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November 2023

News, Views, Actions, and Events

Dear Relatives,

While leadership and other staff were busily preparing for the UN COP28 throughout November, IEN’s Indigenous Just Transition Team held its first Indigenous Just Transition Southwest Regional Gathering, Nov. 16 & 17, in Flagstaff, AZ. IJT Organizer Mary Crowe and IJT Coordinator Loren White hosted about 75 participants exchanging knowledge, practices and solutions in a variety of presentations, breakout sessions, site visits, and discussions on regenerative economies, Rights of Nature and Inherent Relationship Jurisprudence, and community resistance against extractivism. Priority registration was given to local Indigenous grassroots representation, Traditional Knowledge Holders, and Spiritual leadership.

As successful as it was, the Southwest Regional Gathering was missing a dear adviser and longtime friend. Well-respected researcher and activist in Indigenous International Law, Tupac Enrique Acosta, a founding member of the community based Indigenous Peoples organization Tonatierra, in Phoenix, had begun his journey to the Spirit World. As the IJT gathering ended, participants and IEN staff traveled to the Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation near Phoenix where hundreds of attendees from across Turtle Island and Mother Earth came to pay their respects to his work, his memory and his family.   Read more here

With heavy hearts at the loss of our dear friend and ally, and in the midst of much work to ensure a successful SW IJT gathering, we found hope in the news that the European Parliament had called for governments to phase out coal and oil and gas as soon as possible and develop a Fossil Fuels Non-proliferation Treaty.  

As December kicks off, IEN traveled to the other side of Mother Earth with a nearly 30-member delegation to  participate in the United Nations UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP28) in the Persian Coast city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.  

We congratulate our IEN leadership and delegates on the incredible amount of work they did in preparation to educate the world on how Indigenous peoples are affected despite the lack of adequate policy and action to actually mitigate the deadly effects of a rapidly changing climate.

IEN at COP

Indigenous Environmental Network Executive Director, Tom Goldtooth, is leading a 28-member delegation of organizational staff and leadership and Indigenous frontline community representatives dealing with a plethora of environmental issues to the city of Dubai on the Persian Gulf Coast for the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (UNFCC COP28) taking place from November 30 to December 12, 2023.

Under the international legally binding Paris Agreement made in 2015 at COP21 in Paris, France, 196 nations pledged efforts to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, and, if possible, pursue efforts to cap warming at 1.5C. A 2C degree rise in global temperatures increases the risks of worldwide catastrophes of extreme weather phenomena including drought, heat waves, violent storms, and possible shortages of food and freshwater. But, in 2017, the US under the Trump administration ceased participation in the Paris Agreement.

In its first two years, the Biden administration outpaced Trump’s approval of oil and gas permits for drilling on public lands, contradicting climate science that fossil fuels growth must end and governments must phase out fossil fuels to avoid global Climate Chaos. Meanwhile, the fossil fuels infrastructure continues to be expanded as global temperatures rise annually with the summer and fall of 2023 being the hottest ever on record and November 18 seeing for the first time a global temperature rise above 2C. Read more here.

IEN Introduces Ethical Protocol at the UN LCIPP FWG10

Tuesday, November 28, 2023, concluded  the fourth and final day of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) 10th meeting of the Facilitative Working Group in Dubai, UAE. The Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of the LCIPP is a constituted body that was developed at COP24 in 2018 to further operationalize the platform and facilitate the implementation of its three functions which include knowledge, capacity for engagement, and climate change policies and actions. Click here to read more.

North American Frontline Groups To Take a Stand at the UN Climate Conference COP28 in the United Arab Emirates

DUBAI — Climate justice leaders from organizations representing impacted frontline communities will be sending a delegation to the 2023 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 28th session of the Conference of Parties, commonly referred to as the UNFCCC COP28. Click here to read more.

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LIVE from Day 1 at COP28 in Dubai - Defending the Sacred: Indigenous Peoples Against False Solutions and Article 6

Watch the Press Conference - Click here.

Speakers:

• Tom BK Goldtooth (Diné/ Dakota) Executive Director, Indigenous Environemental Network

• Brenna TwoBears (Ho-Chunk, Diné, Standing Rock) Keep It In The Ground Lead Coordinator, Indigenous Environmental Network

• Julia Bernal (Sandia Pueblo, Yuchi) Executive Director, Pueblo Action Alliance

• Eriel Deranger (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation) Executive Director, Indigenous Climate Action

Please check our website often for upcoming IEN events. Schedules may change but we will do our best to have the most recent information and links available.

Community Spotlight

Urging Public Comment Submissions on Draft Environmental Impact Statement

NEW DEADLINE: December 13, 2023

The public comment period for the long awaited release of the Dakota Access Pipeline Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DAPL DEIS) has been extended from November 13th to December 13th, 2023 thanks to the unwavering community outreach from tribal grassroots leadership. Click here for ways to send your comments.

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Stand for Indigenous Land Justice: Stop STAMP

New Yorkers owe an unpaid debt to the Indigenous nations whose lands we occupy, and today we have a chance to take a stand for justice. Maybe you know that the Haudenosaunee now live on tiny scraps of their original homelands, from which they were forcibly removed. Maybe you know the painful history of how dams, toxic waste dumps, and industrial pollution have diminished and degraded reservations in New York state. Maybe you think illegal land-taking is only a remnant of a shameful colonial past. Maybe you think environmental justice means something in an enlightened state like New York.

In the case of the Tonawanda Seneca and the WNY STAMP (Western New York Science & Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park), you’d be wrong. Click here to read more.

We can’t stand by while the construction of this project perpetuates the system of settler violence, that has plagued these lands and waters for centuries.

Email members of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation today, and demand they honor the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s request for a thorough environmental review of the STAMP project!

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Elsewhere in the News…

EU Parliament calls for negotiation of a Fossil Fuel Treaty in formal COP28 position

Just nine days before world leaders meet at the UN Climate Talks in Dubai, the European Parliament has just voted to set its demands for the COP28 negotiations, including a clear demand for nation states to join the growing bloc of governments seeking to negotiate a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty:

"The European Parliament supports a global target for tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 at COP28, together with a tangible phase out of fossil fuels as soon as possible to keep 1,5°C within reach, including halting all new investments in fossil fuel extraction; urges the Union and the Member States to take a proactive and constructive role in that regard; reiterates its call to the Commission, the Member States and other Parties to work on developing a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty"

The resolution voted on today marks the second year in a row that the European Parliament reiterated its support for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty proposal in their COP28 position. The resolution received support from a wide range of political parties, including the Greens and Renew.

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STOP MVP - Sounds of Solidarity

The cover of "Stop MVP: Artists From WV, VA, & NC Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline" out this Friday, Dec. 1 on Charlottesville's WarHenRecords. Richmond’s Høly River is featured on the compilation album. Front cover illustration and lettering by Sarah Bachman. Click here to learn more.

Announcing Rural Cinema 2024!

Putting films in the toolboxes of rural and small town organizers.

IEN is pleased to help announce the next round for the Rural Cinema community training and community engagement grants!

Rural Cinema is a training institute and community engagement program aimed at supporting rural leaders across the United States in using films as a resource in their work for environmental justice and protection. In 2024, we will be selecting individuals and organizations in six locations directly impacted by polluting industries or transitioning from being economically fueled by natural resource extraction to adopting other more sustainable approaches. Selected organizations will receive a $2,500 honorarium, a screening equipment package, a solar battery to run the equipment, and a $5,000 budget for any other hard costs needed for the series.

The deadline to apply for Rural Cinema is Tuesday January 30th. Potential applicants can find more details and apply here.