Annual Theme

The Oak Institute’s 2025-2026 theme is Environment and Living Rights. Protecting life inextricably binds human, animal, plant, water, and land lives together within fragile ecosystems. While human-centered environmental activism insists that we all depend upon, and should have the right to, a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment–we might further ask: what rights do waterways hold? What of mountains? The animals on whom the human species depend for labor, sustenance, and companionship? It is undeniable that the settler and capitalistic structures that have become increasingly global are causing harm: from warming waters and melting glaciers to the increasing frequency of catastrophic climate events, all life forms are suffering. For instance, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) predicts that by 2050 the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis will internally and externally displace millions of living beings. The living rights implications of climate change are staggering.