National Bioneers Conference 2018 - October 18-22, 2018

The first “rights of nature” law was enacted in a Pennsylvania community in 2006, followed two years later by Ecuador’s enshrinement of that principle in its constitution, the first country to do so. This is the ten-year anniversary of that historic event. Come learn how Indigenous people, communities, countries, and courts have continued the struggle to secure the highest legal protections for nature and how you can become part of this growing movement. With Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a leading figure in the global movement to enshrine Rights of Nature in jurisprudence; and Bill Twist, co-founder and CEO of the Pachamama Alliance. 

We’re in the midst of a sea change in how we use the law and legal strategies to stand up for the rights of nature and human communities. Bold innovative approaches are managing to simultaneously create and ride a wave of progressive action. Courageous attorneys are mounting legal challenges against the U.S. government on behalf of young people. Municipalities, counties and states are filing suits against fossil fuel companies. Stalwart legal advocacy organizations continue their missions of defending communities and natural systems whose voices would otherwise go unheard. Hosted by Jason Mark, Editor of Sierra Magazine. With: Kate Sears, Marin County Supervisor; Abigail Dillen, Vice President of Litigation for Climate and Energy at Earthjustice; Coreal Riday-White, J.D., Community Engagement Manager for Our Children’s Trust.

In the face of an increasingly unstable climate and the continued collapse of global agricultural biodiversity, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) has engaged in a project involving mixing and planting together over 2,000 varieties of bread-wheat from all over the world in a process called “Evolutionary Plant Breeding.” The goals of this ambitious project are to: create unique, place-adapted, resilient mixtures of our most important food crops; increase agricultural biodiversity; put seed-breeding back into the hands of farmers and gardeners; and generate a seed supply that can thrive in a changing climate. With: Mark Schapiro, investigative environmental journalist, lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, author of Seeds of Resistance; Cooper Freeman, OAEC’s Program Manager; Leonard Diggs, Manager of SRJC Shone Farm, a 365-acre self-sustaining college farm. Hosted by Arty Mangan, Director of Bioneers’ Restorative Food Systems Program.

Technology shapes how we live and how we understand ourselves as humans, but who is holding the reins? Some leading tech-savvy activists wrestle with how technology and the tech sector are radically re-shaping the distribution of power and life on our planet. They’ll explore strategies and structural and cultural interventions we can use to try to leverage and hold accountable the power of technology, so it can actually serve the common good. Hosted by Lindley Mease co-founder/Co-Director of Blue Heart, which organizes tech millennial donors to give to frontline organizations. With:  Malkia A. Cyril. founder/Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, co-founder, Media Action Grassroots Network; Gopal Dayaneni, longtime activist, currently on the boards of the ETC Group, The Ruckus Society and the Center for Story-based Strategy.

In a world so divided and intensely polarized, how can we restore balance between the feminine and masculine energies within each of us and in our society? How can we return to wholeness and give full expression to our innate potential, in service to humanity and the whole web of life? Visionary women leaders from East and West share their insights and experiences in an interactive panel that will include meditation, sound and other sacred practices. With: Yuka Saionji Matsuura, a representative of the Goi Peace Foundation;  Lynne Twist, co-founder of Pachamama Alliance.   

What will it take for all of humanity to become engaged in creating a just and sustainable world? The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Game takes us on an experiential journey into such a future. The game has gone viral in Japan and demand to bring it all over the world is rising; now you can experience this phenomenon firsthand.  

Designed in Japan in 2016 to ground the UN's seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into personal experience, this multi-player, in-person, card-based game event has become a powerful social impact movement in Japan, earning extensive media coverage and reaching over 12,000 participants last year. 2030 SDGs Game events are now held in corporate, government, educational, and community settings, and have over 150 trained facilitators in a rapidly growing community within Japan. Emerging from the momentum around this game experience in Japan is a vibrant community of committed "players": people engaged in a larger game of creating a peaceful, prosperous world where humanity and the natural world can truly thrive together.

Participants report finishing the game feeling inspired, connected, and ready to take action on the big issues of our world. The game and the facilitated dialogue afterwards are designed not to academically study the SDGs themselves, but rather to bestow a felt experience of why the SDGs are so vital to humanity and what possibilities they bring to our future.  

The 2030 SDGs Game is making its U.S. public debut at Bioneers. This is your opportunity to experience the game, meet the creators and the support team for Europe and the Americas, and discover how to offer this engaging experience to your institutions and communities.

 https://2030sdgsgame.com

Facilitators:
Skip Swanson is an entrepreneur, leadership trainer, cross-cultural facilitator, transformational coach, and English-Japanese interpreter dedicated to raising the consciousness of humanity. He is Director of the WakuPro Foundation, a private Japanese philanthropic organization training the next generation of world leaders. 

Takeo Inamura and Takeshi Muranaka are the co-founders of Imacocollabo Inc., developer of the 2030 SDGs Game. Their work in leadership training and training of game facilitators encompasses government, corporate, nonprofit, educational, and community organizations. Their commitment is to let the 2030 SDGs Game inspire humanity to create a real-world version of what game players experience.