Leona Humchitt is employed as a Climate Action Coordinator for the Haiłzaqv nation of Bella Bella, British Columbia.
She credits her journey and capacity building for Clean Energy to the Indigenous Clean Energy Leadership program – the 20/20 Catalyst Program, an intensive clean energy capacity building program that provides practical and applied learning of renewable energy, community energy planning, energy efficiency and conservation. Leona now serves a member of the ICE Advisory Committee.
She is working currently working locally and regionally with a peer network of Climate Action Coordinators that has representation of eight participating Coastal First Nations of B.C. They support each other and collaborate on efforts to decarbonize our coast, to transition off diesel generation and reduce transportation of fossil fuels through their ecologically and culturally significant territories.
Nationally, the Haiłzaqv nation is one of fifteen remote and rural First Nations communities participating in the Indigenous Off-Diesel Initiative. The Haiłzaqv nation has completed their “community-led” Community Energy Plan and currently working on Project design and partial implementation of a portion of their CEP.
She also serves on the Province’s Remote Community Energy Strategy Working Group and on the Federal Government’s newly established Indigenous Council.
Leona says that being a grandmother “is a whole new level of love”. With six grandchildren, she believes today’s heart work in climate action is much more meaningful and important. We have a responsibility to ensure that through climate action, we protect and preserve our collective future for our children yet to come.
