incubator for the future
Many of these were profiled in Kim Stanley Robinson's 2020 novel, The Ministry for the Future. We are pleased to have helped launch, sponsor, or be otherwise associated with many of these.
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Global Village is an Incubator for The Future
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, GVI was a founding member of the Catfish Alliance and the Cumberland Green Bioregional Council. Working with Peter Berg, Judy Goldhaft, Kirkpatrick Sale, Gary Snyder and others, we co-sponsored the creation of the North American Bioregional Congress in 1984. In 1996, while serving as the Secretariat office for the Global Ecovillage Network in the Americas, we joined with the Consejo de Visiones to sponsor the first Hemispheric Bioregional Convergence at Mecztitla, Cuahunahuac Mexico. In 2003 we brought together GEN board, the Bioregional Congress and 700 ecovillagers and permaculturists for The Call of the Condor in the Sacred Valley of Peru, In 2005, we convened the North American Bioregional Congress in an ecovillage for the first time, at Earthaven in Katuah region. We then brought the gathering to our home at The Farm in 2009.
By spreading these community-led and place-sensitive solutions from place to place, rather than scaling them up into so-often unsustainable mega-projects, we can reach regenerative impact at a global scale through spreading of patterns of regeneration rather than scaling one-size fits all silver bullet solutions.
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The concept of planetary health as an integrative platform for transdiciplinary collaboration is gaining more and more attention in recent years. The introduction of the planetary boundaries framework by Johann Rockström, Will Steffen and colleagues took us into the kind of thinking that was needed for people to understand the complexity of planetary health. Their now emblematic graphic of the boundaries has been skillfully expanded into the socio-economic realm by Kate Raworth’s wonderful doughnut economics.
The work of the ecologist film-maker John Dennis Liu documents inspiring large scale ecosystem restoration around the globe. The regeneration of hundreds of square kilometers of the Chinese Loess Plateau is only one example. The Ecosystems Restoration Camps Cooperative and Foundation has gone from a pilot project in Southern Spain to hundreds of camps and communities around the world.
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With the examples of the Water Protectors, Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and the youth of the world willing to stand up and speak for our future, hundreds and thousands of efforts around the planet have become a force for planetary healing. We are grateful for the small role Global Village Institute has played in this history and in the opportunities we now have for a better future.
As a global culture, we create social norms that permit us to sustain healthy economies and ecologies into the turbulent climate future we cannot now avoid. Our new culture must be based on peace, because our weapons have become so fearsome they threaten even those who use them. Our new culture must be based on fairness and justice, because without those there can never be peace. Our new culture must in all possible ways heal the damage we have done in the past, because without that, we will not survive.
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All over the world there are small-, medium- and large-scale ecosystems restoration and regenerative development projects to learn from and the field is growing rapidly. Here is an interactive map being developed the Buckminster Fuller Institute's Dymaxion Forum:
Pocket Project
The Power of Collective Restoration
In a world consumed in conflict, the Pocket Project brings a profound paradigm shift by exploring, innovating, and advancing collective healing. There is a natural tendency in both individual and tribal identities that bends towards healing. With the trauma-informed expertise of heightened attunement and the safety of a well-held, coherent space, we can restore ruptured relations. Individual healing is inseparable from collective healing. Both are necessary to address the great challenges of our times.
The Pocket Project is a non-profit organization based in Germany, sponsored by Global Village in the USA with full tax-deductibility for donations and grants, that is dedicated to growing a global culture of trauma-informed care. We develop training, consulting and social impact projects that contribute to a global restoration movement.
Gaza and the West Bank
The horrors of October 7 and the events that preceded it were eclipsed by the horrors of the Gaza campaign. Two paths lie ahead. Only one of them brings peace and a safer world.
The Green Road
Help settle Ukrainian refugees into ecovillages and permaculture farms. You can donate to the Green Road by going to http://PayPal.me/greenroad2022 You can listen to this NPR Podcast and read these recent articles in Mother Jones and The World.
International Labs
We have hosted labs in 67 countries (including over 100 group sessions in Ukraine since 2022) using an evidence-based approach that seeks a virtuous cycle of learning and improvements..