4 Environmentalists for Indigenous History Month & Pride Month

Written By: Jacqueline Omdara, Research By: Can Atacan, Jaden Noronha, & Sheridan Hill

3 min readJul 2, 2022

June was Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month. In honour of this, we want to highlight 2 LGTBQ+ Environmentalists as well as Indigenous Environmental Groups and Groups Working to Protect the Indigenous Role in Environmental Issues. Many of these members have inspired many and continuously work hard towards their mission in preserving the Earth and its resources.

Indigenous Climate Action

Founded Date/History:

Founded in 2015 in Alberta by Indigenous women to bring Indigenous perspectives and voices to climate action, promote Indigenous knowledge, and promote Indigenous rights.

Focus:

Indigenous Climate Action uses community-based approaches to improve community capacity for climate action. Some initiatives include Indigenous gatherings, leadership training, fossil fuel divestment campaigns, and more.

Notable Facts:

The only Indigenous-led climate justice organization in Canada. They have put lots of effort into standing against environmentally harmful projects, with the Teck Frontier tar sands project being rejected after their activism. Indigenous Climate Action partnered with Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo to bring awareness to the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) funding the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Canadian Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER)

Founded Date/History:

CIER was founded in 1995 by 10 First Nation Chiefs across Canada. Since 1995, they have worked on over 450 projects with over 300 Indigenous Nations across Canada.

Focus:

The organization supports Indigenous people and communities to be leaders of positive environmental change through utilizing both indigenous and western knowledge. They enable first nations partners to build upon their strengths to foster meaningful change.

Notable Facts:

Trained about 100 community members in crucial environment roles per year over the past 10 years.
Invested over 125k into communities per year.
Engaged over 250 indigenous youth regarding environmental topics.
Areas of expertise: Project Management, Community engagement, Workshops, research services.

Jaylen Bastos

Pronouns: They/Them
Location: Vancouver BC
Title: Ecologist

Focus:

To educate others on urban ecology from a new perspective. Jaylen educates learners through their platform Zoboomafoolish which centres Black, Indigenous and Queer knowledge.

Notable Facts:

Created and is the CEO of their own learning site called Zoboomafoolish, has a Bachelor of Science from UBC and is currently completing their Master of Science at UBC and is featured in a CBC video on Urban Ecology.

Ceci Pineda

Pronouns: They/Them
Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Title: Educator, Founder, Singer/Songwriter

Notable Facts:

Pineda is an organizer for the Audre Lorde project, which advocates for community health, social reform, and economic justice. They also founded the organization Radiko, which encourages marginalized groups to advocate against climate change. They also create music dedicated to the earth. Graduated from Brown University with a degree in Environmental Studies.