The Municipal Eco Resiliency Project

 “The Municipal Eco-Resiliency Project, aka MERP, is a community project in Portland, Oregon. MERP is about organizing an anti-capitalist urban farm movement for systemic change with mass participation and chapters. 

The mission of MERP is to build a local network for communal food production and distribution using sustainable methods, in order to address inequalities in access, facilitate people becoming agents of their own sustenance, and build a material base upon which we can exercise autonomy. We aim to build community power for food sovereignty to sustain ourselves in the face of capitalism and climate change. As a collective, we engage in workshops and study groups to learn about different aspects of agro-ecology, as well as political movements. It is particularly important for us to study indigenous perspectives on our relationship to land, politics and the environment.”

Both mission statements have not been fully endorsed but participants are forming a mission statement and this is where we are at. Both of these should give us an idea what MERP is and hopefully more. We welcome all who believe in being an open-minded neighbor from the colonially occupied metro area of so-called Portland, Oregon and beyond. We wish to organize MERP for another world to be possible, one where many worlds fit. We believe with the support from the people; for the people, we can start building a movement that is in connection with the land. Connecting to the land as a community means learning from the land and caring for the land, while working with it in order to bring sustenance to our community. We aim for food justice, while remembering that ultimately true justice on this continent requires mass land return to the indigenous peoples it was stolen from. 

Your participation and financial contributions will help the community achieve so much with MERP as we work to the following plans: 

(Note: Collective goals aren't immediately identified for our nine plans. Help MERP network, meet, learn and organize as neighbors to achieve these nine plans!) 

1) Build a food justice coalition with community organizations and neighbors.

2) Educate ourselves and others in our city on how to grow food and how to care for this land.

3) Engage in ongoing political education to help us analyze the current moment, historically contextualize our actions, and build a strong anti-capitalist movement.

4) Grow food for the movement through collective work.

5) Reclaim land and lawn space for urban food sovereignty in PDX.

6) Make Portland food sovereign in ten or so years, using sustainable agricultural practices and following leadership from colonized/BIPOC communities. 

7) Contribute resources to the people's climate justice movements and others, reinforcing a culture of resource sharing among aligned organizations and among neighbors.

8) Develop community-controlled infrastructure essential to survive and resilience in the face of climate change, capable of self-sufficiently meeting needs beyond just food.

9) Help make these plans possible by building a base of operations in Portland, Oregon.

Link to learn more: https://linktr.ee/merppdx
Solution Area:
Adaptation & Resilience
Buildings
Climate Justice
Education
Electrification
Finance & Economy
Food & Agriculture
Forests
Governance & Leadership
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
Land Use & Restoration
Mental Health & Mindfulness
Public Health
Renewable Energy
Storytelling & Art
Transportation
Tribal & Indigenous
Waste Prevention
Youth
Listing created Jun 14, 2022