Grassroots feminist leaders will share challenges and solutions in advancing gender and racial equity in climate justice community projects.

This panel will highlight women who are advancing intersectional environmental justice policies, leading on the ground community climate projects, and advocating for a resilient world grounded in feminist principles, gender and racial equity and justice, Indigenous and human rights, and protection for Nature.

Participants will learn about root causes of multiple interlocking crises and the need for solutions to uphold an intersectional approach to gender, racial and environmental justice, including: Indigenous rights and resistance to extractive industries; women-led community food security programs; feminist climate policy; women and forest protection and regeneration; feminist care economics. 

Due to unequal gender norms globally, women are the most adversely impacted by climate change and socio-ecological degradation, and yet, simultaneously are indispensable actors and leaders of equitable and effective solutions that are often unrecognized and under-reported.

Some of the on the ground projects to be discussed include Indigenous women and allies protecting 16 million acres of Alaskan forestland and Indigenous rights; re-foresting and protecting natural forests and uplifting women’s leadership in the Democratic Republic of Congo; protecting the rights of the Sarayaku women and the Amazon in Ecuador; Indigenous food sovereignty; the Feminist Green New Deal, Indigenous Women’s Divestment Delegations and gender advocacy at the United Nations.

To confront social and environmental crises and accelerate a path forward, we need collective coherence to address the protection and defense of human rights and nature. Within this context, session leaders will focus on women and feminists standing at the forefront of solutions and action, who are successfully gaining results. They will also present community-led projects, programs, policy frameworks and strategies with which women are collectively working to shape a healthy and equitable world. The session is an inclusive space across the gender spectrum.

In addition to speakers, inspiring videos will be shared.