The Navajo Are Fighting to Get Their Water Back

Zero Mass Water partnered with the Navajo Nation to bring water into the homes of rural residents who may not have easy access to a water source. Hydropanels that connect to a tap inside the home use sunlight to absorb enough water vapor to make at least 10 liters of water per day. While people at first were skeptical about the idea during a pilot test, the company and Navajo officials are hoping to scale the solution.

A green oasis sits amongst desert land in southwest Colorado, but this swath of Ute Mountain land wasn't always so fortunate. Thanks in large part to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe leveraging their sovereignty, a settlement led to federal funding for canals, pipelines and the construction of the McPhee reservoir.

Many times, in order for solutions to gain momentum and effect real change, there has to be buy in from a community level. To improve the perception of renewable energy in West Virginia, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) has partnered with local nonprofits and implemented various campaigns to educate the community on the benefits of making the switch to renewable energy.

New philanthropic funding models are distributing to Indigenous peoples and local communities in climate and biodiversity hotspots, enabling them to continue traditional practices that greatly benefit the environment. One core principle is the building of strong on-the-ground relationships, then providing “no-strings” grants with little follow-up reporting required.

Platte Farm Open Space used to be a garbage dumping ground in Denver, but it’s now an urban green space thanks to the efforts from community members, organizations, and the government. This community-led project was able to secure funding to replace the contaminated land with fresh soil that now attracts animals and includes walking paths and a playground for children. This project offers lessons on how to build a green space in a diverse neighborhood and the health benefits that come from such an initiative.

The Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network (IFKN) connects Indigenous scholars, community members, and leaders from tribes in the Arctic and the U.S. Southwest to work together on achieving food sovereignty. By visiting each other’s lands, they share their traditional knowledge on farming practices and river restoration. Because of the network, they received a grant to study the effects of COVID-19 on food access for Indigenous communities. “We can learn from one another, teach each other, and also work together on finding different solutions,” said a member of the IFKN steering committee.

Finding common ground between environmentalists, logging companies, and indigenous communities to protect the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada took years of discussion and even a dance at an Elton John concert. But these groups were able to negotiate an agreement to make 3.1 million hectares of rainforest off limits to logging, allow 500,000 hectares available for forestry, and strengthen First Nations rights. The process could be a model for what reconciliation can look like among competing interests.

Canopy works to preserve the untouched Broadback Forest, which stores twice as much carbon as the Amazon and is central to the Cree Nation. The nonprofit works with 750 corporations, including fashion brands, commercial printers, and publishers to reduce the amount of packaging they use and eliminate sourcing from biodiverse, ancient, and endangered forests. They help source waste from grain and other food harvests for packaging, paper, and fabric production and enlist companies’ support of conservation initiatives. They also partner with other groups to lobby the government to protect the Broadback forest.

Washington State could pass one of the toughest restrictions on water bottling operations in the United States, thanks to activists who raised environmental concerns over a bottling facility that wanted to open in a town. Their advocacy is modeled after a similar legal fight in Oregon, where environmentalists, Native American tribes, and labor unions came together behind the campaign. Their success could provide a plan for similar efforts in other communities.

After amassing a large amount of property in Chile, the Tompkins Conservation would donate millions of acres to the government to maintain as national parks for wildlife conservation and sustainable land use. This was the largest act of “wildlands philanthropy” in history. When the Tompkins started buying land, locals were at first distrustful, but now they’re concerned the government won’t be able to maintain the properties. Thanks to the Tompkins Conservation, wildlife, like the South Andean deer, are being reintroduced and forests have recovered.