WASHINGTON (Feb. 23, 2022) — The 15 grant winners of the EJ4Climate program inaugural year, including five from the U.S., were announced this week by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).  Announced by President Biden at the 2021 Climate Summit, EJ4Climate funds grants for underserved and overburdened communities, and Indigenous communities, in Canada, Mexico, and the United States to prepare for climate-related impacts.

The five U.S. winners are:

• Native Village of Eyak (Alaska) - using the grant to develop sustainable mariculture in Prince William Sound to address the decline of traditional food sources.
• Common Ground Relief (Louisiana) - addressing coastal flooding through marsh restoration at Grand Bayou Indian Village, including the planting of 3,000 plugs of smooth cordgrass.
• Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition (Maryland) - building community awareness and taking shared action on climate resilience by employing local youth in planting a new generation of Witness Trees to address increased flooding and shoreline erosion. 
• Upper Gila Watershed Alliance (New Mexico) - combining elementary school-based food resilience labs with emerging soil restoration technologies to combat risks from climate-related fire, drought, and extreme heat.  
• Conservation Trust for North Carolina (North Carolina) - focusing on “seeding resilience” by converting vacant town-owned parcels to green infrastructure and community gardens and employing local youth to build a recreational trail adjacent to the Tar River.

“I’m proud to join my Canadian and Mexican counterparts in congratulating the selections for the first CEC grants for community-based action to protect against the impacts of climate change in our most vulnerable communities,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for International and Tribal Affairs Jane Nishida. “The EJ4Climate grant program supports President Biden’s objective to address environmental justice and foster climate resilience through the CEC.”

EPA congratulates these winning grant applications, which will be building resilience and adapting to climate change in some of the most vulnerable and underserved communities in the United States. 

This year’s $2 million USD in grants are funded by EPA and the CEC and provide funding directly to North American community-based organizations to help them develop community-driven solutions to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The CEC Secretariat received a total of 366 proposals, with 170 from the U.S., 57 from Canada and 139 from Mexico.  Non-profit and non-governmental organizations, environmental groups, community-based associations, Tribal nations, and Indigenous Peoples and communities were eligible to submit proposals.  Five winning proposals were selected from each member nation. 

For more information on the winning proposals Environmental Justice and Climate Resilience Grant Program go to http://www.cec.org/EJ4climate/.