|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Login | Create Account |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 225:30am 8:00am Featured ConversationBeyond Borders: Time–The Next 10,000 Years The Haida have lived within ecological limits on Haida Gwaii since their arrival some 10,000 years ago. What will happen there, and throughout the world over the next 10,000 years, hinges to an unprecedented degree upon decisions a few generations will make early in the 21st century. Those decisions in turn depend upon assumptions about whether we are in crisis, what that crisis is, and what can be done to avert its more dire consequences in the face of fundamental limits to human knowledge. Five distinguished thinkers from diverse walks of life will explore these issues in a structured conversation. SPEAKERS Denise Caruso is executive director of the Hybrid Vigor Institute, which facilitates solution of complex problems via interdisciplinary research. A veteran journalist and analyst, Caruso spent more than 15 years chronicling the convergence of technology and media for publications including the New York Times. Her research now focuses on risk. Michael Crow is newly appointed president of Arizona State University, where his goal is to create a new type of university, focused on the social and economic health of its region. Previously as executive vice provost of Columbia University he led development of the Columbia Earth Institute. Dianne Dumanoski, a writer and reporter, co-authored Our Stolen Future, a book about new scientific findings linking environment and health. For over a decade she reported on national and global environmental issues for the Boston Globe. She is currently working on a book about the environment and the human prospect. Guujaaw is president of the Haida Nation and a member of the Raven Clan, as well as being a carver, drummer, practitioner of traditional medicine and political activist. He has worked for decades to secure protection of areas of Haida Gwaii while also advocating for more sustainable use of his nation’s resources. David Suzuki is a scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. His writing and television and radio series have brought environment and science to millions of people around the world. For his work in support of Canada’s First Nations people, he has been honored with five names and formal adoption by two tribes. FACILITATOR Pete Myers, a biologist by training, directed the W. Alton Jones Foundation for 12 years. He now is a senior advisor to the United Nations Foundation and the Jenifer Altman Foundation. While at WAJF he co-authored Our Stolen Future. He currently produces www.OurStolenFuture.org.
Participant Designed Dialogue: Beyond Borders: Time Lunch Sustainable Consumption & Production Funders Featured ConversationBeyond Borders: How North America is One North America is home to three distinct countries (Canada, USA and Mexico) but they share common land and water environments. Increasingly, environmental issues know no borders. Threatened species in the US are shot when they walk into Canada. US consumption of fresh water deprives downstream Mexico of water in rivers. Energy production in Canada is driven by US market demand. Following an overview of various aspects of North America from the point of view of energy, water and ecology, the experts and the audience will discuss issues of interdependence and independence as well as conflict and cooperation across the continent. SPEAKERS Exequiel Ezcurra, a Mexican ecologist and conservationist, has published more than 120 research papers and books. He has received many distinctions in research, conservation and scientific communication. He was research director of the San Diego Natural History Museum, and is currently president of Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology. Gail Krantzberg is director of the Great Lakes Regional Office of the International Joint Commission. Her team plays the role of overseeing binational progress made under the auspices of the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Gail has also authored more than 70 scientific and policy articles on issues pertaining to ecosystem quality. David Luff is vice president of environment and operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an industry association which represents companies that account for more than 90 percent of the oil, gas and synthetic crude oil produced in and exported from Canada. Canada is the largest foreign supplier to the US. Reed Noss is the Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Central Florida and chief scientist for the Wildlands Project. He has worked throughout North America and has over 200 publications. He was editor of Conservation Biology and is past president of the Society for Conservation Biology. FACILITATOR Harvey Locke is a program advisor to Tides Canada Foundation. He is also vice president of the Conservation of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a board member of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, a director emeritus of the Wildlands Project, and a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas. RELATED LINKS International Joint Commission
1:30 – 3:00pm Concurrent SessionsChanging the Rules on Ecolabels: Implications for Funders Ecolabels–seals or logos indicating a product has met a set of environmental or social standards–are of increasing importance for funders who work on issues around sustainable agriculture, FSC forestry or human rights work. Prompted by large industrial interests, the WTO, the US and Europe are considering limiting rules for ecolabels. This workshop will present an overview of these issues and the threats to ecolabeling, making clear their significance to funders concerned about sustainable agriculture, sustainable forestry, sustainable fisheries and worker rights issues. It will also suggest specific ways funders can become involved in this issue. SPEAKERS Josefina Aranda Bezaury, an anthropologist, has worked as an adviser for CEPCO since 1989. CEPCO, a 16,000-member coffee producers’ organization in Oaxaca, exports organic, sustainably-produced coffee. Josefina has also worked as a researcher and teacher at the local university (UABJO) since 1983, with a specialty on peasant women in Mexico. Chad Dobson coordinates all technical, legal and policy studies as director for council advocacy at the Consumers Choice Council. He formerly spent nine years as secretary of the Bank Information Center, and has also held positions with the Tropical Forest Action Plan, the Field Foundation, and the Voting Issues Training and Information Project, among others. FACILITATOR Michael Northrop is program officer for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s global and domestic sustainable development program. Previously executive director of Ashoka, a US-based international development organization, he taught in Indonesia and in Greece, and worked for the investment bank First Boston. Mike holds a masters degree in public policy from Princeton University.
Nanotechnology: Atom and Eve in the Garden of Eden At the 2000 EGA Retreat computer scientist Bill Joy spoke about the threat that nanotechnology (the manipulation of atoms and molecules to create new products) poses to the environment. Recent studies indicate that nanoscale materials now being commercialized pose potential hazards for human health and the environment. This workshop will provide funders with a deeper understanding of this rapidly evolving technology. In the absence of international regulations or accepted scientific research standards the need for informed debate and assessment of nanotechnology is urgent. Do we run the risk of reducing the biosphere to gray goo, and if so, what should we do? SPEAKERS K. Eric Drexler, founder and chairman of the Foresight Institute, is an expert on emerging technologies. He introduced the term "nanotechnology" to describe the atomically precise molecular manufacturing systems that will make possible many dreams (and nightmares) first articulated in science fiction. His Engines of Creation introduced the nature, promise and dangers of nanotechnology. Pat Roy Mooney has worked for more than 30 years on international trade and development issues related to agriculture and biodiversity. Head of the ETC Group, he is a key commentator on emerging technologies including nanotechnology. He has received the Right Livelihood Award , as well as the American Giraffe Award, given to people who stick their necks out. FACILITATOR Jon Cracknell coordinates the work of the JMG Foundation on agriculture, trade and nuclear power issues. He holds a bachelors degree in social and political science from the University of Cambridge, and a masters in mass communications from the University of Leicester. Jon works closely with colleagues on trade, emerging technology and climate change. RELATED LINKS
Feynman's classic 1959 lecture
Report Back from Cancun: What Happened at the WTO Ministerial? The next Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization takes place September 10––13 in Cancun, Mexico. Hotly contested issues include services, intellectual property, investments and agriculture. Aimed at clarifying key issues and likely impacts of decisions made in Cancun, the report back will include perspectives on how the outcome affects future trade and globalization debates, including the role of the US, the effectiveness of NGOs and social movements to influence negotiations, and how organizers view prospects for the future of other trade negotiations, including the Free Trade Area of the Americas Ministerial in Miami in November. SPEAKERS Tom Barry cofounded the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) in 1979. He has authored numerous books on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, development aid, the United Nations, economic integration, and U.S. foreign policy. Currently, he is Policy Director, working with the IRC’s Americas Program and its Global Affairs Program. Adriano Campolina de Oliveira Soares is currently policy director of ActionAid Brasil. He manages a team of nine professionals who participate in coordinating three national campaigns, focusing on Trade and Food Security, Education and Public Budget Management, and also ten local development projects in the urban and rural areas of Brazil. FACILITATOR RELATED LINKS
Turning Your $1 Million into $1 Billion: Strategies for Leverage in Lean Times As the resources of private donors shrink, some creative nonprofits are leveraging their existing resources and relationships to achieve greater results for conservation in some cases turning to whole new ways of creating conservation support and making conservation funding available. In this session we will explore the role of donors and non-profits with two examples: the public education and ballot measures that raised billions for conservation in California, and the private-public funding partnership that is securing the future of the Mexican park service. These cases illustrate new possibilities for donor activism, and ways to stretch private giving while increasing policy support for conservation. SPEAKERS Carol Baudler is senior consultant for government relations for the Nature Conservancy. She has focused on building diverse constituencies and on conservation funding through ballot measures (campaigns in 2000 and 2002 raised over $10 Billion for land, water and coastal protection projects). She currently trains and advises TNC and its partners on conservation funding campaigns. Lorenzo Rosenzweig, executive director of the Mexican Nature Conservation Fund, has overseen the fund’s growth since its inception in 1994 to assets of over $60 million today. The Fund is a key supporter of the Mexican park service. He also is the chair of REDLAC, the Latin American and the Caribbean Network of Environmental Funds. FACILITATOR Sergio Knaebel is associate program officer in charge of the Packard Foundation’s marine and coastal conservation program in the Gulf of California. He has helped develop mechanisms for long-term conservation financing in Mexico, including the creation of stewardship funds for four Mexican protected areas that total more than $10 million. RELATED LINKS
Ottawa’s Green Buildings–The Tour Our buildings powerfully shape our lives and our environment. Green building grantmaking captures a wide range of issues of “living lightly on the earth” including energy conservation, indoor health, water conservation and waste minimization. This session will get you out into Ottawa to see some local examples of green buildings. Planned visits include:
At
each site we will meet and talk with architects and inhabitants to understand
the challenges and benefits of green buildings. Along the
way you will have time to talk to other funders interested in the same
issues. Special attention will be given to how funders impact this rapidly
evolving field. FACILITATOR
3:00 – 4:30pm Discover Ottawa Tour 3:30 – 5:00pm Concurrent SessionsConservation in Canada’s Boreal Forest: An Endangered Frontier Canada’s boreal forest is one of the largest frontier forests left on Earth. It is home to intact predator-prey ecosystems, breeding ranges for many North American song birds, and is the traditional territory of many First Nations. Its peat bogs are one of the world’s greatest carbon sinks. As a landscape threatened by logging, oil, gas and hydro development, it is one of the planet’s greatest wilderness conservation and climate mitigation challenges. This panel will explore natural values, conservation opportunities and First Nations perspectives of the boreal forest. SPEAKERS Tim Gray is director of Boreal Programs for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which is actively working to protect the boreal forest across Canada. Tim has been active and successful in wilderness conservation and forest management for 15 years. Fiona Schmiegelow is an associate professor at the University of Alberta, specializing in conservation biology. She has been active in a wide variety of environmental organizations and is engaged in applied research in support of better conservation of the boreal forest and the species that depend on it. Peggy Smith is on the faculty of forestry and the forest environment at Lakehead University and is a registered, professional forester. She is also senior advisor to the National Aboriginal Forestry Association and a member of the Forest Stewardship Council of Canada Working Group. FACILITATOR Ruth Richardson is environment program coordinator at the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation in Toronto. The Metcalf Foundation actively invests in efforts to protect the boreal forest from Saskatchewan to Labrador.
Doomed and Gloomed about Environmental Health? Join the Revolution! We are living in the midst of a scientific revolution that is finding new and unexpected links between contamination and health. At first blush, these results are alarming because they reveal unacknowledged, widespread risks that are linked to many human ailments and disabilities. Yet the new science also brings hope: it promises to open up a wide range of opportunities for disease prevention, as opposed to just cure. This session will engage three experts in a structured conversation about the nature of these new developments and how we can use them. SPEAKERS Tyrone Hayes is a professor at UC Berkeley and one of the world’s leading experts on how contaminants affect the development of frogs. His discovery that low doses of a common herbicide cause tadpoles to grow up hermaphroditic attracted worldwide attention and controversy. Jane Houlihan uses the emerging science about contamination and health on a daily basis to help improve public awareness and strengthen protections, focusing specifically on risks for children. She is research vice president at the Environmental Working Group, and has science degrees from Georgia Tech. Sandra Steingraber is a poet, author and scientist. She is an expert on links between contamination and health, particularly cancer and risks during fetal development. Her books Living Downstream and Having Faith have brought her worldwide acclaim for their ability to convey complex science in accessible, lyrical language. FACILITATORS Anuja Mendiratta is coordinator of the San Francisco Foundation’s Environmental Health and Justice Initiative, improving environmental health conditions for Bay Area residents. She works with community-based organizations to build capacity on local environmental justice issues and to educate the public on how environmental factors affect human health. Pete Myers is a biologist by training. He directed the W. Alton Jones Foundation for 12 years, and is now a senior advisor to the United Nations Foundation and the Jenifer Altman Foundation. While at WAJF he co-authored Our Stolen Future. He currently produces www.OurStolenFuture.org.
Fuelling the Race to the Bottom: Export Credit Agencies and Environmental Destruction The biggest public capital flow to developing countries is not World Bank loans, nor all other forms of development assistance combined. It is export credits–the loans or guaranties that wealthy governments provide to enable poor countries to buy their products. One result of ECA-lending was illustrated by the Enron debacle. ECA-backed financing was used to mask Enron’s own financial house of cards and fund environmentally damaging projects in developing countries. Many ECA-financed projects have negative environmental and social impacts in the project country, and most ECAs have far weaker environmental safeguards than the World Bank. This session will explore the international campaign to reform ECAs. SPEAKERS Aaron Goldzimer develops policy documents and proposals for environmental and social reforms of ECAs in international arenas such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G8 and the United Nations. He also works with grassroots NGO partners in Latin America, Africa, Indonesia, Western Europe and Japan on international ECA-reform. Heffa Schücking founded Urgewald in 1992 to challenge the conventional development model and provide support to communities fighting destructive projects in the global south. Heffa received a Goldman Prize in 1994 for her work on changing German government tropical rainforest policy. FACILITATOR Sandra Smithey is program officer with the C.S. Mott Foundation’s environment program, with responsibility for grantmaking on reform of international finance and trade. Sandra has over 20 years professional experience working with NGOs and US government agencies on public policy issues related to international development and the environment. RELATED LINKS
Giv ’em What They Want: Building Lasting Media Relations in Spite of the News Influencing the public and policymakers means getting to the messengers and gatekeepers of information–or so goes the common wisdom. But too often, influencing journalists is less important than understanding what they and their editors want to maintain consistency in their reporting. This starts with a need for reliable characters and storylines. Through the observations of experienced media people–those who initiate stories and those to whom stories are pitched–this workshop will assist grantmakers with insights for weighing news; and publicity-driven proposals. This session will also feature an excerpt from Seeds of Conflict, a PBS NOW report on GM crops by Mark Schapiro. SPEAKERS Diane Hawkins-Cox, award-winning journalist, is a senior producer for CNN and co-producer of Next@CNN, the news channel’s weekly program on science, space, environment and technology. She formerly produced CNNdotCOM, a technology program, and Earth Matters, a weekly half-hour newsmagazine program on global environmental problems and solutions. Mark Schapiro, deputy editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, covers environmental and international affairs. His work appears in Harper’s, the Nation, and the Atlantic Monthly. He is a correspondent for NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline World. His 2002 story investigating the implications of GMO corn appeared in the Nation and on NOW. FACILITATOR Peggy Lauer is executive director of the Fred Gellert Family Foundation. She is a founder of the Public Trust Alliance, and was vice president of the Resource Renewal Institute. In 1998, she was a visiting lecturer on green planning at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
NAFTA and the FTAA: Legal Frameworks for Environmental Assault When first signed, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) promised greater prosperity for low-income communities across the continent. Little of that promise has materialized, while the environment has come under serious attack. Among the most egregious aspects of NAFTA is Chapter 11, which permits corporations to sue governments to demand compensation when new environmental laws impede future profits. Speakers will address each country’s experience under NAFTA, both positive and negative, looking at water, food production, energy and other issues. Panelists will also address the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), referred to by opponents as “NAFTA on steroids.” SPEAKERS Karl Flecker is the education coordinator for the Polaris Institute, a research education and advocacy organization assisting citizens’ fights for democratic social change. Karl has more than 20 years experience in adult education, research and project management. Advocating for justice and inclusion is a recurring theme in his work. Lisa Hoyos is director of the California Coalition for Fair Trade and Human Rights, a coalition-building movement working to defeat international trade policies that negatively impact workers’ rights, economic development and the environment. Lisa has had broad experience in labor and environmental work in the US and overseas. FACILITATOR John Harvey is executive director of Grantmakers Without Borders, a funders’ network promoting social change grantmaking for the developing world. John has been involved in global social justice for more than 15 years, working with such organizations as Oxfam America, Grassroots International, and GUIDE (India).
Transforming a National Agriculture: The Cuban Experience and a Canadian Response In recent decades, to meet the need of Cubans for adequate, healthy food, Cuban agriculture has been transformed into a fully-organic, locally-grown food system, an ideal that many would like to see throughout North America. But Cuba has been shaped by many unique forces, not the least of which is its isolation from global markets. Eugenio Fuster Chepe describes the Cuban experience. Debbie Field responds from her perspective as a Canadian food activist working in Ontario to make organic, locally grown food available and affordable and to promote public policies that make food security and sustainable agriculture a priority in Canada. SPEAKERS Debbie Field is the executive director of FoodShare Toronto, an organization that works to improve access to affordable healthy food. She has also worked for a local Toronto councilor and a center for third world information. She has been a union organizer, a laborer in the coke ovens of Steelco, and a community college teacher. Eugenio Fuster Chepe is the founding director of the Provincial Office of Urban Agriculture for the City of Havana, Cuba. He has also served as the Cuban Vice Minister for Agriculture and as the director for one of Cuba’s leading agricultural companies. Dr. Fuster is also the coordinator for a joint Cuba-China seed development program. FACILITATOR Margaret O’Dell is program manager at the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based foundation that has supported sustainable agriculture and food systems change for over 20 years. The Joyce Foundation’s mission is to improve the quality of life in the Upper Midwest, with a particular focus on the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem. RELATED LINKS
6:00 – 7:00pm 7:30 – 8:30pm 9:00pm The cultural evening will celebrate Canadian culture and diversity, and maintain an environmental relevance as guests enjoy some of Canada's finest entertainment. Inuit dancers will incorporate throat singing, hoop dancing, chanting and colorful traditional dress in their inspiring presentation. Ian Tamblyn, a Canadian singer/songwriter (www.tamblyn.com), who bases many of his songs on the beauty and wonder of Canada’s landscape, will perform two sets of his award-winning music. And Farley Mowat, 82, one of Canada's greatest story tellers, authors and environmentalists will regale us with stories of his beloved home.
|
 |
Home | About Us | News | Resources | Funders | NGOs | Events | Member Area | Privacy Policy | Legal Notices |
  |
