(adapted from the Shadbush Collective)

Our Work

We work to confront the root causes of ecological destruction, climate change and oppression. We are committed to building community-based, radically sustainable solutions that foster local autonomy and self-sufficiency in Grand Rapids, Michigan and its bioregion.

 

Our Principles

We utilize practices and forms of organization that are anti-authoritarian, horizontal, self-organizing, decentralized, and directly participatory.

 

Toward Environmental Justice

We acknowledge and seek to expose the intersection between oppressions of humans and the destruction of the earth. Environmental hazards and disasters and the ways in which people respond to them often reveal and reinforce the injustices inherent in an oppressive society. We must respond to these disasters in ways that do not reinforce and further oppression including respecting peoples’ livelihoods and ensuring a just transition for workers.

 

Toward Radical Sustainability

We believe that as a matter of survival we must build and evolve physical and social infrastructures that meet our needs in ways that are deeply ecological, community-controlled, locally integrated, and autonomous from oppressive, centralized institutions. We support and actively participate in this work of radical sustainability.

 

Against False Solutions, Against Green Capitalism

We believe that the ecological crisis cannot be addressed without fundamental changes to present-day economic and technological infrastructure. We resist and reject band-aid solutions that serve only to put a green face on the destructive systems driving these crises in the first place.

 

In Defense of Ecological Integrity

We acknowledge that all living things and their environments have inherent value in and of themselves, regardless of their instrumental value to humans, and that human and ecological health are inextricably bound together. We oppose the disturbance of further wilderness and work to stabilize damaged ecosystems. We consider political boundaries and borders irrelevant when defining healthy ecosystems and bioregions.

We work to build solutions that are ecologically regenerative and that extend ecological health into the indefinite future.

 

Strategy and Tactics

We seek to act for environmental justice and radical sustainability in ways that maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights. We believe that the struggle must occur on multiple fronts and employ a diversity of tactics consistent with these values and our points of unity. We recognize that grassroots organizing, direct action, education, logistical and emotional support are all essential and complimentary pieces of social movement towards change, we support individuals’ choices in determining their own best path of involvement, and we value all work towards our shared goals.

 

Solidarity

We acknowledge the devastating social and economic impacts of ecological disasters and resource extraction on our local communities, and are deeply concerned with environmental racism and classism. We seek to work in solidarity with and follow the leadership of impacted communities to confront not only ecological destruction, but also all forms of social and economic oppression. We recognize the important role both rural and urban communities play in our bioregion, and the tensions that can arise between those communities based on resource use, resource extraction, and cultural differences. Instead of letting these tensions divide us, we seek to bring people together around the power of our collective need for healthy, sustainable ecosystems.