WHO WE ARE
The Mineral Rights Action Network (MRAN) is a nationwide alliance of mineral rights owners organizing to redefine family legacy by directing resources and influence toward environmental protection, community well-being, and industry accountability. Our advocacy and resource redistribution is focused on efforts to transform systems of extraction into opportunities for healing, shared responsibility, and sustainability.
Legacy is important to us and our families.
We know that, as mineral rights owners, we have benefited from a legacy of harm: to the environment, to Indigenous communities, and to communities near oil and gas production. While oil companies want us to believe our legacy to our family is the wealth generated from royalties, we know we can instead choose to leave a legacy of a healthier environment and more sustainable future.
We dream of a future with clear air, clean water, healthy ecosystems, and connected communities
We know fossil fuels are endangering that dream. The long-term costs of fossil fuel dependence are becoming impossible to ignore, and the decisions made now will shape what's left for the next generation. We're here to make sure mineral rights owners are part of paving a path away from destruction and toward a sustainable, thriving future.
Mineral rights owners should feel empowered to make informed decisions that align with our values of responsible stewardship of the environment.
We want people to have conversations with their families and each other, to share information and find ways to take action including donating royalty income, researching our family’s mineral rights, and joining with other movements holding the fossil fuel industry accountable. We want to add our voices to the fight for a sustainable future through grassroots coalitions and powerful campaigns with Indigenous communities, environmental activists, and others.
©Landman for the Plant, 2024
Lauren Tatarsky (she/they)
Lauren is originally from Denver, CO where their grandfather started what would become a successful business as a landman. This business has been passed down to her parent's generation who now manage mineral rights across the Rocky Mountain region. As a queer, Ashkenazi Jew who began their activism journey while studying environmental politics in college, she firmly believes that taking accountability for her family's role in climate chaos is a way of honoring her grandfather's legacy while repairing harm and ensuring a livable future for generations to come. Lauren’s day job is in anti-oppressive healing work and she has been a long time organizer with Resource Generation.
Co-Coordinator, Founding Member
Megan Sullivan (she/her)
Megan inherited shares in the Farmer’s Royalty Company in OK through her great-grandfather. He was a farmer involved in founding the Farmer’s Union Cooperative Royalty Co. in 1928 (now Farmer’s Royalty Co). She has been passionate about climate justice since her teenage years and is grappling with honoring her family’s legacy while working to repair harm and redistribute money from royalties earned from these shares. She works as a graphic designer by day and is glad to volunteer her time to the Mineral Rights Action Network!
Graphic Designer, Founding Member
Engagement Team Lead, Founding MemberErin Butler (she/they)
Erin comes to this work through her other organizing work. Currently they are working on campaigns to create a peer respite (an alternative to carceral hospitalization for people in crisis) in Detroit, archive the lessons learned from abolitionist movements in Detroit, move antiracist white people towards radical action, read, write, and learn with people inside of prisons, and organize mineral rights owners for climate justice. Her grandfather bought mineral rights in Texas several years before she was born and her dad and his siblings inherited these mineral rights. Erin is curious about all the different strategies for mineral rights owners to act to get us closer to the vision of abolition!
Adam Roberts (he/him)
Adam is a writer, organizer, and resource mobilizer born and raised in Newport, RI. He has worked for the last decade helping wealthy people move resources to grassroots organizing in order to win elections and transform policy, at organizations such as Resource Generation, Way to Win, and most recently Movement Voter Project. Adam's ancestors were involved in the early petroleum industry here in the U.S., and his extended family owns mineral rights in a number of locations across the United States. He is committed to taking action with other mineral rights holders and future inheritors toward climate justice and a just transition away from fossil fuels. He lives in Boston, MA with his wife and children.
Advisor, Founding Member
Rebecca Blumenshine (she/her)
Rebecca lives in Minneapolis, MN where she works in the areas of financial planning and community finance. She inherited mineral rights from her grandmother who owned farmland in Kansas that included natural gas wells. Rebecca and her family care deeply about the environment and social justice. They are grappling with the questions of how to responsibly handle these mineral rights assets in light of their justice-oriented values. Rebecca appreciates connecting with other mineral rights owners grappling with similar questions.
Founding Member
Lead Educator, Founding MemberEliza Evans (she/her)
Eliza is a Brooklyn-based artist. Her conceptual and activist work monkeywrenches exploitative and extractive systems. Her work has been exhibited at the the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Bronx Museum, Missoula Art Museum, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville TN, and Thomas Erben Gallery. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, and Dissent Magazine. She is currently a member of NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator. Evans inherited mineral rights in Oklahoma which became the foundation for her project, All the Way to Hell. Evans has an MFA in Visual Arts from SUNY Purchase and a PhD in Economic Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a 2024 GristClimate Leader. Eliza is also the creator of Landman for the Planet.
Don McCown (he/him)
Don is a fifth-generation Texan who grew up in the Permian Basin and now lives in Virginia. Don’s family has owned mineral rights in Texas for nearly 100 years. Concerns about climate change, sustainability and environmental justice motivate his work to be a responsible steward and to organize for common cause with like-minded owners and communities.
Co-Coordinator, Collective Action Team LeadOur Origin Story
The Mineral Rights Action Network (MRAN) arose out of connection between members of Resource Generation and Landman for the Planet. While investigating our family-owned mineral rights, members of Resource Generation began gathering with others who shared the same concerns about our participation in the fossil fuel industry. This conversation led to a relationship with artist and activist Eliza Evans, creator of Landman for the Planet and All the Way to Hell. A partnership formed, which resulted in the design and founding of MRAN. We are grateful to be doing this work as a growing collective and we hope you will join us!