The 1st annual Indigenous Climate Justice Symposium at the Evergreen Longhouse on November 5-6, 2015, will bring together speakers from Native communities that are working to keep fossil fuels in the ground, by stopping coal terminals, oil trains and fracking, and protecting treaty resources from the threat of climate change. Its major goal would be to get students and youth, particularly tribal youth, involved in community-based climate justice efforts. The event is free and open to the public: PLEASE INVITE YOUR FRIENDS; DOWNLOAD POSTER at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/ICJSPoster.pdf

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5 

STUDENT RESEARCH DAY (10:00 am – 5:00 pm)

KEYNOTE BY TOM GOLDTOOTH (7:00 – 9:30) Indigenous Environmental Network Executive Director, “The Paris Climate Accord: Will it be a Crime Against Humanity and Mother Earth?”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6 

PANEL on Fossil Fuel Connections (10:00 - 12:30) Native voices from these nations at both the back end and front end of coal and oil shipping routes, to explain how they threaten treaty resources through direct contamination and global climate change:
* Grays Harbor oil terminals: FAWN SHARP (President of the Quinault Nation and Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians);
* Oil fracking in North Dakota: KANDI MOSSETT (Fort Berthold tribal member; Indigenous Environmental Network);
* Cherry Point coal terminal: JEREMIAH "JAY" JULIUS (Lummi Nation Councilmember);
* Coal mining in Montana: ADRIANN KILLSNIGHT (Northern Cheyenne tribal member; Ecoregional Ethnographic Assessment Project).

WORKSHOPS on what we can do (1:30– 2:55 & 3:05-4:30)

REPORTS & NEXT STEPS (4:30-5:00)

The Symposium is an outgrowth of the Climate Change and Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Project at Evergreen, started by the Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute in 2006. The Project published a 2006 report for Indigenous leadership, a 2010 community organizing booklet, and the 2012 Oregon State University Press anthology Asserting Native Resilience: Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis, used in classes and community education around the region. To access these publications, see http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/climate.html

Symposium Sponsors: Climate Change and Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Project, Graduate Program on the Environment, Master of Public Administration – Tribal Governance, Native Programs and Sustainability & Justice planning units, President’s Diversity Fund, Center for Community-Based Learning & Action, Academic Deans’ Office, and Evergreen programs Resource Rebels, Engaging with Endangered Northwest, Shipping Out & Writing Home, Caliban & the Witch, Even When Erased We Exist, Introduction to Environmental Studies.

Asserting Native Resilience: Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis, anthology edited by Zoltán Grossman and Alan Parker; Introduction by Billy Frank, Jr. 
(Oregon State University Press, 2012)
http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/asserting-native-resilience