Introducing our Community Engagement team!

Welcome Ana and Stephen!

Community is at the root of all of Iron & Earth initiatives and while these past couple of years have made it extremely difficult to build relationships in person, we continue to strive towards this goal by bringing in a couple of key people to our team who will help us build a foundation to grow our chapters across the country. It is with great pleasure that we introduce Ana Guerra Marin as our new National Chapter Director and Stephen Buhler as our new Community Engagement Officer!

Ana has spent the last 15 years helping communities achieve self-determination through social and environmental justice in Latin America and Canada. She is a geological engineer with an M.A. in social justice who aims to create transformative change by focusing on human rights while deconstructing structural issues as root causes of violence with a strong environmental component. She offers her knowledge and expertise to the organization as well as to all of its constituents.

 Ana, our National Chapter Director

Stephen has been working in the oil and gas industry as a journeyman machinist for the past 13 years. Always keenly aware that a transition to a net-zero economy was going to be required, he wanted a trade that would give him skills to work on infrastructure both in oil and gas, and renewables. After feeling that a transition to low-carbon energy was not happening with the urgency required, he got involved with grassroots climate organizations in Edmonton, where he used his experience as an oil and gas worker to help build connections between the work of young climate activists and fossil fuel workers. Now he is bringing the energy and passion from his experiences with youth climate organizers to help his fellow fossil fuel workers advocate for the support and investments needed to transition to a low-carbon future.

Stephen, our Community Engagement Officer

Everybody at Iron and Earth is really looking forward to how both Ana and Stephen’s journey compliments our own and we will keep updating you all on how our organization continues to grow and develop this year.

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Iron & Earth was founded and operates on Indigenous land within Treaty Six Territory and Métis Region 4 in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (in Nehiyawewin/Cree), so-called Edmonton. The home of many Indigenous Peoples including the Nehiyawak/Cree, Tsuut’ina, Niitsitapi/Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, Haudenosaunee/Iroquois, Dene Suliné, Anishinaabe/Ojibway/Saulteaux, and the Inuk/Inuit.

We pay our respects to all Indigenous Peoples of this land. Through their spiritual and practical relationships with the land, a rich heritage for our learning and our life as a community has been created and maintained. We recognize that the transition to a low-carbon future must be led by Indigenous Peoples and that there will be no justice unless we acknowledge and repair our relationship with the land.

We are committed to responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action and upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and acknowledge that we are always learning and unlearning practices that minimize harm and lead to the development of trust between us and Indigenous Peoples across Nations and urban centers.