With astounding diversity and great strength, women, feminists, and gender-diverse leaders are standing to lead movements and projects to protect and defend all we hold dear, calling for systemic change and justice on the issues that we know are inseparable— from gender justice to economic justice, from racial justice to Indigenous rights, from climate justice to rights of nature. This moment in time demands that we unite across borders and experiences, and take our collective efforts to the next level to enact climate solutions grounded in care for people and planet.

Please see below some selected highlights of WECAN programs, projects, and campaigns from 2021. If you would like to know more details, you are welcome to explore our newsletters here.

Thank you so much for your continued support of WECAN's ongoing campaigns, projects, trainings, and programs. We will continue to advocate and work ceaselessly for a just and healthy world.

Even within very challenging social and political landscapes, WECAN's Women for Forests program is flourishing this year in different regions of the world as we work to protect old-growth forests, defend Indigenous rights, and expand reforestation efforts. Our ‘Women for Forests' program aims to support a diverse constituency of international women as they rise up to protect forests, and prevent extractive industries from threatening the Earth’s critical living systems and our global communities.

In the Tongass, The Women for Forests Indigenous Tongass hub continued to advocate and call for protections of their forests homelands. After years of advocacy by tribal leadership, and local and national groups, including WECAN, the Biden Administration’s USDA announced earlier this year its plans to restore full Roadless Rule protections, and end large-scale old growth timber sales across the entire 16 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

We are actively securing this ruling right now, and you can take action to support protections in the Tongass by submitting a comment to the USFS today. Learn more and take action here.

In addition to advocating for the Roadless Rule, Indigenous women leaders in the WECAN Tongass hub have been developing alternatives to local and national governance structures for stewarding the Tongass.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Women for Forests program, led by WECAN DR Congo Coordinator Neema Namadamu, is supporting local women to protect and reforest the Itombwe Rainforest, an internationally recognized conservation area, which is home to an extraordinary biodiversity of plants and animals. We are working to protect 1.6 million acres of old-growth forest in the Congo Basin, while reforesting damaged lands.

In addition to education and advocacy work to stop illegal timber harvesting and promote old-growth forest conservation, the women of WECAN DR Congo continued their successful tree planting work— growing over 25 local tree varieties. You can learn more about our ongoing program here.

Through our project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are honored to share a new video released earlier this year documenting the work of WECAN women forest guardians.

In the Amazon, through independent initiatives and collective work, WECAN works to support Indigenous women leaders, build local capacity, and advance the long-term protection of the Amazon Rainforest and Indigenous Peoples through advocacy, education, media relations, participation in international forums, and direct action.

In 2021, we furthered our ongoing Escazú Agreement campaign. The Escazú Agreement is a groundbreaking multi-lateral accord that can help protect women land defenders under attack for defending their lands, and preserve biodiverse ecosystems across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Please learn more about our Escazú Agreement campaign here.

WECAN hosted several online strategy sessions with the LAC region Escazú Agreement Steering Committee to develop action plans. We also initiated a new collaboration with the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Environment Program, which is providing legal research support for the campaign.

WECAN is dedicated to working with a variety of strategies and partnerships as part of the global fossil fuel divestment movement, with a focus on highlighting the power and role of women protecting water, land, climate and communities, as we create opportunities for advocacy, action and dialogue with financial institutions and governments.

At the beginning of the year, WECAN co-coordinated and hosted several workshops with BlackRock and EPA banks to advocate for aligning their policies with the Paris Climate Agreement and implementing human and Indigenous rights across all areas. This work is ongoing.

In April, we published a historic new report titled, "Gendered and Racial Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America and Complicit Financial Institutions: A Call to Action for the Health of our Communities and Nature in the Climate Crisis," which addresses the disproportionate gender and race-specific health and safety impacts as well as human and Indigenous rights issues of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in the United States and selected parts of Canada— interlocking issues that have been sorely neglected in the discourse regarding fossil fuel extraction.

Throughout 2021, we continued to participate in digital and in-person actions and advocacy moments for divestment from fossil fuels and other extractive industries, while calling for a new economic model founded on care for each other and the Earth.

From September 25-30 WECAN hosted the 'Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature,' a 6-day free, gender-diverse, public forum that took place virtually during the UN General Assembly.

The Assembly was attended by thousands of people from around the world, who joined us throughout the week to hear from 100+ climate leaders from 40 countries across 20 unique panel sessions. Find recordings of all sessions here.

The Assembly Steering Committee included: Honorable Dr. Hilda Heine, Senator and former President of the Marshall Islands; Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation), Environmental Ambassador and WECAN Board Member; Ruth Nyambura, African Ecofeminists Collective; Sônia Bone Guajajara (Guajajara), Brazilian Indigenous leader, and Executive Coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB); Jody Williams, Nobel Laureate; Helena Siren Gualinga (Kichwa), youth social and climate activist; Josefina Skerk (Sami), former Vice President of the Sami Parliament in Sweden; Maude Barlow, former Chairperson of the Council of Canadians; and Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director. Dr. Jane Goodall and Naomi Klein were amongst the many presenters.

During the Assembly WECAN delivered a collective Call to Action statement to governments and financial institutions worldwide, signed by over 150 organizations, representing millions of people globally. Following the Assembly, Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director, was invited to present the Call to Action and speak to world governments at an urgent one-day High-level Thematic Debate entitled “Delivering Climate Action: for People, Planet & Prosperity” at the UN Headquarters in New York. The event was hosted by the UN President of the General Assembly to call for hope and ambition in the lead up to COP26.

WECAN's Women for Food Sovereignty Program collaborates with Indigenous and frontline women and gender-diverse leaders to secure and grow food and medicinal herbs for their communities and support a sustainable path toward community resiliency during cascading crises of climate, colonization, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of the Mississippi River, in the place the Chahta (Choctaw) call Bvlbancha, the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, People of the Sacred Medicine Trail, a network of femme and nonbinary Indigenous gardeners, is working urgently to respond to the climate crisis. Okla Hina Ikhish Holo is re-establishing old trade routes and networks while adapting and co-designing new future paths for tradeways that strengthen decentralized systems of support, build circular economies, and support local biodiversity, food sovereignty, and stewardship of their traditional territories. In 2021, we held monthly in-depth workshops, strengthened the network, built green houses for many of the farmers, supported the development of new farm lands, and much more.

Learn more about the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo Network in the video below!

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have also initiated a food sovereignty component to the Women for Forests program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Local women are now caring for gardens to increase food security in the area, which is located near two displacement camps because of political unrest in the country.

In 2021, WECAN stayed committed to supporting water protectors and activists fighting fossil fuel pipelines and projects across North America.

At the Indigenous-led Line 3 pipeline resistance in Minnesota, thousands took action in person and digitally to stand with water protectors calling for an end to the pipeline, for Indigenous rights, and for the protection of sacred wild rice beds and waterways.

WECAN was on the ground at Line 3 and participated in digital and in-person actions, facilitated ongoing direct engagement with the Army Corps of Engineers with Indigenous leaders, wrote articles, organized letter campaigns to the Biden Administration, and in an Indigenous-led action helped to deliver 1 million petitions to the Army Corps of Engineers in Washington D.C. Additionally, representatives from the Giniw Collective and Honor the Earth, with support from WECAN, met with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders to share information about escalating concerns of egregious human rights and Indigenous rights violations occurring in Northern Minnesota along the Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

This work for justice and accountability is still underway. The fight to stop Line 3 is not over! Even as the pipeline construction is now completed, and currently poisoning local wild rice beds and waters, the call for a Federal Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) continues. WECAN will be taking action in-person on December 14th alongside many allies to call for a Federal EIS for Line 3. Learn more about the December 14 Nationwide Actions here.

Also, many water protectors, who took action throughout the year to stop the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, are now navigating through the legal system and many are still in need of legal representation. Please learn more and share this post from Giniw Collective.

In addition to efforts to stop Line 3, we also supported other frontline leadership and took action to stop the Formosa Plastics plant in Louisiana; to stand with Wetʼsuwetʼen leaders fighting to end the Coastal GasLink pipeline; to call for efforts to Build Back Fossil Free; and much more. These efforts are ongoing!

We are honored that earlier this year, Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director, was invited to join the Steering Committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, an initiative to phase-out fossil fuels and fast-track climate solutions inspired by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As we close this year we are celebrating two big wins! Earlier this December it was announced that the developers of the Jordan Cove LNG Pipeline in Oregon have abandoned their plans to construct the pipeline and processing plant for good!

Additionally, we are celebrating the recent decision in Virginia to deny a critical air permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Organizers are still pushing to ensure this pipeline never gets built. Please join us by signing on to a letter being sent to the companies behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline calling for them to cancel the project. Sign the letter here by December 20. 

We share our deep gratitude for everyone who worked on these vital fights and continues to do so.

The end of the fossil fuel era is here, and we will continue to stand with frontline leaders to resist further fossil fuel expansion!

WECAN continues to work with a broad coalition of activists and academics to promote key principles for a Feminist Agenda for the Green New Deal.

This year, the Feminist Green New Deal Coalition published several briefs and reports on the intersections of care and climate, held congressional briefings, and hosted public webinars. Please see more details here.

As part of the coalition, we also held a press conference at COP26 on accelerating a Feminist Green New Deal. WECAN is honored to sit on the steering committee for the coalition and continue working in collaboration for feminist climate justice. Watch the press conference here!

Within the Rights of Nature framework, WECAN International is advocating for an Earth-respecting cultural narrative, of “restore, respect, replenish” to replace the narrative of “domination, depletion and destruction” of Nature and our diverse communities.

In 2021, WECAN participated in the 5th Rights of Nature Tribunal, held in parallel to COP26 by the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN). WECAN Executive Director, Osprey Orielle Lake, was a judge for the climate case, and participated in a press conference at COP26 on the Rights of Nature.

Rights of Nature laws and frameworks continue to protect biodiverse regions globally, and WECAN is honored to continue advocating for Rights of Nature worldwide! Learn more about our work here.

As we close out 2021, we want to celebrate the most recent Rights of Nature victory in Ecuador!

In an unprecedented case, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador used the constitutional provision on the “Rights of Nature” to safeguard Los Cedros protected forest from mining concessions.

Earth Law Center, Center for Biological Diversity, and Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature— of which WECAN is a member of the Executive Committee— filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in September 2020 before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, in support of Rights of Nature and protecting the forest. Read more about the victory here.

‘Women Speak: Stories, Case Studies And Solutions From The Frontlines Of Climate Change’ is a web-based research and storytelling database and initiative designed to shift the narrative, challenge dominant systems of exploitation and oppression, and uplift women's struggles and solutions.

The Women Speak team continues to collect and share thousands of stories by and about women and femmes leading struggles and solutions for climate justice under a variety of cross-sectional themes. Many thanks to Karina Gonzalez, Women Speak Program Coordinator, and all of the 2021 Women Speak interns!

In November, WECAN attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 26 in Glasgow, Scotland. Women and feminists are at the forefront of our movements and on-the-ground solutions, and WECAN was honored to participate in COP26 with our delegation of powerful frontline women leaders to demonstrate and ensure our voices and solutions were centered within the negotiations and on the streets through our advocacy efforts, side events, press conferences, and direct actions.

Please read our blog for in-depth analysis and coverage of COP26 outcomes and WECAN events, actions, advocacy efforts, protests, and media coverage: bit.ly/WECAN-COP26blog

Learn more here: bit.ly/WECAN_Jobs