Indigenous Community Engagement on Environmental Issues
Where We Bow Our Heads Out of Respect Event. From left to right: UCI Law Profesor Seth Davis; Joyce Stanfield-Perry, Tribal Manager & Cultural Resource Director, Juaneno Band of Mission Indians Acjachemen Nation; Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Director, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples; Dr. Charlie Sepulveda, Assistant Professor, Cal Poly Pomona
Through the UCI Community Resilience Projects, the Office of Sustainability has fostered interest in and dialogue about Indigenous community engagement on environmental issues at UC Irvine. In 2013, Angela Mooney D’Arcy (Acjachemen), director, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, coordinated this work on behalf of the UCI Sustainability Initiative. In 2016-17, UCI graduate student Noemi Linares-Ramirez (Latina-Navajo), served as the Sustainability Initiative’s Fellow on Indigenous Environmental Issues. Collaborators have historically included the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, UC Irvine Law’s Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR), the American Indian Resource Program, and the Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.
Recent projects:
- 2018-19 Exchanges among community-based organizations in Santa Ana, California, and in the Menominee Nation, Wisconsin
- 2018 Event on Cultivating Consciousness and Environmental Justice in Acjachemen and Tongva Homelands
- 2017 Let’s Talk EJ #1: A Snapshot of Environmental Justice in Orange County – a collaborative event
- 2017 Native Nations and Environmental Justice sessions on Water Equity – during 2017 H2O Conference
- 2017 Standing Rock Is Everywhere – a New Narratives event
- 2016 World Indigenous Law Conference
- 2015 Environmental Justice in Indian Country – Roundtable at UC Irvine Law
- 2015 Chamyúuy~wóoyilash: Where We Bow Our Heads Out of Respect — See Photos
- 2013 Southern California Tribal Water Forum — See Photos
- 2012 Southern California Tribal Listening and Strategy Session on Environmental Issues
Indigenous community engagement on environmental issues continues through multiple UCI departments, faculty-led school-based centers, and student centers such as the Sustainability Resource Center. Contact us to get connected with campus units leading current efforts.