“This is not another conference. This is a call to action to radically transform the economic and political systems that drive climate change, forest destruction & the commodification of life.”
This convergence will provide space to:
• Build capacity to analyze, expose and confront the root causes of climate change & forest destruction
• Challenge false solutions and amplify real, community-based alternatives
•Create momentum to build and broaden strategies and tactics of resistance for effective action
• Develop concrete plans, strategies and actions to carry forward after the event
“Now is the time!
Join us to build a radical movement that unifies efforts to protect forests and land with those dedicated to social, environmental and climate justice to create a resurgence powerful enough to achieve the systemic change we need to survive.”
The Resurgence: 2019 North American Forest & Climate Movement Convergence
Shawnee National Forest, Southern Illinois (U.S.)
October 11 through October 14 – culminating on Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Forests, communities and the Earth are under attack. Governments, corporations and elites in North America are collaborating with others to consolidate power, profit and control on a global scale. Their actions are driving climate change and destruction of forests, causing mass-extinction of species, devastating communities, and threatening whole peoples and the entire biosphere.
It has never been more critical to build a broad, united movement that can resist the wholesale war against the Earth.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently stated that life on Earth is in extreme danger if we do not achieve “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” by 2030. To avoid the worst impacts from climate change, we must immediately cease burning fossil fuels and drastically reduce over-consumption. We must protect and restore the Earth's forest ecosystems, and defend territorial rights of Indigenous and forest dependent communities whose lands most of the world’s remaining intact forests are found.
This convergence will be an opportunity to come together as many people working on the interconnected issues of forest destruction, climate change, Indigenous sovereignty, racial and gender oppression, corporate domination, fossil fuel extraction, and social and environmental injustice.
We will bring together our diverse experiences and backgrounds to build a powerful movement that can radically transform the economic and political systems driving planetary and human destruction.
Forests are intricately intertwined webs of life. The more intact and diverse forests are, the better they can withstand stresses like climate change. Forests will be the model for our organizing. The more diverse our movements, the more interconnected, and the more focused on the roots, the stronger and more resilient we will be to withstand the stresses of the massive effort we undertake.
This event will take place just above the convergence of the great Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, in the forested Shawnee Hills, next to the steep topography of the Illinois Ozarks and the southern swamps of the Coastal Plain. It is the traditional lands of the Indigenous Shawnee, Kaskaskia and Chickasaw Peoples. We remember all who lost their lives during the Trail of Tears and are buried in and around the region.
