Our Story
Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is an Indigenous-led organization guided by a diverse group of Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors and land defenders from communities and regions across the country. We believe that Indigenous Peoples’ rights and knowledge systems are critical to developing solutions to the climate crisis and achieving climate justice.
ICA is governed by a National Steering Committee of diverse Indigenous peoples who have developed five pathways to guide our work: Gatherings, Resources & Trainings, Amplifying Voices, Supporting Indigenous Sovereignty, and Healing Justice. Our work is deeply relational and involves the development and implementation of strategies created with, by and for our communities, with the goal of uplifting Indigenous voices, sovereignty and stewardship of the lands and waters for future generations.
We know that climate justice demands more than protests or a reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs), it requires liberation from the root causes of planetary injustices. As a decolonial organization, we value Indigenous ways of being that invite radical imagination and space for creativity and exploration. We nurture the will, desire and sense of confidence necessary for experimentation, making mistakes, and reflection to continuously improve how we are in service to our vision and the Indigenous peoples and cultures we serve.
Building a decolonial movement servicing organization with relevant programming is transformative. We utilize a bottom-up approach that takes the lead from our communities; their strengths, their needs, the resources available to them, and what they want to achieve in driving local, national, and international change. By amplifying Indigenous rights, worldviews, value systems, and ways of being we are investing in the seeds of the future and changing how we participate and lead as Indigenous peoples in the climate justice movement. We achieve this through:
a) Strategic disruption of harmful colonial practices, policies and processes and amplify Indigenous modalities of creative expression and storytelling;
b) Nurturing the capacities with and for community members through understandings of healing justice, community engagement, and strategic climate education and trainings;
c) Exploring new climate solutions with community members on the grassroots, grasstops and in elected leadership that center Indigenous values to imagine and create a just future.
Theory of Change
We believe we can achieve our Vision and Mission through solidifying our role as an Indigenous movement servicing organization and rooted in our original five pathways. We recognize ICA as its own sacred being that’s nurtured by individuals within the organization and our partners. Our partnerships must be rooted in a shared understanding of our responsibilities of reciprocity and respect. This mutual care and commitment form the foundation of our collaborative efforts in holding the sacredness of the work of ICA.
Since 2015, Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) has existed as a unique organization, run by and for Indigenous peoples, working on issues of climate change. We began programming in 2016, and hiring staff in 2017. Over the years we have successfully grown new programs and projects to meet the needs of our communities. We provide our communities with the necessary alternative to work with an Indigenous organization that understands their lived realities, and to change how our communities work, see themselves, and exist in today’s colonial environmental movements.
For us, Indigenous climate leadership is a movement that ignites the power that all Indigenous communities hold, to step into decision making spaces and demand necessary systemic change. By supporting our communities to imagine climate justice outside of colonial solutions, white supremacy, and economic industries that have caused, and continue to cause, irreparable harm to our lands, territories and Rrights, we can stimulate our ancestral creativity, knowledge and solutions that will move us towards a just future.