Friday, April 30, 2010

Giveaway! Farmer Jane by Temra Costa

We are so thrilled to share with you an interview with Temra Costa and a blog celebration of her new book, Farmer Jane.
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Temra is kind enough to give away 2 signed copies of her book to readers of this blog (you!). [All you need to do is leave a comment below. Winners will be picked randomly on Friday, April 30, 2010. One comment per person please!]
Comments are closed and the winners are...
Ryah (her blog)
and
Cindy (her blog)
Thank you to all who entered!


Thursday, April 29, 2010

Vote for Women’s Earth Alliance

We have joined eBay’s Tournament for the Environment and would love your vote! 
Check it out here.
The tournament cash pool has been seeded with $50,000 from eBay in support of solving environmental challenges such as climate change, conservation, renewable energy and pollution.
Humanity calls
The top 30 nonprofits, as voted by YOU, will share (proportional to votes they've received) in the tournament's final cash pool - which will grow exponentially thanks to YOUR outreach efforts and donations!
Will you vote for us? 

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Young Women Lead the Way to Green Economic Development on the Navajo Nation

Women Earth Alliance’s Caitlin Sislin wrote a piece about the Navajo Nation on The WIP
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She writes, “Thanks to a diverse array of activist leaders at the helm of groups like Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC) and the Navajo Green Economy Coalition (NGEC), the Navajo Nation is moving towards a sustainably powered bright future. Women’s leadership has played a central role in bringing forth the shift towards collective support for green economic development that is in alignment with traditional Navajo life ways.”
Read the full article here!

Sacred Sites Advocacy Delegation begins Sunday

The first 2010 Women’s Earth Alliance Advocacy Delegation, Defending Sacred Places in the Southwest, begins on Sunday in Elko, NV. Five dynamic, highly-skilled and experienced women advocates will spend one week meeting with indigenous women environmental justice leaders for a journey of immersive learning and collaboration.

Our Delegation will begin our journey this Sunday in northern Nevada, where the Western Shoshone people confront threats to their lifeways and holy places due to forced relocation, mineral extraction, particularly gold mining, and nuclear waste disposal. The Delegation will meet with Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, former Counsel for the Western Shoshone Defense Project and chief architect of the legal strategy that led to unprecedented international legal victories on behalf of the Western Shoshone. We will also meet Carrie Dann, Shoshone elder and outspoken environmental and human rights leader. We will visit sacred Mt. Tenabo, site of one of the largest open pit cyanide heap leach gold mines in America.

From there, the Delegation will travel to the Alpine terrain of Northern Arizona, where we’ll meet the dedicated leaders of the Save the Peaks Coalition, a movement to defend the sacred San Francisco Peaks mountain – holy to 13 tribes, including the Navajo – from desecration through the use of reclaimed wastewater as artificial snow on the mountain’s ski resort. From the Coalition’s attorney, we will learn about the cutting edge of federal and state litigation to protect sacred sites.

Finally, we will travel to the Grand Canyon, and meet with the courageous women and men at the helm of the Havasupai tribe’s campaign to protect their ancestral homelands from uranium mining. We will visit Red Butte, site of a proposed uranium mine and central to the Havasupai’s creation story.

WEA’s Advocacy Delegations are unique opportunities for women advocates and activists to come together, bridging cultures and life experiences to strengthen a shared vision of sustainability and justice on earth. During these multi-day journeys of experiential education, women advocates learn first-hand about systemic environmental injustices affecting indigenous lands and communities, connect with indigenous women leaders committed to ensuring environmental justice and indigenous rights, and expand their capacity to generate solutions to these systemic problems. Through dialogue and participatory learning, advocates build a foundation for sustained collaborative engagement with indigenous environmental justice leaders, within the Sacred Earth Advocacy Network of Women’s Earth Alliance.

Stay tuned for our posts from the road!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Gala! Introducing the 2010 Host Committee

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These are some of the many shoulders we stand on and minds we depend on. The following people will serve as the Host Committee for our Second Annual Weaving the Worlds Gala on May 26, 2010 and we’re thrilled to introduce you to them:
  • Ari Derfel
  • Aimee & Eloise Christensen
  • Ben Schick
  • Catriona Glazebrook
  • Erica Priggen
  • Janet MacGillivary & Randall Wallace
  • Jennifer Wood
  • Joel Makower
  • Julia Butterfly Hill
  • Marcy Taylor
  • Nicholas Heldfond & Simmone LaCorte
  • Nick & Sloane Morgan
  • Paul Hawken
  • Roselyne C. Swig
  • Sandra Hay
  • Stacey Frost
They inspire us and we are grateful for who they are and what they do.
We invite you to join us all at the May 26th Gala to celebrate the work of women environmental leaders around the world. It's going to be a great night!
Purchase tickets today

Women and Land celebrates 1st anniversary

Happy (almost) Birthday!

The Sacred Earth Advocacy Network, a project of WEA’s Women and Land Initiative, will celebrate its first birthday this June!  Over the past year, we’ve established a thriving and growing network of advocates applying their legal, policy and business expertise in pro bono partnership with indigenous women environmental justice leaders in North America.  Our Network ensures access to critical advocacy resources — like litigation, regulatory advocacy, organizational development, and policy analysis, among others — for our indigenous women project partners, forging strategic collaborations to promote environmental health, protect sacred sites and support green energy development on tribal lands. 

Do you want to help us celebrate?

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Join us on an Advocacy Delegation!  Our Advocacy Delegations educate and empower dynamic teams of women advocates to support communities where fossil fuel development and mineral extraction impact tribal lands and cultures.  These Delegations are unique opportunities for women advocates and activists to come together, bridging cultures and life experiences to strengthen a shared vision of sustainability and justice on earth.  Through dialogue and immersive learning,  delegates build a foundation for sustained collaborative engagement with indigenous environmental justice leaders. 

There are still spaces left in our July 2010 Delegation, Protecting Water and Tribal Culture in California, and our September 2010 Delegation, Promoting Green Energy on the Navajo Nation. 

Please contact Advocacy Director Caitlin Sislin for more information, at caitlin at womensearthalliance dot org

Video! 2010 West Africa Women and Water Training

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Black Mesa Mine Mess

caitlins Women Earth Alliance’s Caitlin Sislin has written on High Country News about the current opportunity for comment regarding the Peabody Western Coal Company’s water permit review process.  She writes:

“A controversial clean water permit for a coal mine complex sited at a Navajo and Hopi sacred mountain is once again up for review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Peabody Western Coal Company seeks a renewal of its water quality permit for the Black Mesa/ Kayenta Mine Complex, despite the mine's impact on water quality and local public health over several decades because of discharges of toxic heavy metals and pollutants into the water supply.
EPA invites the public to submit comments through April 30th on the previously-withdrawn National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit pursuant to the Clean Water Act, which requires that all industrial dischargers of wastewater obtain and maintain a permit.”
Her full article can be read here.
Will you answer Caitlin’s call to action?  Share your comments with the EPA by April 30, 2010.  You can do so here (it’s notice # NN0022179).  Or call the EPA’s John Tinger at (415) 972-3518 or by email at Tinger.John@EPA.gov

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Caitlin and WEA in the news

Women Earth Alliance’s Advocacy Director Caitlin Sislin was interviewed by VolunTourism, an organization that promotes volunteering around the world. 
voluntourism In it she says,
“Collaboration with and support of … women leaders is really an investment in health, sustainability and justice for communities.”
Read the full interview here!

One of many extraordinary women

The women involved in Women Earth Alliance are extraordinary women. Olanike Olugboji, a participant in the Global Women's Water Initiative's 2008 African Women and Water Training, has launched a new venture and has written about it on World Pulse.
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She writes, “when people’s daily needs are met, they are better able to think about the future including how to care for the environment.” We couldn’t agree more!
Click here to read her full post.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Solutions for Community Resilience


2009 was a banner year for Women’s Earth Alliance, there’s no doubt about it. But we knew that the wave of momentum wasn’t going to stop. In fact, here on our blog we predicted that “2010 is going to rock.”

So far it has, thanks to you. Last week we held the first Women’s Earth Alliance event of 2010 and a lively crowd of 200 people were there to listen, share, and experience.

Then, along with our Global Women’s Water Initiative (GWWI) collaborators Jan Hartsough of Crabgrass and Gemma Bulos of A Single Drop, we shared stories, photographs and a rockin’ video of our shared work in West Africa last month. We invite you to check out GWWI 2010 video by Unseen Pictures and share it with others!

Finally, one of the world’s experts on women’s involvement in environmental and social justice, Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women, spoke about what women are doing around the world to lift themselves, their families and their communities. Kavita and the Global Fund have been long supporters of GWWI and we are especially grateful for their support of our work, their compassion for women around the world, and their vision for a socially and environmentally just world.

Thanks to all that attended, sponsored, tabled, and sang!