In 2025, GAIA Turns 25!

Dearest GAIA members, friends, and supporters,

I grew up in Los Angeles, California. As I have watched the news of the wildfires over the last week, I’ve reflected over and over again on the challenges we face and the pressing need for climate action. I am grateful that my parent’s home is about 20 miles away from the evacuation zone, but not everyone I know has been so lucky, and the stories of disabled elders who were not able to make it out in time have broken my heart.

As we enter our 25th year at GAIA, I want to recognize that these are not easy times, and yet I feel deeply grateful to be part of our network as we turn toward the future. 

Next week, my country is preparing to welcome a new President into office who will most certainly seek to undermine many, if not most, of the environmental and justice protections that movements have fought for and won. In the face of this reality, I remember that GAIA members in other countries have already learned how to stay resilient and organized in the face of government attacks. From the Philippines to India to Belarus to Nicaragua, GAIA’s members are working against great odds to stop climate polluting incinerators and landfills, and are demonstrating the success of zero waste solutions every day. 

Our collective victories are many, and the relationships we form are strong enough to withstand firestorms, hurricanes, and changes in government. I’m heartened to know that we are not alone–in fact, I gain strength every day from the deep relationships that I’ve built through GAIA. 

We can and we will learn from each other, and when national governments fail us, GAIA members will show us what is possible through community action. We are investing as a network in strategies for community care and solidarity, and when a crisis threatens the organizing that our members are doing, we can and we will come together to provide each other with support.

In our last fiscal year GAIA’s US organization redistributed over 40% of our budget to grassroots members and partners from around the world. We are on track to repeat those numbers this year. Our members do a lot with this support. For example, just last month we celebrated the closure of California’s last municipal solid waste incinerator with our member Valley Improvement Projects (VIP). This grassroots environmental justice organization has inspired me since I first became International Coordinator of the GAIA network, when I was lucky enough to meet and learn from the late Emiliano Amor Mataka, a founding member of VIP. He and Bianca Lopez and so many other community members have won a victory for us all, and now they are advocating for a community-led zero waste plan for the county where they live.  

I have seen the power of GAIA’s members in action, and their clarity of vision inspires me. I will never forget a meeting that I had last year with leaders of the Latin American wastepicker movement, the Red LACRE, to discuss our shared vision for the plastic treaty negotiations. The cooperatives and worker unions that form part of their regional labor network earn money from plastic recycling, and yet they are calling for less plastic, as they see how its pollution harms human health and the environment, and how petrochemical corporations prey on economic inequality. They are some of our strongest allies in the fight for zero waste solutions and radically transformative systems, and their advocacy for just transition policies in the shift away from unrecyclable and single-use plastics is an agenda we can all get behind.

GAIA members are changing people’s lives for the better, and reaching across the many borders that aim to divide us. Our members share their skills and their knowledge with each other with great generosity, and the benefits are enormous. The Mother Earth Foundation (MEF) in the Philippines, for example, has hosted annual zero waste academies for advocates from across Asia and around the world. In 2023 they organized an exchange with GAIA members from Detroit after their incinerator was closed down. In 2024 the Green Africa Youth Organization won the Earthshot Prize in recognition of the composting and clean air programs that they set up in Accra based on what they learned from MEF in Manila. It is a beautiful thing to see solidarity in action every day, and GAIA is a community where that spirit flourishes.

None of this changes the fact that these are challenging times. But together we will be stronger, and with your support we will continue to show what is possible, and we will organize to win! I invite you to stand with us by signing up as a monthly sustainer and help us reach our goal of 250 new sustainers for our 25th anniversary! 

Thank you for being part of the GAIA community. As we celebrate our 25th anniversary year, the thing that I most want to say is that I am grateful to be here with you.

For justice,

Christie Keith

International Coordinator, GAIA