Environmental Action Fund

As part of our commitment to a sustainable association and a sustainable world, the Western Literature Association collects an optional Environmental Action Fund donation during registration to support one or more organizations based in each year’s conference region and working in support of environmental care and justice. We recognize that environmental action and the mitigation of ongoing harm necessitates balancing the interests of landscape, wildlife, and social justice, including especially Indigenous and other underrepresented communities. The Sustainability Committee recommends recipient organizations for final determination by the President(s).

Sustainability Committee

Consisting of at least three WLA members, the Sustainability Committee has two primary charges: (1) to recommend to the President(s) recipient organizations for the Environmental Action funds collected during each conference cycle; (2) to support the long-term environmental sustainability of the association through research and policy recommendations, to be advanced by the EC and approved by membership. Committee members volunteer and serve renewable, staggered 3-year terms. Committee members serve as chair of the committee in their third year of committee membership.

This committee is appointed by the Executive Council. One committee member has to be on the EC.

If you’re interested in serving on this committee or would like further information, please contact the chair.

The current committee:
Celina Osuna, University of Texas at El Paso, chair, cosuna3@utep.edu
Sylvan Goldberg, Colorado College
Brian Twenter, University of Central Oklahoma

History

In 2013, the WLA members present at the Business Meeting at the conference in Berkeley, California, voted to add to the conference registration page a voluntary carbon offset fee. This fee was collected for the first time in 2014 at the conference in Victoria. Until 2022, the money collected through these voluntary donations was sent either to Conservation International or to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Increasingly, our Executive Council felt that it would be more urgent to send the collected fees to organizations in the areas in which our conference meets. A Sustainability Committee was formed in 2023 to advise the EC on matters of our conference’s environmental impact and to propose recipient organizations for the Environmental Action Fund donations.

In 2023, for the first time, the contributions went to a local organization where the conference was held.

2023—Sho-Ban Fish&Game Department in Pocatello, ID
2024—Native Seeds/SEARCH, Tucson, AZ
2025—OKC Beautiful, Oklahoma City, OK