November 12-13, 2026
Online at 8:30am – 12:00pm Pacific Time Zone
Theme: “All Our Relations”
Hosts: Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT) & Washington State University (WSU)
Sponsors: Yale University's Forum on Religion and Ecology; Sierra Club; Columbia Institute
Free and open to the international public
Learn more here.
The 12th and final OREM is an international gathering of Indigenous and faith leaders, scholars and environmental ethicists, and policy-makers and scientists. We face daunting climate change impacts on natural resources even as local communities adjust to changes in national policies.
After the USA mid-term elections, we’ll meet and determine:
- How do we do real work in challenging times?
- What is demanded of us, working together?
- What is our path forward to protecting and restoring the earth that makes all life possible?
Beginning in 2014, the OREM conference series has facilitated an international “ethics consultation” for the critically ill Columbia River. OREM addresses the multi-generational trauma and impacts of the dam-building era on human and nonhuman life. Our focus is on Indigenous Tribes and First Nations, including individual and communal trauma, flooded sacred lands, and the loss of, and threat to the Tribes’ First Foods.
OREM-12 is entirely online (zoom), scheduled for two successive mornings (Pacific Time Zone), and will be recorded. We encourage participation from the international community in this post-election river ethics conference. OREM 1-11 can be viewed at here.