Tribal Campus Climate Challenge

Snapshot of 2011

Tribal Campus Climate Challenge/ EJ Collective

Young people from urban and rural areas where the dirty energy industry has the biggest impact on human health are collaborating to address the climate and economic crises. Across the country they are focusing on the local impacts of the industries that disproportionately pollute their families and communities. Yet it became clear that there was still a need for a national convening space for those the most impacted by climate change. The EJ Collective formed within the Energy Action Coalition, with the help of the Indigenous Environmental Network, focuses on youth leadership expansion in environmental justice and social justice organizing. The goal has been to operate a leadership development program with youth leaders from directly impacted communities. The program model is based on tried and successful leadership development programs implemented on the local and regional level. The EJ Collective training has brought these training programs to a national scale. The Indigenous Environmental Network is currently working with 4 tribal youth leaders in North America who have been trained as Training Coordinators to train other youth leaders in their communities to expand our membership base nationally and increase our political power within disenfranchised constituencies. The Training Coordinators have specific goals to engage young people and get them involved, hold meetings, strategy sessions, workshops, and assemblies that engage community members in working for change and building capacity to build movement-based infrastructure for the long haul. Youth trained will in turn train adult members of their campaign teams, focusing on the research needs to both understand the root causes of the problems and in developing solutions that look at best practices models in the U.S. and internationally. The trainings are tiered to helping them identify social and environmental justice issues, developing a strategy of organizing other youth. The idea is for them to able to apply the skills acquired in the training to other social and environmental justice issues they come across in their lives.

The following is a snapshot of just a few of the highlights the Indigenous Environmental Network achieved in 2011 (download/print a pdf) through the Tribal Campus Climate Challenge and within the EJ Collective:

IEN Goes to College:

Fort Belknap Community College took part in IEN trainings in March 2011. During the 2-day training participants learned how to calculate their carbon footprint and evaluated how to decrease their own footprint while taking steps to works towards creating a localized sustainable economy. They learned how to reduce toxins in the home through making their own cleaning solutions and learned how to compost in their homes for use in their own organic gardens. The college was given traditional seeds, which they used to plant a campus community garden.

IEN goes to college


30th Annual American Indian Higher Education Student Consortium

During the 30th Annual American Indian Higher Education Student Consortium IEN engaged with hundreds of the 1,200 students, faculty and administrators participating from the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities. The gathering was held in Bismarck, ND in April of 2011 and afforded IEN the opportunity to teach participants about various topics including but not limited to Hydraulic Fracturing, Food Sovereignty and Organic Gardening. Participants calculated their carbon footprints and discussed the meaning of sovereignty. They were given the tools and information needed to start their own community gardens and to create awareness in their communities about living sustainability.

BLM Public Forum - Hydro-Fracturing on Federal Lands - April 2011

In late April 2011 IEN worked to provide the opportunity for impacted community members from tribal nations dealing with Hydraulic Fracturing to speak out against the process in a public forum held in Bismarck, ND. The session was one of only 3 held across the United States by the Bureau of Land Management to discuss fracking on Federal Lands and other areas where the BLM has responsibility for mineral leasing. Community members strongly opposed the use of the process known as fracking due to water, air and soil contamination concerns and expressed their support for the EPA to regulate fracking.

Organic Gardening & Lessons In History

In May of 2011 youth at the United Tribes Technical College Campus planted organic gardens and learned about the history of farming tribes along the Missouri River. They used traditional tools such as antler rakes and shoulder blade hoes to break the ground and learned how to grow the “three sisters” garden creating mounds to plant corn, squash and beans along with additional box plantings of potatoes, herbs and flowers. The food was harvested at the end of the year and distributed to the families of the children who participated as well as given to the local community food pantry. Read more.





The months of May, June and July were a busy time of planning and preparing for the Indigenous Environmental Networks 16th Protecting Mother Earth Gathering held July 28th-31st on the Fort Berthold Reservation in New Town, ND. Spiritual leaders, educators, indigenous peoples, local community members, youth and elders participated in the four day outdoor camp style gathering to collectively discourse and strategize on the resolution of local, national, and international environmental justice and indigenous rights issues through forums of plenary and concurrent workshop sessions. Students from the EJ Youth Collective drove from Chicago, California, Kansas, Arizona and Canada to participate and learn from the locals how the oil and gas industry was ravaging the land and what they could to do to get involved in creating protections. They took part in informational sessions, demonstration projects, and skills trainings related to protecting the Mother Earth, which were offered daily by renowned Native traditional leaders, Native activists, advocates, educators, and practitioners of environmentally conscious living.

Stop the Keystone XL Direct Action - Washington, D.C.

In September 2011 IEN staff were arrested in a direct action tactic to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Youth coordinator, Kandi Mossett, was among the staff arrested to show the power of standing up for what’s right. Her photo was later used in a petition which 7,000 people signed before it was delivered to the White House in December 2011 calling for a rejection of the KXL pipeline. While the decision has been delayed and the victory celebrated there is still much work to be done.




Midwest Power Shift

In October 2011 IEN helped to organize the Midwest Power Shift in Cleveland, Ohio; a region that has been overshadowed by dirty energy projects, corporate politics and ‘dying cities.’ The gathering included teach-ins on corporate money in democracy, direct action trainings on coal, and everything from workshops on alternative business models and urban revitalization to trainings and resources to pass local community fracking bans in additional to an organized march against the KXL pipeline.
At the end of October 2011 the EAC’s EJ Collective held its first official training in Chester, PA. The Chester Green group took participants on a toxic tour of the area prompting stories from the front lines of extraction around the country to be shared along with strategies on the fight against the fossil fuel industry. People from impacted communities across the US were trained to grow the program through community outreach in their own areas. The hope is to continue this program throughout the next 18 months in order to broaden the conversation around Climate and Environmental Justice amongst social justice organizations including Asian Pacific Islanders, Arab-­‐ Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Low-­‐income White Folks and all impacted community members in general while increasing participation of EJ/CJ community youth in the national and international arenas of climate change negotiations and organizing.






UNFCCC - COP 17 - Durban South Africa

In November and December 2011youth from across North America participated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 17th Conference of the Parties. They held the line in the fight for future generations having a voice in the international negotiations by working together to draw attention to the false solutions being pushed at the negotiations by the polluters such as carbon offset schemes. Actions were held against the tar sands in conjunction with the 1,000 Durban’s initiative in Durban, Canada and the UK. Youth from around the world created spaces to strategize on how to work in unity in future strategies on tackling global climate change. During the negotiations the LINGO - Leaving it IN the Ground cOalition was formed to unify the struggles against the growth of the fossil economy with the solutions for a society that respects the Rights of Mother Earth. The group demands and proposes to work towards a stop to all expansions of the fossil frontier; put supply-side mitigation on the UN agenda and develop zero fossil fuel plans for all countries, regions and cities around the world.