Toolkit cover - Title reads - Decolonizing Climate Action: A Tool Kit for ENGOs in So-called Canada Summer 2024'. Illustration of fish, plants and ducks.

Decolonizing Climate Action Toolkit

By , , , , , ,

Introduction

This toolkit, includes tips, reflections and resources for those looking to take real steps to decolonize your approaches and meaningfully support Indigenous movements. Decolonizing Climate Action: A Tool Kit for ENGOs in So-called Canada, was developed by:

Indigenous reviewers:

  • Alexa Metallic, Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.  
  • Kahsennóktha, Kanehsatà:ke Kanien’kehà:ka First Nation.  
  • Onagoshi Haymond, Kebaowek First Nation, Indigenous Climate Action.  
  • Sakej Ward, Mi’kmaq, Esgenoopetitj First Nation.  
  • Tori Cress from the Anishinaabe Nation, Keepers of the Water, living in G’Chimnissing on Georgian Bay in Williams Treaty territory. 

Settler drafters and project leads:  

  • Dr. Jen Gobby, Affiliate Assistant Professor, Concordia University, Coordinator and Founder of Research for the Front Lines.  
  • Emily Lowan, Fossil Fuel Supply Campaigns Lead for Climate Action Network Canada and volunteer with Research for the Front Lines. 

Graphic Designer and Artist:  

  • Bree Island, from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, Treaty 8, owner of Miyonakwan Studio. 

8 settler reviewers also supported with this project: Dr. Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Bronwen Tucker, Sara Adams, Tom Liacas, Jacqueline Lee-Tam, Amanda Harvey-Sanchez, and Nicolas Chevalier.

This project echoes what many Indigenous people and groups have been saying for a long time;  the driving causes of the climate crisis are colonialism, capitalism and extractivism. Decolonizing climate action is not just the right thing to do, but it is how we become powerful enough to win.

According to Indigenous Climate Action, Decolonizing means:

transforming the power imbalance where settlers and their governments have control over Indigenous lands and Peoples. It means restoring and reinvigorating Indigenous cultures, languages, self determination, sovereignty and relationships with lands. It means settlers relinquishing control over Indigenous lands and people.

Toolkit

Contents

  • [Introduction]
  • Decolonizing climate action is how we win. Here’s why.
    • Reason 1. Indigenous Peoples, not settlers, hold the knowledge, relationships and solutions that are needed to address the climate crisis.
    • Reason 2. Indigenous people can see more clearly the profound injustice of the current systems and can better envision real alternatives.
    • Reason 3. Canadian extractive industries exist due to the violation of Indigenous rights. Therefore, fighting for Indigenous sovereignty is a powerful climate strategy.
    • Reason 4. Land Back will help reduce emissions!
    • Reason 5. Full sovereignty would help widen community livelihood options beyond extractive, polluting projects.
    • Reason 6. The fossil fuel industry fears, for good reasons, the power of real alliances between Indigenous communities and environmentalists.
    • Reason 7. Unlike typical ENGO approaches, Indigenous resistance and resilience actually threatens capitalism, a root cause and driver of the climate crisis.
    • Reason 8. Decolonization helps heal relationships, builds trust and the climate justice movements we need.
  • Indigenous Resilience as a Call to Action
  • Concrete Strategies for Decolonizing Your Approach to Climate Action!
    • Self Education
    • Evaluating your Organization
    • Redistributing Power
    • Redistributing Wealth
    • Redistributing Land
  • Suggested Reading for Self-Education and Reading Groups

As mentioned at the beginning of the tool kit, Kahsennóktha, one of the Indigenous reviewers of this tool kit told us that in the work she does, they often tell people “Decolonization is not a checklist”. Keep that in mind as you use this tool kit with your organization. Decolonization is always ongoing. If you and your organization get through all these steps, begin again and keep going. This is iterative, cyclical, ever deepening work. p 31

Excerpts

Here is a sneak peek into the toolkit.

Screenshot from toolkit called 'Decolonizing Climate Action: A Tool Kit for ENGOs in So-called Canada Summer 2024'. Title and text reads 'Decolonizing climate action is how we win. Here’s why. Reason 1. Indigenous Peoples, not settlers, hold the knowledge, relationships and solutions that are needed to address the climate crisis. In stark contrast to the track record of European settlers on Turtle Island, who in just a few hundred years have brought us to the brink of ecological and climate collapse, Indigenous communities here and across Mother Earth have built time-tested, powerful and inspiring relationships with lands and waters. “Through advanced practices, grounded in Indigenous law, these ways of knowing and being have supported abundant, thriving ecosystems4 ”. Indeed, despite being only 5 percent of the global population, Indigenous communities steward 80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity5 . It’s time for settlers to step aside and find active ways to support Indigenous communities in reclaiming their relationships with Creation, reclaiming their original languages, and reclaiming their roles and responsibilities to the lands and waters of their traditional territories, on their own terms.'. There are illustrations of plants on the page.
Screenshot from toolkit called 'Decolonizing Climate Action: A Tool Kit for ENGOs in So-called Canada Summer 2024'. Title and text reads 'Decolonizing climate action is how we win. Here’s why. Reason 8. Decolonization helps heal relationships, builds trust and the climate justice movements we need. Addressing the climate crisis and transforming this country, and eventually world, will require big and beautiful movements made of strong alliances between Indigenous Nations, Indigenous grassroots communities, environmentalists, unions and more. But the kinds of relations required to build such powerful movements are not possible if settlers continue to harm and weaken relations by upholding settler colonialism and hold onto disproportionate power, wealth and land (Gobby, 2019). More to the point, coalitions built with Indigenous Peoples and other directly impacted communities are less at risk of reproducing the colonial logic that has historically led mainstream environmentalism (Chiro, 2020).'. There are illustrations of plants on the page.
Screenshot from toolkit called 'Decolonizing Climate Action: A Tool Kit for ENGOs in So-called Canada Summer 2024'. This page is titled 'Evaluating your organisation.' Text reads 'Concrete Strategies for Decolonizing Your Approach to Climate Action! Conduct an internal audit of your organization’s policies and protocols to identify areas where Indigenous voices are marginalized or excluded, or where decolonial frameworks could replace inherently harmful practices. See here for a testimony on how ENGOs have harmed Indigenous communities and movements. From this point, develop an organizational transformation plan to better support Indigenous movements. ˆ Reflect on the possible ways your organization’s advocacy and approaches may actually harm Indigenous people, sovereignty movements and uphold settler colonialism. Some questions to consider: how much space does your organization take up in media and climate policy tables? What steps have you taken to ‘pass the mic’ and open the door to these policy spaces for communities that have been historically excluded? Identify and learn from other groups that are doing this well. ˆ Develop criteria to evaluate your organization’s alignment with an Indigenous-led, decolonial just transition. E.g. Does your advocacy help increase the size and strength of Indigenous decision-making power over their lands and lives? Does your work help defund and transform extractive arms of the colonial government? Do your advocacy goals extend beyond short-term, market-based wins? ˆ Assess what kind of support your organization can offer to Indigenous movements – financial, '. There are check boxes next to the paragraphs. There are illustrations of plants and birds down the left hand side.

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