Keynote Presentations
Judy BlueHorse Skelton
Reclaiming the Urban Forest for Food, Medicine and Ceremony: An Overview of Indigenous Cultural Collaborations in the Portland Metro Area
What does it mean to be indigenous to a place? How does the Land inform who we are and guide the values of community to act on behalf of future generations? How is Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge informing local and regional strategies for a sustainable future and what role are universities, governments, and tribal and urban Native communities playing in this dynamic process? These questions serve as a foundation to the rapidly emerging field of Indigenous Resurgence and its impact on the larger sustainability movement. This work focuses on Indigenous practices and perspectives on Cultural/Social/Environmental Justice, accessing Natural Resource and Land Management, Community Health, Urban Design and themes of Sustainability/7th Generation.
Suvira Chaturvedi
Sustainability, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality
The presentation ‘Sustainability, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality’ in the context of International Women’s Day will highlight some of the work Suvira Chaturvedi has carried out on the said subject through the United Nations. She will be drawing on her more than 30 years of experience with UN agencies across countries and regions. The presentation will focus on three countries-Bangladesh, Malawi and Yemen providing a snapshot of the issues, challenges faced, strategies pursued, and lessons learned.
Plenary Presentations
Opening Plenary Panel
The Collaborative Power of the Portland Clean Energy Initiative
Jenny Lee, Coalition of Communities of Color, Reverend E.D. Mondaine, President, Portland NAACP and Measure 26-201 Chief Petitioner, Adriana Voss-Andreae, 350PDX and Measure 26-201 chief petitioner, and Oriana Magnera, Verde, will share their experiences on getting the Portland Clean Energy Initiative passed. The first environmental ballot initiative led by communities of color, the Portland Clean Energy Initiative will generate over $50 million in new annual revenue to invest in clean energy and green jobs. The initiative takes action for climate justice, with a commitment to Portlanders who have been most impacted by climate change yet excluded from the emerging low-carbon economy: low-income people and people of color. The panel will discuss the economic and environmental injustices impacting Portland’s frontline communities, the historic coalition and campaign that led the ballot to victory, and the next steps for the initiative.
Pete Lee
Promoting Equity, Economic Opportunity, and Social Justice for Marginalized Communities
Low SES and communities of color deserve access to resilient, clean, and affordable sustainable systems (energy, transportation, daily living needs), along with unique economic opportunities that emerge to design and install these systems. This topic is timely, especially with the passing of the Portland Clean Energy Fund measure. While renewable and sustainable technologies have been present for years, it is critical that marginalized populations get equitable and timely access: by doing so, we build bridges that span economic, social, and environmental needs, for the benefit of all.
Amy Higgs and Rachel Willis
Eco-School Network: Shaping a Culture of Sustainability in Elementary Schools
Nine years ago, a group of parents started working together in the Portland Metro area to build sustainability awareness and practices in their children’s schools. Supported by the Center for Earth Leadership, they met regularly to share resources and ideas and to encourage each other. Over the years, these parents saw that the leadership and collaboration model they used turned out to be an effective way to change culture in their schools, and they shared the model with parents in other schools.
Today, the Eco-School Network is an independent non-profit that equips parents and students in Portland, Beaverton, North Clackamas, and West Linn school districts to shift school cultures toward sustainability. Our parent leaders engage about 25,000 students each year in growing gardens, shrinking waste, planting trees, biking to school, and learning from nature. One project at a time, the culture in these schools is shifting. During this talk, we look forward to sharing our model for culture change, which can be applied in other schools, organizations and communities. We’ll also share some hope-inspiring stories of innovative school sustainability projects led by Portland area moms, dads, and elementary students.
Mary Fifield and Sonali George
Experiments in Power Sharing: Microsoft & Communities
Datacenters to power cloud services offer the promise of a stronger local economy, but as large facilities that consume an enormous amount of resources, they can also exacerbate urban sprawl, strain housing availability, and increase traffic congestion, among other negative social and environmental impacts. While many technology companies offer community programs to mitigate some of these effects and promote their brand, Microsoft looked to the philanthropic sector to pilot an unusual initiative: a fund to support local environmental, social, and economic projects co-led by community leaders and Microsoft representatives.
Our presentation will describe the journey to developing the Community Empowerment Fund and the Community Advisory Board. We’ll discuss how sustainability, improved capacity, mutual understanding, and creative grassroots solutions factored into the design for the pilot in a rural region of Holland. We’ll share results, hard lessons, and practical tips for other organizations looking to share power with communities in the U.S. and abroad. Through activities in small groups, we’ll explore how this and similar models can help achieve SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and how participants can incorporate community ownership, decision-making and other power-sharing tactics in their workplace, neighborhoods, and government agencies.
Break-Out Sessions
Amelia Weesies
Reclaiming Our Relational Narrative with the Earth
My presentation is focused on ways of gathering with others to build deeper relationships with the Earth. A small group of friends and I started gathering in the forest for ‘church’ and soon became part of The Wild Church Network. This network shares a common thread of seeking to restore our human place within the larger ecosystem of living beings. Fundamentally, our forest church is space to gather with some of the tools of our European inheritance, which has ties in Christian and Celtic concepts. Although most of us do not prefer the title, “Christian,” (because of the gross misunderstanding of what the word means) we feel that it is sustainable and important to seek earth-based spiritual practices within our own traditions in order to end the furthering of appropriation to many other indigenous peoples. The use of some “Christian” practices is merely a tool in order to create structure; these tools are not the central foundation of where we feel the deepest meaning. Part of our gathering is to create sacred space on the land we reside on, to grieve, meditate, sing, and be in silence. For my presentation, I hope to speak to the need for gathering in wild spaces so that we can become more integrated as living beings with the Earth. Our forest ‘church’ is about reclaiming the narratives about our human relationship to the earth and cosmos.
Jon Biemer
Creating Handprints: Four Ways You and I Can Change the System
The Environmental Handprint represents the good we do for the environment. It complements the Ecological Footprint’s focus on resource limitations. The book I am writing, Healing Our Planet: How Handprints Create Sustainability, identifies over two hundred “Handprint Opportunities.” To demystify the art of changing the system, I distill my observations down to four basic approaches.
1. Take ACTION on behalf of the environment. Our personal actions add up. Plant gardens. Plant trees. Eat local, organic and low on the food chain. Repair things. Eco-refurbish your home. Eco-upgrade your transportation. Volunteer. Work for the planet. Become an eco-entrepreneur.
2. EDUCATE young people, large companies and institutions. We have a rich diversity of ways to impart awareness. Teach environmental literacy. Educate for sustainable development. Foster outdoor schools. Inform (show up, challenge, redirect) excess and insensitivity. Testify at hearings. Serve on committees. Run for office.
3. Use MONEY, on any scale, as a tool for change. Our dollars represent our values. Donate. Leave bequests. Invest in people (e.g. environmental justice) and renewables. Buy used things. Buy local. Buy from benefit corporations. Rent. Voluntarily offset carbon. Divest from fossil fuel companies. Support shareholder activism.
4. Bring SPIRIT to sustainability. Spirit is undervalued in the secular world; it has the power to move billions. Host conferences. Learn from nature. Perform and write songs. Dance. Create ceremony. Love creation. Widen your circle of relationship. Befriend the future.
This presentation can help ANYONE find effective ways to create Handprints, to change the system.
Heather Spalding and Beau Gilbert
Designing Accessible and Transformative Curricula through Sustainability Education and Student Leadership
The leadership fellows program within Student Activities and Leadership Programs (SALP) at Portland State University (PSU) weaves together elements of sustainability education theory, the Social Change Model of Leadership, and campus-wide learning outcomes to create accessible and transformative sustainability curriculum that is relevant to student leaders with diverse backgrounds, experiences, majors, and interests. The curriculum is replicable and applicable for formal and non-formal educators across the university and other educational contexts.
The presenters will share their process for developing a year long sustainability theme for this the leadership fellows program that will be utilized every three years (alternating with social justice and service) in nine cohorts with over 100 student participants. Each leadership fellow receives a $400 scholarship per term as well as optional academic credits through PSU’s Civic Leadership Minor.
The presenters will share an overview of the curriculum which includes interactive activities and reflections inspired by contemplative practice; multicultural, critical, and indigenous perspectives; popular education; place-based education; and systems thinking principles. Throughout the year, students integrate sustainability into their leadership values, beliefs, and philosophy through guided conversations in class, creative activities, and online reflections. Each term increase the scale of sustainability awareness (fall-self; winter-community; spring-world). Students also reflect on topics such as the definition of sustainability, Earth Overshoot Day and Country Overshoot Day, Oregon History Comics and gentrification in Portland, climate migration, the Marshall Islands’ #haveyoursei campaign to end the era of fossil fuels in partnership with 350.org Pacific, the Systems Thinking Iceberg, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Taryn Oakley
Place-Based Learning Enhances Student Sustainability Practices
Qualitative results show that giving college students the opportunity to connect to nature in their local environment brings about positive changes that extend beyond the classroom. Place-based learning experiences that take place in local natural areas and community gardens inspire many students to change individual habits, and to bring these changes forward to their families and communities. This presentation will examine some of the place-based learning experiences that I have done with my students and some of the changes I have seen from students who have participated in these experiences.
Elaine Cole, Briar Schoon, and Anne Lesenne
Innovations in Campus Beekeeping: Creating Community Connections
Portland Community College established a nascent apiary in 2014 and has since grown its program in support of the college’s Bee Campus USA designation. A program that started with two Langstroth hives and two viewing hives at the Rock Creek campus 3.6 acre Learning Garden has since expanded to include ten hives, a beekeeping class and diverse educational efforts across the district.
The collaborative effort between academic programs, facilities, grounds, and sustainability has been key to helping grow the program. In the past five years the programmatic, academic and infrastructure of the beekeeping efforts have significantly increased as the buzz for supporting bees on campus spreads.
This interactive and educational panel will provide an overview of PCC’s beekeeping efforts and specific examples of ongoing projects including setting up a bee camera for live streaming, the development of an experimental hive to overwinter top bar combs, BroodMinder wireless hive monitoring and the successful expansion of our apiary to another campus. In addition, the speakers will provide a range of insights into specific beekeeping needs in the PNW, connecting efforts to curriculum and increasing support and collaboration for beekeeping programs on campus.
Nancy Nordman
The Battle Against Single-Use Plastics
I am happy to speak on the issue of single-use plastics and strategies to combat the “recycling crisis”, as it’s often been called. It’s my belief that strengthening recycling processes and markets is only part of the solution, and that we need to also work with business, government partners, and individuals to slow the flood of plastic that comes into our lives on a daily basis and find effective alternatives through waste prevention measures. Plastics are having a major impact to our marine life worldwide, and ultimately to us as well, and there are a number of researchers (Dorothy Horn, Britta Baechler to name a few) right here in Portland doing research on the impacts here at home. I will share the successes and difficulties Surfrider Portland Chapter ran into coordinating a year-long business-oriented campaign on straws, which ultimately helped lead to the passage of a Portland ordinance around restrictions of straws, stirrers, and condiments this December. I hope that this campaign could help inform others who are looking to further the conversation and continue working toward change on this difficult and complex issue.
Frank Granshaw
COP23 / COP24: International Climate Action in Ironic and Urgent Times
In 2017 the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or COP23 was held in Bonn Germany. Here, nearly 200 countries met to negotiate how the world would move forward on the 2015 landmark Paris climate agreement. That same year the incoming US president vowed to withdraw the country from that agreement while the last two members of the UN who had not signed on to the agreement (Syria and Nicaragua) did so.
In 2018 COP24 was held in Katowice Poland, a major coal producing region of Eastern Europe. This was the same year the International Panel for Climate Change released a major report stating that we have about a decade to aggressively reign in global carbon emissions so as to achieve the climate targets set forth in the Paris agreement. In the meantime 2018 was yet another year for record heat waves, droughts, and storms across the planet.
This talk looks at two years attending both COP23 and COP24 in terms of the following questions… What happened at the COPs? What were the successes and what were the failures? Where do we go next? How does what happened at the conferences relate to sustainability efforts here in the Portland/Vancouver metro area?
Zahra Golshani
Minorities’ participation in rivers’ stewardship and conservation practices- The case of Clackamas county
The need for minorities and immigrants’ participation and civic engagement is more than evident now. The interest of organizations to be inclusive and diverse has greatly increased. Environmental stewardship activities provide a great context to enhance the participation of a diverse group of people. This presentation reports on the result of the first phase of a study on minorities’ participation in river’s stewardship practices in Clackamas County. I worked with selected communities in the study area to conduct a primary study. The study assessed the level of knowledge about rivers’ stewardship practices, willingness to participate and barriers of participation. The result of the study is not conclusive since it is a pilot study, however, the finding provides great insight on potentials and barriers of minorities’ participation in environmental stewardship practices.
Workshops
Linda C. Pope and Joe Culhane
A Boardgame – The Tiny House Ecovillage Potential
In this workshop participants will learn about the critical importance that an ecovillage can play, how it can restructure the way they think, and how it has the potential to quickly transform neighborhoods. A brief PPT talk regarding this topic will be presented. Then participants will be divided into teams with the goal of designing the best ecovillage in the time allotted. This will be accomplished by playing the game: How to Design a Tiny House Ecovillage: The Board Game.
Sustainability ideas necessary for reaching net zero impact on the planet are described. This includes: Water, energy, wastes, food gardens and natural areas, other species, community outreach, transportation, consideration of other cultures, inclusivity, homes and businesses. The initial designs for these ecovillages can be within in our own neighborhoods, built over parking lots, and on top of box stores – taking advantage of space or land that is often neglected and transforming it into utopian settlements that address multiple issues simultaneously. Currently a part of my PhD dissertation, it is also being developed as an educational tool. The goal of the game is that by participating in a single 40-minute game, participants are transformed in the way they see their own environments, and the potential that exists within their own neighborhoods.
Julian Dominic
Our Budding Forests: An Intro to Forest Gardening
Our bioregion is rich with resources that need tending. Although sustainability is an important concept, when it comes to our forests and food, a direct, hands-on, village-style approach offers us ways to interact with our natural environments that can directly help respond and curb climate chaos. Through an interactive presentation, conversations and storytelling, we’ll explore the concept of permaculture and its language that helps us design and utilize perennial foods – from our own gardens and homesteads to the ‘wild’ forests and watersheds of Cascadia.
Tom Carter, Robert Wait, Elaine Kuehn, and Dr. Mary Ann Westfall
Clean Water For The People
Our presentation from three separate non-profit organizations will demonstrate our methods of water testing, water purification and preparedness for disasters and water emergencies. If possible we will demonstrate a large volume water pasteurizer that works without electricity and can produce 150 gallons of safe drinking water per hour. We also would show small inexpensive ways that families can protect themselves from diseases like diarrhea or cholera without help from governments or others. Finally we will show how water sources can be safely tested for biological contamination. These tests can also be used to test the effectiveness of various water purification methods now in use in countries around the world.
Davida Jordan and Serena Dressel
Understanding the World through English and the Sustainable Development Goals
This workshop will present various ways in which different ESL instructors have come together to engage their students in sustainability work, both inside and outside the classroom. The 17 SDGs provide endless material for work in all four language skill areas: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. By studying the 17 SDGs, students learn about current world issues and attempt to understand their causes. How did we get to where we are in 2018? What does the future hold? What will our world be like in 2030? Will we achieve these goals? The SDGs take English language students out of the grammar textbook and into the real world, forcing them to consider the implications of government actions and policies, institutionalized inequality, and societal systems. In order to fully explore such weighty topics, students are pushed to expand their vocabulary and grammar in English. On the other hand, even the lowest level beginners can grasp these fundamental issues thanks to the clear graphical symbols for each goal. They can start to make their own personal connection to the goals that are most meaningful to them. This workshop will help teachers activate their students’ interest in the SDGs by sharing what has worked for us in our ESL programs and what our aspirational goals are for the intersection of ESL and sustainability in the future.
Jon Biemer, Linda Neale and Rod McAfee
Ceremony as a Bridge to Sustainability
Ceremony can help motivate us to act more sustainably by emphasizing relationship and experiential aspects of our lives and our work as change agents. Ceremony can complement environmental technology and techniques.
We will present seven principles of ceremony.
1. Listening. When we recognize that we have a lot to learn, we make ourselves available to possibilities we could not have imagined.
2. Setting Intention. Ceremonies are intended to serve a need. Being clear about that need helps align participants as the ceremony and its outcomes unfold.
3. Preparing. Preparing matters. Think about the amount of preparing needed for this GPSEN conference.
4. Structuring. A story has a beginning middle and an end. So does a ceremony.
5. Creating Symbols. Symbols help us remember and discover what is important. A triangle with arrows on each side is a symbol of recycling at one level and the circle of life on another.
6. Praying. Prayer is not limited to religious expression. We can evoke meaning and energy outside ourselves with a song, by walking a thousand miles, or by standing in front of a bulldozer.
7. Welcome the Unexpected. The archetypal character Trickster bears gifts. A ceremony that does not go as planned is not a failure; it is an opportunity to learn.
We will show how these principles present themselves in environmental ceremonies, including: Earth Day, conferences, Standing Rock, and eclipses. In closing we will invite those present to participate in a brief ceremony, which will help us deepen our relationship with the Earth.
Greg Cermak
Big History, Factfulness and Sustainable Development: Why things are better than you think, but we still have a long way to go!
Join NASA Solar Ambassador Greg Cermak for a deep dive into the broader context of sustainability. “’Big History, Factfulness and Sustainable Development” examines our past, explains our present, and imagines our future through eight thresholds: Threshold 1: The Big Bang; Threshold 2: Stars Light Up; Threshold 3: New Chemical Elements; Threshold 4: Earth & the Solar System; Threshold 5: Life on Earth; Threshold 6: Collective Learning; Threshold 7: Agriculture; and Threshold 8: The Modern Revolution and Sustainable Development. We review the progress we have made the last 50-100 years and the future through the lens of remote sensing, data analytics and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Posters
Eric Butler and Carole Hardy
Impact of Ivy in Portland’s Forest Park
Forest Park faces numerous major ecological stresses, demonstrated in part by the significant lack of late-successional tree recruitment and invasion by ivy (Hedera spp.) and other invasive plant species. While ivy removal and revegetation has been a focus of restoration efforts, limited resources and unanswered questions about the impact of ivy and ivy removal on this ecosystem present an opportunity for re-evaluating restoration goals and techniques. Leveraging past and current ecological research on Forest Park and similar urban ecosystems, we evaluate Forest Park’s current ecological health compared to the restoration goals of managing to an old-growth reference site, the role of ivy, present an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) framework for deciding when and how to treat ivy with the Park, and discuss possibilities for post-treatment revegetation as a tool for building resistance to ivy reinvasion and re-establishing a self-regenerating forest ecosystem.
Gregg Hayward
Recycling 101 Online Course
Recycling 101 is an excellent resource for empowering citizens with the knowledge and tools to make smart waste and sustainability choices, and teach others. R101 functions much like an online Master Recycler training, educating students on what happens to their solid waste when it leaves the curb, what can / can’t be recycled and why, how to practice reduction and reuse, the basics of composting, smart purchasing, toxics reduction and materials management. R101 has been developed through a partnership between the Association of Oregon Recyclers and Oregon State University with grant assistance through Recycling Advocates. In this session you’ll learn more about what R101 has to offer, how to promote its use in your community, and even translate its use into generating active waste reduction and recycling volunteers. R101 is an excellent tool for both urban and rural residents, teachers, existing Master Recyclers, sustainability educators and more. It has been taken by people across the Northwest, as well as in many countries around the world. Come find out more!
Joy Mutare Fashu Kanu
Communities of Color and Climate Change and Justice
The poster is based on a proposal for a project that seeks to identify the interconnectedness of shared (or divergent) stories regarding community understandings of climate change, climate justice and environmental justice, to share recommendations for creating green, sustainable jobs, reduce and/or clean up pollution, and help communities better prepare for climate change with partner organizations, policy makers, donors as well one another. Further, the project proposes to collectively evaluate current coalitions in order to identify challenges and opportunities for more effective, efficient, resilient and sustainable partnerships.This project is intended to use Community Based Participatory Research and photovoice.