Natural Curiosity: Connecting Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Education

In a world where the past is often seen as distant from the present, cities are disconnected from nature, and Western society is contrasted with Indigenous ways of life, Natural Curiosity is shaping a new approach to environmental education.

True to its name, Natural Curiosity harnesses children’s innate curiosity and channels it toward understanding the deep connections between the natural world and Indigenous perspectives, namely their knowledge of land and water that comes from their ongoing relationship to the land. Natural Curiosity is transforming how educators integrate environmental and Indigenous education in the classroom, ensuring that learning is rooted not only in scientific principles, but also in cultural perspectives and lived experiences.

Rising Tides, Rising Voices: WALHI’s Support to Communities Protecting the Islands

In Jakarta, there is an area called the Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) Archipelago, which consists of 110 small islands, each with an area of no more than 60 square hectares. This area has an essential ecosystem that includes seagrass beds, coral reefs, and mangroves, all of which host rich biodiversity. The local community maintains this ecosystem and often uses the shallow waters around the islands to catch fish, search for shellfish, and cultivate seaweed. Meanwhile, the land on the islands is used to grow food crops such as vegetables and fruits. This is done in an effort to provide a substitute for food that was previously supplied from outside the islands.

Presenting "Stories of Action": The Uru Uru Team

Last year, 175 organizations participated in the applicant pool of our first-ever global open call, leading to the selection of 24 finalists, of which 4 received grants. You can read more about that process here.

We were moved by the compelling and varied initiatives of activists and practitioners taking action for climate justice and resilience around the globe. Discovering the transformative work of these organizations across diverse contexts has been an inspiring journey, and we are eager to share their stories with our network.

That’s why we’re thrilled to launch “Stories of Action”—a series where, every Tuesday over the next few months, we’ll feature one of the open call finalists on our social media platforms. This initiative seeks to amplify impactful climate justice efforts and inspire organizations, practitioners, and funders within our community.

CJRF’s 2024 Open Call: Four Lessons from Our First Participatory Grantmaking Experience

In late 2023, CJRF’s Advisory Board approved an 18-month strategy to deploy up to US$4M in funding by experimenting with different participatory grantmaking methods. As a funder who has made grants via traditional philanthropic methods and structures in the past, CJRF is now investing in a period of exploration and learning via a series of participatory grantmaking pilots.

In April 2024, CJRF launched the first in this series of pilots – a global open call for proposals, for which 175 grant applicants from 49 countries collectively decided which proposals won grants. Facilitating such a large participatory process took until November, and it posed many challenges for CJRF. Through it all, we held close a spirit of ‘learning by doing.’ We gathered feedback and took notes, both to inform our future work and to share with other funders. This blog briefly describes the participatory grantmaking pilot, then shares four initial lessons we took from the process.

Announcing CJRF’s First-Ever Global Open Call Grant Recipients!

The Climate Justice Resilience Fund is pleased to announce the four grant recipients from our recent global open call: Mainyoito Pastoralists Integrated Development Organization (MPIDO), Centrum Inisiatif Rakyat Mandiri (CIRMA), Samprity Aid Foundation, and Development of Educational Action Network (DEAN). Each organization will receive a multi-year, flexible $200,000 USD grant under the proposal theme of “Building connections, networks, and collaborative spaces for climate justice and resilience.”

Key Lessons from CJRF’s Grant Portfolio on Climate Mobilities

We are excited to announce the release of the Effective Support for Communities Experiencing Climate Mobilities: Lessons from the CJRF Grant Portfolio (2017–2024) report, created in collaboration with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS). This report highlights key lessons from 11 grants implemented across Alaska, Bangladesh, and the Pacific, focusing on community-driven solutions to the challenges of climate mobility.

Empowering Communities in the Arctic: A Visit to Arctic Bay’s Indigenous Stewardship Program

Since 2018, CJRF has supported guardians in the Arctic through Makeway, which hosts the Northern Indigenous Stewardship Circle, a network of communities with guardian programs across the Canadian North. In October 2023, I visited the Inuit community of Arctic Bay and spent time with the local guardian crew. My visit revealed the remarkable ways in which this program is not just a response to climate change, but also a beacon of hope and resilience.