$2,500 to support a local and regional campaign to shut down the Merrimack Generating Station, the last major coal-fired power plant in New England without a shutdown date. This plant has been polluting the air and water and making the people of Bow, New Hampshire sick for decades and shutting it down would mitigate millions of potential metric tons of CO2 from being released in the future.
$7,500 to support the Indigenous Youth Leadership Training, a virtual training that is bringing together 40+ North American Indigenous youth leaders, many from communities engaged in frontline fossil fuel campaigns, to learn from Indigenous mentors and experts in the fields of digital media/storytelling, food sovereignty, political sovereignty, outdoor survival skills, decolonized community care, and campaign development.
$45,441.56 to support the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund, which is centered on providing food, water, cleaning supplies, PPE, and other essential items to Navajo and Hopi elders, immunocompromised, and the struggling families that are most at risk of contracting COVID-19. With fracking wells, coal mines, coal powered power plants and 523 abandoned uranium mines claims, the Navajo Nation’s water supply and land are effectively poisoned, the elevated levels of uranium causing sickness, liver disease, and even death. The Navajo Nation has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, recording through early May 2020 more coronavirus cases per capita on its reservation than any of the 50 U.S. states. RAN was able to offer a grant at this level thanks to matching donations from our supporters.
$10,000 to support Indigenous Environment Network’s Emergency Mutual Aid Fund launched in response to COVID-19 to quickly move funds into the hands of community-based Indigenous individuals and organizations from the U.S. and Canada that are experiencing loss of income and financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Small grants up to $2,000 are distributed to Indigenous individuals and organizations to be used for three purposes: 1) emergency purchase of essential provisions; 2) support with transportation for essential needs, such as medical and groceries; and 3) home business slowdowns in sales and other cash flow difficulties (“home business” is referring to things like quilting, regalia making, bead and quillwork, moccasin making, basket making, pottery, silversmithing, etc.).
$3,000 to support the Appalachian Climate Action Camp, a ten-day direct action training camp with an estimated 150 participants, along with trainers and panelist, coming from throughout Appalachia as an important component of the greater Appalachians Against Pipeline’s goal of stopping the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline – estimates are that the Mountain Valley Pipeline would emit almost 90 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses annually and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would emit almost 68 million metric tons.
$5,000 to support efforts to re-establish Indigenous governance over Wet’suwet’en territory and protect it from several proposals to construct oil and gas pipelines, including the 420-mile Coastal GasLink pipeline that would carry fracked gas from northeast British Columbia to LNG Canada, a massive proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal that exemplifies the sector’s climate and human rights impacts. On February 6, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used assault rifles, snipers, dogs, sound cannons and helicopters to carry out a five-day militarized police raid and remove peaceful Indigenous land defenders from their homes on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.
$7,500 to support work towards healthier, more sustainable mountain communities and ending mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia through education & organizing, actions and land easements inspired Larry Gibson, the late founder and inspirational leader of Keeper of the Mountains, whose family has been able to protect their ancestral home on Kayford Mountain amidst 7,500 acres of MTR sites. KOTM also provides support in securing clean water for communities that have been abandoned by the coal industry.
$5,000 to support a Latino/a youth-led community organizing and movement building strategy to resist a potential JP Morgan Chase buyout of the El Paso Electric Company through a private equity fund, which would likely lead to increased fracking, as well as address the overall threats of a privatized electric utility that only permits 3% renewable energy, a city government that allows for the El Paso refinery’s petroleum apparatus to emit toxic gases, and a new natural gas plant on the horizon. Resisting the JP Morgan buyout also provides an opportunity for a cultural shift towards the development of a localized version of the Green New Deal.
$5,000 to support community organizing and a multi-platform media campaign to block construction of a Formosa petrochemical complex in historic St. James parish, LA, which would cause a drastic downgrade in quality of life for a Black community already overburdened by air pollution, while also emitting 13 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to three coal-fired power plants.
$5,000 to support a ‘Pipelines to Plastics’ campaign, including toxic tours and other grassroots activities, opposing ExxonMobil’s planned $10 billion ethane cracker plant near Corpus Christi, Texas, which would export plastic products to the world and produce significant methane emissions, courtesy of fracked gas from West and South Texas.
