just Transition

Goldman Theater, Brower Center, Berkeley, CA

Saturday, March 30, 4:45 - 6:00 pm PT

Oil, gas and coal are driving the climate crisis yet have, incredibly, largely been ignored in climate talks and policies. That’s starting to change. Millions of people are coalescing around the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to end the expansion of fossil fuels, phase out existing production, and accelerate a just transition to clean energy and low carbon solutions. Join a panel of civil society, government and Indigenous leaders in a conversation about the growing momentum for a Fossil Fuel Treaty and how this global initiative is shaping the climate conversation, removing industry’s social license and compelling decision-makers to finally take action to end the era of fossil fuels—fast, fair and forever. Learn more here.

Hosted by Cara Pike, Senior Communication Advisor to the Fossil Fuel Treaty, Founder and Executive Director, Climate Access. With: Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder and Executive Director, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network; Eriel Deranger, Founder and Executive Director, Indigenous Climate Action; Michael Brune, Climate and Campaign Strategist.

Please see below for a report back on our activities and advocacy during International Women's Day on March 8.

International Women’s Day 2024 Convergence:

Calls for Action to End the Era of Fossil Fuels and Accelerate a Just Transition

During the convergence, WECAN brought together global women leaders in all their diversity to share the many ways they are working and strategizing to build the solutions needed for an equitable and Just Transition— including food sovereignty, gender responsive climate policies, regenerative economics, forest protection, Indigenous rights, rights of nature, demilitarism, phasing out fossil fuels, and much more.

Thank you to the many amazing speakers: President Whitney Gravelle (Bay Mills Indian Community), President and Executive Council Bay Mills Indian Community, Turtle Island/USA; Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Convenor and International Spokesperson for Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP), Philippines; Neema Namadamu, Founder and Executive Director of Hero Women Rising, and WECAN Coordinator in the DR Congo; Tzeporah Berman, Chair, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, Canada; Ruth Nyambura, African Ecofeminist Collective, Kenya; Dr. Crystal A Cavalier, Ed.D, MPA (Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation), Co-Founder, 7 Directions of Service, Turtle Island, USA; Dipti Bhatnagar, World Commission on Fossil Fuel Phase Out, Mozambique; Dr. Tammy Greer (Houma Nation), Associate Professor and Director, Center for American Indian Research and Studies (CAIRS) at Southern Mississippi, and WECAN OHIH Program Leader, Mississippi, Turtle Island/USA; and Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), USA.

VIDEO PREMIERE:

Women Ending the Era of Fossil Fuels & Building a Just Transition

On International Women's Day we released a new WECAN video that highlights the advocacy of global women leaders fighting to end the era of fossil fuels while advancing a Just Transition and advocating for climate solutions, Indigenous and human rights, rights of nature, and thriving communities and planet. 

Please watch and share below!

International Women's Day in Ecuador with Mujeres Amazonicas

The Collective of Amazonian Women Defenders of the Jungle (Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva) held a 10-day event, uplifting women leaders in their region designed to coincide with International Women's Day. 

On March 8, they held a press conference to share their calls to action and how ancestral knowledge provides strategies of resistance against extractivism and to hear from the resilient Indigenous women who are leading the charge for environmental and climate justice. You can watch a recording of the press conference here.

WECAN was honored to partner with Mujeres Amazónicas for this vital gathering. Please follow them on social media @MujeresAmazonicas for more coverage of their advocacy efforts.

On March 19, a court in Peru ruled that the Marañón River has legal rights to exist, flow, and be free from pollution. The ruling comes in response to a legal battle led by courageous Kukama Indigenous women, who have fought tirelessly for years to stop pollution and oil spills threatening the river, communities, and our global climate.

The Marañón River is one of the most important water sources in Peru and a primary tributary to the Amazon River, with hundreds of thousands of people depending on the river for their livelihood. 

The river has been harmed by oil spills, damming, development and pollution for decades, impacting the drinking water and livelihoods of the Kukama Indigenous communities and others in the region. 

As part of the court ruling, Indigenous groups are able to go to court on behalf of the Marañón River to block permitting for activities like mining or drilling that could infringe on the river’s rights. Indigenous peoples are the rightful guardians of Nature, and we look forward to seeing how this ruling can support the rights of Indigenous peoples and the Rights of Nature!  Learn more about this victory here.

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director, represents WECAN on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN), and since our founding, WECAN has been advocating for the Rights of Nature. Learn more here.

Please consider supporting WECAN 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.