Destructive wildfires are wreaking havoc in North America and around the world as a result of rising temperatures, longer droughts, and decades of fire policies guided by strategies of fire suppression. Frontline communities, who have been disproportionately impacted by these disasters, have exhibited incredible resilience. 

The Creative Wildfire project stands for different kinds of fires, fires that benefit the environment and our communities, fires that give birth to new life. For millennia, fire has played an important role in the health of ecosystems and in indigenous stewardship practices. Deliberate burns shaped landscapes in North America, and are rooted in the relationship between indigenous communities to the land. 

With Creative Wildfire, we want to fan the flames that arise from artistic sparks, we want to feed the fire to devour the extractive systems that cause harm to our communities, and make space for new ways of thinking, being, collaborating, providing, and caring for each other. 
Movement Generation began using the phrase Creative Wildfire in 2014 when Josh Healey, the MG Culture Shift program lead at the time, came up with that name for an artist/cultural workers Eco-Justice retreat. The Creative Wildfire retreat brought together artists, activists, and organizers to explore the depths of the Ecological crisis as well as community based strategies to address the crisis. The 4 day retreat ended with a Creative Wildfire show that featured performance and visual art from the participating artists in the cohort. Since then MG has used the theme of “fire” in their Cultural Strategy work (The North Pole Season 2 and #FireSeeds social media campaign) to counter dominant narratives around fire ecology, indigenous sovereignty and mutual aid for frontline communities.

Climate Justice Alliance

Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) is a growing member alliance of 74 urban and rural frontline communities, organizations and supporting networks in the climate justice movement. Member organizations lead CJA by anchoring major Just Transition projects focused on the social, racial, economic and environmental justice issues of climate change. We are locally, tribally, and regionally-based racial and economic justice organizations of Indigenous Peoples, Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, and poor white communities who share legacies of racial and economic oppression and social justice organizing.

To learn more about how CJA members are moving from an extractive economy to a future of meaningful work, equity, and a clean environment, check out Climate Justice Alliance’s Story Snapshots, listen to our podcast Stories from Home: Living the Just Transition, with Keenan Rhodes of CJA and the Kheprw Institute, and watch the video Frontline Youth – Fighting for Climate Justice. For more information about the Climate Justice Alliance and to follow our work, please sign up for our updates here.

Movement Generation
Justice & Ecology Project

Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture.  We have engaged hundreds of organizations and thousands of change agents (community leaders, activists, and organizers) through intensive retreats, political education, hands-on skills workshops, peer exchange, campaign development, alliance building, strategic support and more. We are rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and communities of color committed to a Just Transition away from profit and pollution and towards healthy, resilient and life-affirming local economies.

To learn more about MG’s work and strategic frameworks, you can visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, listen to our podcast Did We Go Too Far?, and read our blog This Is The Beginning on Medium.com.

New Economy Coalition

The New Economy Coalition is a membership-based network representing the solidarity economy movement in the United States. We exist to organize our members into a more powerful and united force, in order to accelerate the transition of our economic system from capitalism to a solidarity economy. NEC’s 200+ members are a cross section of nonprofits, mission-driven businesses, grassroots community organizations, and sectoral associations. While many groups are focused on a particular strategy or are based in a specific geographic region, they join NEC to be part of a network that is cross-sectoral and national in scope. Together, we understand ourselves as part of an international social movement ecosystem that includes tens of thousands of groups using varied and different strategies to build a more just, liberatory, and democratic world.
Learn more and plug in with organizations in the network: www.neweconomy.net Follow us on Instagram: @NewEconomyCoalition and Twitter: @NewEconomics

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