Alaska’s Time to THRIVE:
Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy
The THRIVE Agenda has taken many forms, but at heart it is a vision of a just future put to paper. In late 2020, it was brought to Congress as a resolution, and it will be proposed as a Bill this springtime. If it is passed by Congress, we would see massive changes in funding and investments, as well as climate adaptation and support to vulnerable communities.
It has been formed by the work of the Green New Deal Network, in community with hundreds of frontline grassroots organizations (including us!)
The Kohtr’elneyh Workbook: A Visioning Guide for Families
This downloadable and printable workbook produced by
Native Movement has been structured around the principles necessary for a Just Transition, as adapted from
Movement Generation and
Indigenous Environmental Network, and features coloring pages by artists Siqiniq Maupin, Apay’uq Moore, Jessica Thornton, Nabi Qureshi and Naaweiyaa Tagaban.
Their artwork is then followed by descriptions and prompts designed to spark your own imagination!
Bringing Just Transition Home
A Worksheet Activity
The framework of just transition is simply a way to organize ideas about how to create a community that is good for us and for future generations. It can help us turn the future that we imagine into reality.
Kohtr’elneyh, Remembering Forward ZINE
A Strategic Framework for Just Transition
This zine was Alaskanized from the orginal publication from ‘
Movement Generation‘. You can download this 40-page zine in two versions, one for viewing online, and one for printing into a folded booklet of your own! Select an option below:
TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY | SELF-GOVERNANCE | SELF-DETERMINATION
An outline adapted from excerpts from University of Alaska Fairbanks Tribal Management Curriculum and http://blog.nativepartnership.org/what-is-tribal-sovereignty/ by Murray Lee
Terms, Values & Resources
Healing (PURPOSE)
Advocacy work can be draining, and movement building requires finding time to heal. This Healing Justice podcast explores that idea and how to approach it.
Decolonization (WORLDVIEW)
Find out whose land you’re on: this Canadian map of North America shows areas of different Indigenous lands, the tribes and tribal contact information for each of these areas, and a contact number to fix any parts that aren’t quite right yet.
This guide to land acknowledgment has multiple forms of media to understand the importance of land acknowledgement, as well as various strategies for individuals as well as organizations to acknowledge the land we are on.
This podcast talks about decolonization and all that it entails.
Economic (WORK)
https://maced.org/tag/just-transition/
This group, MACED, has created visual models of how an economy undergoes a just transition. You can learn more about it on their website, here.
Investors (WORK)
How can investors lead us through a just transition? This toolkit provides examples, guidance, and a helpful roadmap for investors in creating a regenerative economy.
EDGE Funders is a group of philanthropic organizations dedicated to building a different way of investing funding.
The Chorus Foundation is an example of a funding organization focused on funding a Just Transition. You can learn about their practices and the groups they support on their website.
Workers (WORK)
Holding Coal Plant and Mine Owners Accountable to Workers and Communities
As workers transition from coal mining to regenerative jobs, this model provides a blueprint for how one community has done it, making sure that the coal plant and mine owners are participating and accountable in this transition.
Climate Change and the Clean Economy
This fast fact sheet provides a helpful guide into facts about what a clean economy looks like, including some fast facts about our economic present and future.
The Just Transition Alliance was founded in 1997 as a coalition of environmental justice organizations and labor unions. Together with frontline workers and community members who live along the fence-line of polluting industries, we create healthy workplaces and communities.
Art (PURPOSE)
Alice Qanniq Glenn’s podcast explores Alaska Native art and culture. You can learn more about her and listen to her podcast, “Coffee & Quaq”
Jenny Irene Miller’s Continuous portrait series
Jenny Irene Miller is a Inupiaq artist who has done a portrait series, ‘Continuous’ which highlights contemporary Alaska Native, Indigenous people.
Example resolutions/bills (GOVERNANCE)
AFN youth-led resolution to declare climate change as a state of emergency in Alaska– Pages 123 to 124
Indigenous Knowledge (WORLDVIEW)
This website has greetings and short phrases in all of the 20 official Alaska Native languages, as well as a resources page about organizations and projects working on language revitalization in Alaska.
Alaska Native Knowledge Network
The Alaska Native Knowledge Network was created to provide a clearinghouse of Alaska Native resources for both cultural and linguistic knowledge.
Black Mesa Water Coalition is an inter-tribal, inter-ethnic voice leading conversations around energy justice issues, restorative economies, and climate justice advocacy, in the Southwest and around the US.
Indigenous Environmental Network
IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
Students/Schools/Universities (GOVERNANCE)
NAACP Youth & College Organizing Toolkit for Environmental and Climate Justice
This toolkit is for youth and college-aged organizers who are advocating for environmental and climate justice.
Energy Justice (RESOURCES)
NAACP Just Energy Policies and Practices Action Toolkit
The Just Energy Policies and Practices Action Toolkit is 8 modules of practical, user-friendly guidance on how you can phase out toxic energy like coal, nuclear, and oil facilities and bring in clean energy like wind and solar. Designed to be downloaded as an entire toolkit or as individual modules, you can start planning energy justice plans to best fit the needs in your community.
Racial justice (PURPOSE)
This comprehensive toolkit addresses a wrap-around view of how to address climate change through the framework of a just transition.
Intersectionality (WORLDVIEW)
Just Transition is Climate Justice is Racial Justice is Gender Justice
This interview is between Bill McKibbin, a leader in the environmentalist climate movement, and Jacqueline Patterson, the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
http://landbodydefense.org/uploads/files/VLVBToolkit_2016.pdf
This toolkit was developed by Native Youth Sexual Health Network and Women’s Earth Alliance and includes workshop activities, resources on how to care for our bodies while doing frontline land defense work, strategies for addressing rape culture and land trauma, and a tool to document environmental violence.
Alaska
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Arctic-Report-2017-10-13.pdf
This 2017 report by the Center for Sustainable Economy describes key features of Alaska’s economic landscape and highlights existing community projects and ideas that are signposts on the road to a sustainable economy.
Survival Denied: Stories from Alaska Native families Living in a Broken System
By the Council for Athabascan Governments, stories are shared that illustrate the impact current management practices and regulations have on the lives of Alaska Natives. Their first-hand testimonials reveal a complicated system that denies Alaska Natives their rights to traditional foods and ways of life; illustrating the need for a revised system that provides them a greater influence in land management, hunting, and fishing; a system that ensures their religions, physical and cultural survival.
Legislation (GOVERNANCE)
This sample legislation in New Mexico focuses on energy and labor goals meant to reflect a tangible just transition.
Community Controlled Clean Energy (RESOURCES)
This 2014 article about community-controlled clean energy discusses why this energy in communities hands is so important.
https://energydemocracyny.org/
Energy Democracy NY is a coalition that concentrates on community controlled clean energy in New York, providing resources for everyone to understand how to do this in their communities as well.
Buckland’s transition to renewable energy
Read about Buckland’s transition to renewable energy.