The future of their culture and environment depends on young Ashaninka Environmental Stewards like these two. (Photo by Mary Marshall) This post first appeared on National Geographic’s Explorer’s Journal. By Jon Waterhouse On each expedition on The Healing Journey, Jon Waterhouse uses canoes to travel along rivers, recording traditional knowledge from local people, and detailed scientific [Full Story] →
Editor’s note: Ecotrust does not currently engage in work related to aquaculture, but we recognize that there is valuable dialogue to be held around this topic. As always, we welcome discussion in the comment section below. By Mark J. Spalding Earlier this year, headlines trumpeted the fact that 2013 is the year that more than [Full Story] →
By Sarah Pope Lets play the guessing game! If I were to tell you there was a state that had passed legislation establishing a carbon sequestration program granting statutory authority for a state agency to verify carbon sequestration practices over ten years ago, a state that then created an internationally recognized verification system, had over 50,000 [Full Story] →
What are fishermen catching in the Solomon Islands? The government wants to know, to better manage the archipelago’s fisheries. Our Marine Consulting Initiatives (MCI) team recently linked up with the Solomon Islands government and the Coral Triangle Initiative to develop a new mobile app that will allow improve the ability for surveyors in fish markets [Full Story] →
Farm to School typically brings to mind fruits and vegetables — a bowl of bright red apples, or a salad bar station. But for Tom and Sue Hunton, owners of Hunton’s Farm and Camas Country Mill, located southwest of Junction City, Farm to School means freshly baked rolls, springy pizza dough, and supple tortillas, all [Full Story] →
Editor’s Note: Oil and gas development proposals are rampant across British Columbia, punctuated by Enbridge, Inc.’s plan to build a pipeline across the province, to carry bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands to the Pacific. In an excerpt from a piece that appeared March 17 in the Toronto Star, former Ecotrust leader Ian Gill looks at why Canadians and, especially B.C. First Nations groups, are saying: no way. And in the extended piece, he suggests that indigenous people lead the revisioning of economic development for this century. By Ian Gill One week before Christmas, 2012, the B.C. government announced a permanent [Full Story] →
As the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio decided the White House race this fall, another drama — perhaps of greater long-term importance — was playing out on the ground on election day, well below the national media radar. Communities in those two states, joining a growing number across the country, cast a vote for self-determination, by passing local laws that establish inalienable rights of nature and the community, and ban dangerous practices such as hydraulic fracturing for shale gas. It’s part of a growing nationwide movement, inspired and encouraged by a little-known, forward-thinking Pennsylvania-based group called the Community Environmental [Full Story] →
Imagine the essential transformations necessary to live well in the years ahead — the progress we must make toward healthy, local and diverse sources of food, water and energy, meaningful jobs, lively cities, and functioning ecosystems. The goal is enormous, but the steps are clear. We must start by asking: Is there a way to encourage an ethical, social movement in these directions and make money at the same time? Might there be a more natural model of development that generates competitive financial returns to workers and investors while actually improving social and environmental conditions? How do we find financial [Full Story] →
In this world of broken economies, broken climates, and broken institutions, it’s an opportune time to ask: what if native people were in charge? On Haida Gwaii (the Islands of the People) off northern British Columbia, an area one-third the size of BC’s lengthy Vancouver Island, native Haida are back in charge. They don’t just oversee a pittance of a government-defined reservation. They own and co-manage the whole place, as a matter of sovereignty and inherent rights, part of a series of hard-won stands, court cases, alliances, negotiations and the occasional reconciliation agreement over the last two decades with the [Full Story] →
It would be perfectly alright for Landry Ndriko Mayigane to celebrate normalcy. He could clock in and out at his government job monitoring diseases and expansion in the Rwandan poultry industry. He could sit back and marvel at how Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, his home, is becoming liveable — expanding and cleaning up, as President Paul Kagame aggressively pushes modernization. He could find a wife and settle down. And given his country’s past, that would be enough. Instead, Mayigane, 31, is in constant motion. A trilingual veterinary doctor whose passport is thick with stamps, he has ambitions to be [Full Story] →
