Indigenous Climate Action National Steering Committee Meeting

Nearly two weeks ago ICA hosted an invitational meeting on January 20-22, 2017 in Winnipeg, Manitoba - Home of the Metis Nation and Treaty No. 1 Territory. We gathered movement builder's, knowledge holders and land and water protectors to help guide and collaborate with ICA’s future work.

This meeting is part of the outcomes defined from last January 2016,Indigenous Climate Action inaugural meeting that brought together 150 Indigenous Leaders from across Turtle Island. At the inaugural meeting there was a highlighted need and interest for the creation of an organization like Indigenous Climate Action to support Indigenous-led dialogue and strategy development on solutions to the climate crisis.

Over the last year we have seen a tremendous interest and curiosity about what’s next for ICA. As a small group of volunteers we are aware of the critical need to be accountable to the community interests we are advocating for so we decided that it was best to bring the community together to help us form next steps rather than try to build them on our own.

The meeting brought out rich conversations and inspiration that we are so grateful for. We were so lucky to have the meeting facilitated by Leah Gazan and Lori Mainville of Winnipeg who helped guide discussions with participants and ICA organizers to map out regional issues, discuss challenges we face as Indigenous organizers, and identify potential opportunities to work more closely together in the future. As we begin to take this information and compile and plan future work we will continue looking to Indigenous community members to guide and collaborate on next steps for the organization.

Please see some great photos from the weekend:

Masi Cho, Meegwetch, Kinana'skomitin, Eriel Deranger and the ICA Team