Conversations for a One Planet Region is a new small local NGO.
Our Vision is that the Greater Victoria Region achieves social and ecological sustainability, with a high quality of life and a long life in good health for all its citizens, while reducing its ecological footprint to be equivalent to one planet’s worth of biocapacity.
Our Mission is very simple: to establish and maintain community-wide conversations on One Planet living and a One Planet Region. Our Conversations are currently online via Zoom, free and open to you or your members, although you or they need to let me know if you want to attend so I can send the Zoom link.
Our first session this year - January 21st, 5 - 7 PM - is of particular relevance to you and your members:
A discussion of One Planet Saanich and a One Planet Region
Speakers: Mayor Fred Haynes, Rebecca Newlove, Cora Hallsworth,
Which brings me to our plans for 2021, which we hope will be a bit of a breakout year for the Conversations. The program is attached, and there is also information about our work on our website - https://oneplanetconversations.ca/
Also you will find below one of the projects we are working on for 2021, very much linked to the 2021 program contents, as well as information on a webinar series on An Ecological Civilization: Vision and Practice with Jeremy Lent being offered by one of our partners, Earth Literacies.
1. The 2021 Conversations Program - starts Jan 21st
Our Conversations in 2021 will be focusing more on imagining and starting to design and create a One Planet Region, exploring what local and personal and actions are needed and the policy changes needed to support those actions. We will organise this around Bioregional's 10 principles of One Planet Living, which are the basis of the work of One Planet Saanich, and the concept of a Just Transition.
Our series is inspired by the 'Seeds of Good Anthropocenes' project - https://goodanthropocenes.net/ Seeds "can be social initiatives, new technologies, economic tools, or social-ecological projects, or organisations, movements or new ways of acting that appear to be contributing to the creation of a future that is just, prosperous, and sustainable". This will be linked to our plans for a 'Seeds of a One Planet Region' online catalogue - see below for more info.
We will bring in people and organisations - we might call them the 'One Planeteers' - who are actually creating the programs or taking actions that take us towards a One Planet Region. They are the seeds of a One Planet Region. To that end, we will start on January 21st, 5 - 7 PM with a discussion of One Planet Saanich and a One Planet Region
Speakers: Mayor Fred Haynes, Rebecca Newlove, Cora Hallsworth,
Topics and speakers for February onwards are still being developed, but will be based on the 10 One Planet Principles. So if you have suggestions for speakers or Seeds we should profile, let me know.
2. 'Seeds Catalogue' project
The original idea of the Seeds program theme for 2021 comes from an international project, as noted above. We are working with a volunteer to develop a proposal for an online 'Seeds of a One Planet Region Catalogue' that would showcase local innovation and action by people, groups, businesses, communities and others that are taking us towards a One Planet Region. Obviously it will include - but go well beyond - the Seeds' we profile in our Conversations this year. If you would be interested in assisting with this project, let me know.
3. Jeremy Lent webinar series - 'An Ecological Civilization: Vision and Practice'
Gertie Jocksch at Earth Literacies is offering this four-part course on 4 Tuesdays in February. More details are in the attached. We used Jeremy Lent's ideas about core values shift (in his book 'The Patterning Instinct') to frame our Conversations on values in the Fall.
You may want to watch 1.5 hour conversation on Ecological Civilization with Jeremy Lent, Fritjof Capra and Alice Hughes at
Each class will consist of presentations, full group discussion, and small group exercises
Class 1 | Ecological Civilization in Historical Context
Class 2 | Ecological Civilization: Worldview and Values
Class 3 | An Ecological Civilization in Practice
Class 4 | Pathways to an Ecological Civilization
Date: Tuesday, Feb 2, 9, 16 & 23, 2021
Time: 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Cost: $50
Registration: http://www.earthliteracies.org
Email: programs@earthliteracies.org
Dr Trevor Hancock, Hon FFPH
Retired Professor and Senior Scholar
School of Public Health and Social Policy
University of Victoria
Website: https://trevorhancock.org