Thriving Together: Thriving Natural World
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"When we remember that we need to gather ourselves in the spirit of the moment and the spirit of our ancestors, the spirit of all living things, and in the spirit of Mother Earth—then I think we have a real foundation for change."
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Thriving Together: Thriving Natural World
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Natural Resources Defense Council
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Children & Nature Network
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There is more to the story of 2020 than one pandemic. Look no further than the headlines to appreciate the sheer size and scope of the tangled threats that are spreading across the country.
Our freedom to thrive depends on having a consistent set of vital conditions, such as clean air, fair pay, humane housing, early education, routine health care, and other pragmatic necessities. Vital conditions persist over generations. They shape the exposures, choices, opportunities, and adversities that we each encounter throughout our lives. This issue of the WIN Digest highlights the first vital condition in our Thriving Together series: Thriving Natural World.
Everyone deserves to live in a clean, healthy environment—one that is free from hazards and emerging pathogens, resilient to future changes, and fulfills our need to connect with nature. Healthy environments provide clean air, water, land, and well-functioning ecosystems, ensuring people are able to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. Individuals need thriving natural places to feel healthy today—and communities rely on natural systems to support health now and in the future.
The loss of ecosystems and habitat, climate change, and other factors are part of the reason for this and future pandemics. Addressing climate change, health inequities, and disparities in access to nature will require transformational change in our policies and systems. We cannot have healthy people without healthy places, and we cannot have healthy places without a thriving natural world.
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"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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Thriving Together Deep Dive: Thriving Natural World
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Deep Dives are the full source documents for Thriving Together. Explore the rich contributions from colleagues at the Children & Nature Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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Thriving Natural World as a Vital Condition
Learn more about this vital condition through data, policy, and action guides featured in the Community Commons’ collection.
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Photo by Bureau of Charities, via Library of Congress
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Schools Beat Earlier Plagues with Outdoor Classrooms. We Should, Too.
Instead of rotating between live school and remote learning, children could rotate between indoor and outdoor work during the course of the day. As Ms. Milligan-Toffler, of the Children & Nature Network, has argued, reading, reflective writing and gym all lend themselves to being experienced outside.
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Photo by Colette Pichon Battle
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Connector of the Gulf South, 15 Years and Counting
Colette Pichon Battle is getting the conversation going—and the preparations moving—for Black and Indigenous communities of Louisiana who are still healing from Hurricane Katrina, even as they stand on the frontlines of climate change.
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Scaling playful learning: How cities can reimagine public spaces to support children and families
This paper is intended to help better explain the process of designing, implementing, and maintaining playful learning programs and installations that encourage the development of critical skills and child-caregiver connections for all children, but especially those living in underserved neighborhoods.
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Photo by Sahar Coston-Hardy
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Photo by Milwaukee County Parks
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Milwaukee Latest City to Put an Equity Lens on its Parks
Milwaukee has consistently ranked as one of the poorest and most segregated cities in the United States. In May last year, the county declared racism to be a public health crisis.
“At Parks, we realized that if we just did it the way we had done it, we were just reinforcing the decisions made before,” said Jeremy Lucas, director of administration and planning for Milwaukee County Parks.
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The future of fires and climate change in California
by Madeline Brand
Why has this fire season been so extreme this early, and what might the next few months look like?
“The kind of impacts we’ve seen here in 2020 are exactly a taste of what we should expect to worsen in the coming decade or two for sure,” says Kim Cobb, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology.
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Indigenous Techniques Could Help Fight Out-Of-Control Wildfires in California
by Sonali Kolhatkar
For decades, the state banned the Native cultural practice of burning fires in California. Now, Meders-Knight is part of a new generation of tribal leaders training and certifying people in the Indigenous wisdom that for generations informed the management of wildfires.
In a nutshell, the idea is to fight fire with fire—literally. The training begins with identifying and understanding the state’s natural flora and fauna and the role each species play in the ecosystem.
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Darrell Hillaire: Stewards of Nature
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Cities Connecting Children to Nature
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WE WIN TOGETHER RACIAL JUSTICE COMMUNITY
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The WE WIN Racial Justice Community provides space for communities, organizations, and coalitions to learn from one another. Together, we reflect and gather insight for addressing racism in workplaces and throughout life. Learn more and register here.
Register today to join this community anytime before October 15 for our Fall session!
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Transformation 2020 Summit
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The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) - the largest network of progressive Black, Brown and Indigenous organizations in the U.S. (2.7M members; 55 organizations and 450 youth organizations) is hosting "Transformation 2020" a virtual event with 25K attendees over 3 Days. Featured speakers include Colin Kaepernick, Ibram X Kendi, TA-Naheshi Coates and members and communities within the WIN Network.
We will be launching our racial justice community here.
September 24 - September 26
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Join WIN members Monte Roulier, Tyler Norris, Somava Saha, and Alex Rossides on equitable recovery and resilience at Exchange 2020.
Topics include:
- Racial inequity
- Philanthropy’s moment of truth – how can the field act now to transform society?
- The future of capitalism
- Health and climate change – a global threat
- Recovery, resilience, and transformation in the wake of COVID-19
- Equitable financing of education, economic development and health
September 23 - September 24
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The 2020 UN-SUMMIT: A LEADERSHIP FORUM
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Partnering with Communities to Improve Health Outcomes
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September 24 - November 19, 2020
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Curious how we can 'move the needle' for improved health when working in diverse communities with different cultures, agendas and expectations for leadership? Want to explore your role as a leader? When to step up and when to step back while building authentic community partnerships?
Leadership within a partnership differs from leadership in a traditional, hierarchical organization. Join us for a dynamic, interactive and flexible 9-week UnSummit where together we will explore best practices for partnering with communities to improve health outcomes.
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The Natural Art of Seeing
Artist Susan McDonnell sent Richard Louv her story, told through a painting.
“In the early 2000s, I lived in a house with a small garden pond. In the late Spring, a Red Darner dragonfly took up residency. I started taking photos at a distance and got closer and closer. Over time the dragonfly let me get within inches and then let me lightly touch its wings. This dragonfly showed up every morning around 10 and patrolled the pond until around 4 pm for about 4 months. We ‘visited’ every day and I spent a lot of time quietly observing and marveling at the dragonfly’s beauty...”
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SPARCC Communities
The Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge – or SPARCC – is investing in and amplifying local efforts in six regions to make sure that major new investments in the places we live, work, and play lead to equitable and healthy opportunities for everyone.
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10 Things Young People Can Do During Climate Week NYC This Year
Hosted by Climate Group, this year’s Climate Week NYC will take place online from Sept. 21 to Sept. 27. The week-long summit will focus on how we can pursue a net-zero future as we rebuild after the pandemic. This year’s programming will include more than 200 events, making it the biggest climate summit of 2020.
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Photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP
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3 Keys to Meaningful Work: An Employer who Cares about the Environment, Society, and You
We found employees who rated their employer as environmentally conscious were 25% more likely to consider their work meaningful than those who didn’t.
Those who believed their organisation was committed to corporate social responsibility were 59% more likely to think their work was meaningful.
And those who considered their supervisors to be inclusive leaders were 70% more likely to find their work meaningful.
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Growing Our Roots: Anti-Racism in Conservation Work
Our country is in a moment of reckoning: a challenging, but necessary confrontation with our deeply discriminatory and racist past and present. This ongoing uprising is an opportunity to acknowledge the wrongdoings and trauma created by systems that have embedded racism into American life. These same systems have deemed our planet and its resources disposable, and left the most vulnerable communities to suffer in the aftermath of destruction. And it takes all of us— in all of our work—to try and reverse this pattern.
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Dalai Lama: It’s up to us — and especially politicians — to save our planet
by Dalai Lama
Buddha was born as his mother leaned against a tree for support. He attained enlightenment seated beneath a tree and passed away as trees stood witness overhead. If Buddha were to return to our world, he would certainly be connected to the campaign to protect the environment.
I believe that every individual has a duty to help guide our global family in the right direction. Prayers and good wishes alone are not enough. We have to assume responsibility. Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.
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Photo by Adam Bettcher / Getty Images for Starkey Hearing
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TOOLS TO BUILD WELL BEING
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Does Planning Care about Black Lives?
Taken directly from the general session at the recent Walk/Bike/Places 2020 Online conference, this panel features a discussion about the ways in which planning has contributed greatly to entrenching inequality, and how often public process has only served to reinforce existing power structures.
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4 Steps to a Climate Savvy Community
As climate change and its effects grow, the way communities are structured and built becomes more important in counteracting and preventing those effects – for the health and safety of all residents.
The updated Rapid Climate Vulnerability Assessment (RCVA): A New Way to Measure Vulnerability a simple, four-step process designed to evaluate community vulnerability to climate change while collaboratively finding solutions.
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Children & Nature Network
9/21 - 9/23 and 9/29 - 9/30
We believe that the well-being of children and the wild places we love are inextricably linked and now is the time to strengthen our efforts to advance racial equity in access to nature.
This is why we gather—as leaders, educators, activists, practitioners and parents—to turn the trend of an indoor childhood back out to the benefits of nature, and to increase safe and equitable access to the natural world.
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Patagonia
9/25 at 5:00 PM PDT
Our public lands and waters are under threat.
As an extinction crisis looms and climate change continues to be one of the greatest threats our planet has ever faced, America’s 640 million acres of public lands support biodiversity and carbon sequestration. It’s essential that we fight for their protection.
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Environmental Design Research Association
10/1 at 3:00 PM ET
The conference will focus on how research, design, and relationships between people and environments contribute to the creation of justice. Current social, health, environmental, and justice challenges call for collaborative and transdisciplinary efforts to pursue intentional questioning of disciplinary borders and sensitive approaches to framing and solving pressing contemporary problems through research and practice.
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