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Earlier this month, Earth Island filed an amended complaint in its landmark lawsuit against several major consumer goods companies, including giants like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé USA, Inc. (now BlueTriton Brands), alleging their packaging is contributing to the plastic pollution crisis and that the companies are using unfair and deceptive business practices to promote their products and recycling capabilities. The complaint, filed in a California Superior Court, includes additional facts and data to support the public nuisance claim against the companies and adds a new claim under California’s unfair competition law, which prohibits any unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business act or practice. Learn more here.

Join Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) for Ripple Week 2023 — an annual series of free virtual events, designed to inspire, mobilize, and amplify critical grassroots solutions. This year’s theme is “Abundance: We Are What We Need,” which celebrates the ways that our communities and the Earth exist in reciprocity and in deep relationship with one another. Speakers include: Lyla June, an Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne), and European lineages; Jamila Norman, an urban farmer, activist, and host of Homegrown, on HBO Max and the Magnolia Network; and leaders from Fondo Semillias — the first feminist fund in Mexico — which mobilizes resources for grassroots women-led efforts.

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In celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day, Seeding Sovereignty was honored to co-organize “Women in Defense of Earth: From Brazil to Wet’suwet’en Territory.” Together they hosted an evening of films, including Warrior Women, L'eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life): From Standing Rock to the Swamp, Invasion, Berta Didn’t Die, She Multiplied and Yaku Raymi, and held a conversation with a panel of frontline Earth defenders. Incredible testimonials and calls to action were shared by Indigenous and Black matriarchs from the Amazon in Brazil and the Wet'suwet'en lands in Canada, to North Dakota, Louisiana, and Honduras highlighting the truth of colonization, ongoing capitalist extraction and the collective fight to protect our planet.

How might we intentionally illuminate narratives that serve collective thriving, through the stories we share? This fall, Earth Island’s Food Culture Collective, in collaboration with HEAL Food Alliance, is releasing Radical Nourishment, a podcast rooted in the foodshed communities around the US that are reclaiming sovereignty and self-determination. The launch of the podcast follows other food efforts in September, in the conclusion of Hunger Action Month. Earth Island’s Food Shift, which collaborates weekly with its partner, Whole Foods Market, to recover surplus food for local community nonprofits, held a “Stuff the Van” event on Sept. 30, loading up three vehicles with around 3,000 pounds of fresh produce and pantry goods. It redistributed the food to its Operation Together partners, who maintain community fridges, provide hot meals, and supply produce to free farmers markets in their East Bay neighborhoods.

Last month, Wild Oyster Project donated 3,200 lbs of recycled oyster shells to support the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. It received help from the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This project aims to boost populations of the western snowy plover, a federally threatened species. These adorable birds prefer nesting in areas with ample oyster shell substrate, which provide the perfect camouflage for eggs and chicks while protecting them from blowing sand. Meanwhile, Shark Stewards has been selected as the No. 2 shark conservation organization by Impactful Charities. It is currently campaigning against a Florida sports-fishing bill that would justify the needless killing of sharks and is providing data and comments to justify better science and catch data collection that will protect sharks, especially the endangered mako shark population in the Northwest Atlantic. At the same time, Earth Island’s International Marine Mammal Project is launching a new effort to retire North America's only remaining captive orcas from SeaWorld and move them to seaside sanctuaries. For more information on how you can help go here.

Russia’s fossil-fuel export economy relies on expanding its international customer base and using those exports as geopolitical and economic weapons. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2014, and the full-scale invasion in 2022, the economic and political stakes have skyrocketed. Russia’s national and regional green movements have played a vital role in decision-making about pipeline routes and negotiations. Over the last decade, however, their activity has attracted increasingly harsh scrutiny from the Russian government, which has seen a growing number of organizations declared “undesirable” or “foreign agents.” The Russian government recently accused EII’s Altai Project of “sabotaging a gas pipeline.” Project director Jennifer Castner has co-authored an article exploring these issues.