Bioregional Summit

This workshop will explore the principals, practices and lessons learned form a highly successful community-based watershed management project based in the Slocan Valley near Nelson, British Columbia. After 30 years of failed attempts by government agencies Stephen Martineau and his team of facilitators worked in unique and sometimes counterintuitive ways, referred to as Integral Mediation and Ecology, to pull together a diverse set of often polarized stakeholders to devise a plan that was acceptable to all. Join us to learn what the principals and practices are of this approach and to reflect on its applicability to your region.

Join David MacLeod: A David Holmgren essay that I have been authorized to summarize in a powerpoint presentation. The sustainability debate has shown a deep confusion about the processes and systems which support life and humanity. The lack of conceptual tools to incorporate previously ignored environmental “givens” into calculations used by economists and decision makers is painfully obvious. There are no simple answers to the complex question of costs, benefits, and sustainability. However, there is a natural currency we can use to measure our interdependence on our environment and assist us to make sensible decisions about current and future action. That currency is energy. This presentation summarizes the important contribution of pioneering systems ecologist Howard T. Odum on the development of permaculture principles and the role of energy that should be considered in all processes.

Join Phoebe Barnard in an exploration on what’s needed across scales to drive transformative civilizational change. There’s never been a more critical – or perhaps more challenging – time to weigh up alternative futures and harness energy for change that involves determined realization, rather than entropy and bloodshed. I hope to start an explicitly multi-scaled conversation about how to achieve a new restorative/regenerative civilization focused on repairing the planet, climate and society. My departure point will likely be from a 2021 paper of mine (World Scientists’ Warnings into Action: Local to Global, Science Progress, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00368504211056290) to how the new Global Restoration Collaborative can serve to radically accelerate, align, upscale and upskill progress towards this civilization in and beyond the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. (a temp site for this collaborative is at https://www.stableplanetalliance.org/restoration.) Please come and contribute!

Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz of Irthlingz Arts-Based Environmental Education, based on Orcas Island, will share how music helps us to communicate and retain key concepts in a way that is fun and engaging, raises vibrational energy, and reaches people on a deeper level than the mind alone.

Riptide: Emotional Health Impacts of Climate Change http://www.turningtidescounseling.org Therapeutic mental health principles and activities founded on principles of “Active Hope” and Trauma-informed Care. The climate crisis is affecting personal and community mental health in significant ways. We can feel isolated, doomed, guilty, ignored, anxious, and/or grief. Stress, anxiety, and depression are common and understandable responses to this collective and individual trauma. A London 2021 study shows research shows that the psychological fallout, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), from events like hurricanes, forest fires, and droughts, affects those whose lives are disrupted at a rate of 40 times greater than those who experience physical trauma from the event. A study published in the journal Nature in 2018 estimated that if climate change continues at its current rate, rising temperatures will lead to roughly 22,000 extra suicides across the U.S. and Mexico alone by 2050. This 60, 90 or 120 minute group, led by licensed therapist Mike Meyer, explores education, shared experience, therapeutic tools, and activities to process the impact climate change has on mental health. Trauma-informed information and practical clinical strategies will be shared. The warm and welcoming environment will be safe and accepting with snacks provided. Time is provided for personal reflection, connection, expression of emotions, plus the sharing of resources for further follow up. This is a safe place for expressing feelings and for diverse perspectives. Song clips, poems, and stories will be offered to inspire and move to. Topics and activities include: • Common mental health symptoms • Collective and individual trauma from climate change • Nervous System effects • Activities for environmental and mental health awareness • Mental health principles • Connections for shared impact and solutions • Mental Health treatment strategies that best fit climate anxiety • Tools to form and maintain your own climate change support groups • Personal and community mental health resilience in a changing environment. Goals include: – Normalizing individual and collective mental health responses to climate change – How to connect with our natural world for mental health – Trauma-informed and compassionate self-care and activism – Knowing types of mental health best suited for this existential crisis – Build resiliency – Ways to seek treatment and community action Mike Meyer, LCSW, CADC I, QMHP, SJS. meyercounseling@gmail.com 541-222-0632 Workshop is certified as MHACBO Accredited Continuing Education and NAMI Lane County Presentations so far in 2023: Alluvium public presentation, Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, University of Oregon (International ELAW), APAL (Addictions Professionals at Lane), National Alliance for Mental Illness, Lane County Chapter, Oregon Addictions State Conference (Oregon Recovers), Unity of The Valley Eugene