Grants in 2023

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7 Directions of Service

$8,200 to support a 10-person Gulf South delegation traveling to North Carolina to join the Indigenous-led Water Walk series of events along the proposed route of the Southgate extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which has already been reduced to less than half its planned length due to local resistance. The delegation from the Gulf South is from communities impacted by LNG terminals and will be participating along with a coalition of Indigenous water protectors and landowners that would be impacted by the Southgate pipeline.

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Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku

$10,000 to support Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku’s 7 person delegation attending Climate Week in New York City to share lessons learned and engage people through events and dialogues around next steps to secure long term protection for the Upper Amazon through Indigenous-led solutions. Sarayaku’s successful efforts to stop oil activities in their traditional territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon over decades has kept an estimated 100 million barrels of oil in the ground, a de-facto no-go-zone beneath 330,000 acres of standing primary, roadless rainforest.

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Articulação Nacional das Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras da Ancestralidade (ANMIGA)

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Pomo Land Back

$10,000 to support collecting oral histories and writing reports documenting the cultural landscape in the forested mountains of Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), a 48,000 acre state owned forest in the ancestral territory of the Pomo Tribe in California. Travel to the field to demarcate these areas, original oral history research, and compiling extant botanical surveys serves to strengthen the case for land back as reparations at the California Truth and Healing Council through which the Pomo Tribe have a seat at the table to co-manage with the state forest located in its ancestral territory, which includes ancient village sites and trails travelled to the coast for countless thousands of years by Pomo ancestors.

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Conservación Alto Amazonas

$12,500 to support 3 Yurua communities within the 10 million acre Alto Purús Landscape, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the upper Amazon in Southeast Peru, that are threatened by a new, illegal road which could open previously inaccessible forests with potentially devastating impacts on the ecosystems and the people who depend on them for survival. This project is updating 3 communities’ land title, which was previously done in the 1990s using outdated methods that did not include fieldwork to mark boundaries and create formal, accurate maps, which the current process will correct. Through this project, community members, including women, were trained, and compensated as members of the demarcation team together with titling specialists and the updated land titles strengthen ongoing territorial defense efforts.

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Digital Democracy

$20,000 to contribute to travel costs for 40 Indigenous participants from 14 countries & 4 continents traveling to the Ecuadorian Amazon to attend a gathering of members of the Earth Defenders Toolkit network to be in community with one another, share strategies, learn from each other’s struggles, and build collective power to protect their territories and cultural legacies. The Earth Defenders Toolkit is a collaborative space for Indigenous and frontline communities and their allies to connect and learn from each other, as well as have access to and ownership of free digital tools in local languages that can be used for mapping territory, data collecting and monitoring, storytelling, and securely collaborating and sharing information within communities and with partners.

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Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku, Resguardo Siona de Buenavista, Federación de la Nacionalidad Achuar del Perú (FENAP), and Gobierno Territorial Autónomo de la Nación Wampís (GTANW)

$6,000 to support a delegation from Sarayaku of Ecuador, the Siona of Buenavista in Colombia, the Achuar of Peru, and the Wampis Nation of Peru, all Indigenous communities that have been impacted by and are resisting the extraction of fossil fuels on their traditional territories in the Amazon, to attend a hearing in Santiago, Chile at Inter-American Court of Human Rights and a strategy session hosted by Earthrights International regarding how Indigenous peoples can use the Inter-American System. The hearing is for the U’wa Indigenous community, which for the past 30 years has staunchly rejected extractive projects in their ancestral territory, while the Colombian state approved the exploration and extraction of oil, gas, coal, and other minerals without recognizing or respecting their rights.

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Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)

$10,000 to support a weekend of structured training for 70+ new and long-serving organizers and frontline community members mobilizing to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which threatens the land, air, and water of communities along its entire 300-mile route in Appalachia, including crossing over nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands. The training was followed by a mass mobilization at the White House on June 8 uplifting youth and elder voices from Appalachia and Indigenous leaders resisting the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension.

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Start:Empowerment

$7,500 to support the Climate Justice Community School series of programs that provide BIPOC youth and communities access to environmental justice education, mentorship, and the ability to build up and out their organizing skills. The Earth Month Convergence featured more than 20 speakers and trainers, as well as hundreds of participants, including young BIPOC environmental justice organizers, voices from the Global South and Indigenous artists and the Youth Environmental Justice Vanguard Program provides ongoing mentorship opportunities and $500 stipends to participants to develop and implement community-led solutions.

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Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL)

$20,000 to support long-term conservation of the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve in the Leuser Ecosystem of Sumatra, Indonesia, and its critically important orangutan population through preparing a comprehensive database of orangutan habitat, distribution, density, abundance, and habitat threats and developing and operationalizing the data to establish 2 new monitoring stations in strategic locations that will serve as bases for ongoing research and regular patrol teams. Once the monitoring stations are established, they will be staffed by small teams and will serve both as a deterrent to illegal activities and facilitate increased engagement with local communities, government agencies, and local civil society organizations working to protect and restore these peatlands.