Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken tells the story of a worldwide movement that is largely unseen by politicians or the media. Hawken has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location, but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide. Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of this movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries-old history.

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at Powells.com

PAX Scientific's mission is to translate nature's efficiencies into innovative technology applications. They envision a world in which the PAX Streamlining Principle provides benefits to every pertinent industry by developing tools that use less energy and materials while simultaneously offering greater productivity and control. This approach translates nature's flow efficiencies into streamlined design geometries.

More information can be found at PAXScienfic.com

Since its inception, Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) has pursued a global mission to preserve coral reefs through innovative programs in science, education and technology. Today, there is no comprehensive baseline map of living coral reefs, and this information is urgently needed if we are to have a chance of reef conservation and protection. To accomplish this critical goal, PCRF is also pioneering a Coral Reef Satellite Mission in cooperation with scientists at College of Charleston, M.I.T., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, SeaSpace, Stevens Institute of Technology and USC.

More information can be found at pcrf.org

Farms Not Arms

A Conversation with Farmers and Peace Activists Michael O'Gorman and Will Allen

by Arty Mangan

Michael: We realize that agribusiness opposes the vision of holding onto family farms, and opposes strengthening our rural communities and family farms that are growing local produce. 90 percent of the fuel spent in our food production system is the distribution, only ten percent in actual production. So let's grow the produce closer to home. Let's grow our own fuels. Let's support the Midwest and get out of the wars in the Middle East.

Read more »

Bioneers has been selected for a prestigious Webby Award among just a handful of nominees. Last year's Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries internationally. According to the judges, our work—and the people behind it—is "forward-thinking, visionary and, most importantly, has a story to tell." As a Nominee, we are eligible to win a People's Voice Award.

Vote for the Bioneers on the Webby Awards website!

(To Vote for the Bioneers follow these links on the Webby Awards Web site: Website - Society - Charitable Organizations/Non-profit)

• Bioneers Radio Series VII is on the air – playing in communities nationwide from Albuquerque to Chicago to Seattle to Atlanta.
• Step It Up 2007 takes place tomorrow April 14^th. It's not too late to get involved! Check out their site for more information.
• Cultivating Women's Leadership workshop May 28 – June 2 on Cortes Island, British Columbia
• Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World edited by J.P. Harpignies has just arrived in bookstores. Visionary plants have long served indigenous peoples and their shamans as enhancers of perception, thinking, and healing. These plants can also be important guides to the reality of the natural world and how we can live harmoniously in it.

Excerpted from It's all Connected! It's all Alive!: Beaming Bioneers and your local food co-op

By Steve Cooke, Ellen Michel, Sarna Salzman

While attending the first Southeast Bioneers Forum here in Atlanta in October of 2005, I looked around the room and recognized that about half of the attendees each day were either members or regular customers at our co-op. A giant light bulb lit up over my head: For the full 30-plus years of our existence, Sevananda had been espousing the same concepts that were being presented at this conference. Read the complete article

Besides all the amazing books, CDs, DVDs, and downloads available, the online Bioneers Store also has a collection of t-shirts, sweatshirts, shopping bags, and travel mugs available as a means to show your support for Bioneers.

For a limited time only (April 13-30) ALL t-shirts are on sale (up to 25% off)!

Please email store@bioneers.org to verify available sizes and colors.

April 14
Step It Up
Nationwide
More Information

Apr 17 - 20
Green Business Conference
Chicago, Illinois
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April 21-22
Chicago Green Festival
Chicago, Illinois
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April 22
Earth Day Celebrations
Nationwide
More Information

April 24 – 25
EPA's National Sustainable Design Expo
Washington D.C.
More Information

May 1 – 3
Be The Change
Houston, Texas
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May 22 – 24
Investors' Circle 2007 Spring Conference & Venture Fair
San Francisco, California
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May 28 – June 2
Cultivating Women's Leadership
Cortes Island, British Columbia
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July 31 - August 7
Awakening Global Action
Ubud, Bali
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Make sure to visit the Bioneers Events Calendar to view and post events for 2007.

In Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - Author Bill McKibben sets out to challenge the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better"—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. The time has come to move beyond "growth" as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment. Deep Economy offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future.

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at billmckibben.com

Unlike mega-stores and multi-national chains like Wal-Mart, small businesses stimulate the economy by buying supplies and services locally, adapt to (rather than fight against) higher local environmental and labor regulations, and stick around for many years, often many generations.

The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition by Michael Shuman details dozens of specific strategies small and home-based businesses are using to successfully out-compete the world's largest companies.

Listen to a podcast of the Bioneers radio series program Going Local: From Wal-Mart to Small Mart

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at smallmart.org

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) uses hard-hitting marketing campaigns to align the policies of multinational corporations with widespread public support for environmental protection. They believe that logging ancient forests for copy paper or destroying an endangered ecosystem for a week's worth of oil is not just destructive, but outdated and unnecessary.

On Thursday, October 18, 2007 RAN and friends will gather for REVEL, an annual benefit party. Come celebrate The Art of Activism that is changing business as usual on Wall Street and in boardrooms beyond. Share food, drink, live music and inspiration, and be part of the solution this world so desperately needs. Invest in our future – support RAN – and have a great night out! For more information visit www.ran.org/give/revel.

Tradition and Revolution in Latin American Agriculture

An interview with Miguel Altieri by Arty Mangan

AM: You do a lot of work in Latin America with farmers. How are Latin American farmers dealing with the pressures of globalization?

Miguel: In Latin America we have a dual agriculture. There is a large-scale commercial sector of agriculture and also what we call the peasants, or small farmer sector. The small farmers are responsible for the food security of the region. About 60 percent of the corn, beans and potatoes – most of the food crops – are grown by the small farmers. The large-scale farmers are basically trapped in the agro-export model. They are the biggest users of the pesticides and fertilizers and also now the transgenic crops, particularly soybeans in Brazil and Argentina. Read More

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.

Black Gold chronicles the journeys of Ethiopia's Tadesse Meskela – one man on a mission to save 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy.

Black Gold was screened at the Bioneers Moving Image Festival in 2006 and was supported by groups like Global Exchange and Oxfam.

Learn more about the movie and the issues of the worldwide coffee trade at blackgoldmovie.com

On October 19-21, 2007 nearly two dozen local Bioneers conferences will take place across North America:

Anchorage, Alaska
Baltimore, Maryland
Bloomington, Indiana
Boulder, Colorado
Bozeman, Montana
Carbondale, Illinois
Cleveland, Ohio
Cobleskill, New York
Detroit, Michigan
Grinnell, Iowa
Houston, Texas
Logan, Utah
- Brigham City, Utah
Marion, Massachusetts
Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota
Portland, Oregon
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Seattle, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Traverse City, Michigan
Turlock, California
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Organizers of this year's 22 Bioneers satellite conferences will be gathering later this month with Bioneers staff in California to network, share best practices and build leadership capacity to create positive change at the local level. We encourage you to get involved with Bioneers in your community!

Get in touch and stay tuned at: http://beaming.bioneers.org/

• Take Back Your Time: Ten steps you can take right now
• Bill McKibben leads the charge for Step It Up 2007 taking place April 14^th
• Curing the drug industry - Get involved by hosting a house party screening of Money Talks - Profits Before Patient Safety. Click here and use the coupon code: health2007 to receive 20% off a DVD purchase
• Have you ever wondered what would happen if the people of the world talked to each other about the most important questions of our times – and the world listened? Conversation Week March 25-31
• Help keep David Brower's vision alive

Book

"Natural capitalism as a metaphor is an attempt to describe an integrated application and program of the economics of restoration." – Paul Hawken from Nature's Operating Instructions

DVD

"Welcome to what some have coined, 'a corporate state,' in which our own governmental institutions, language, and even our brains are wielded against our own best interest..." – Thomas Linzey, Bioneers 2006 plenary speaker

Audio Download

"There are two big reasons to want to win the oil endgame - both national security and national competitiveness." – Amory Lovins in the Bioneers radio series program Aligning Business with Biology: Breakthrough Eco-nomics

Mar 16 - 18 2007
EPIC 2007
Vancouver, Canada
More Information

Make sure to visit the Bioneers Events Calendar to view and post events for 2007.

Motherhood in America is at a critical juncture. As women's roles evolve, more women than ever are in the workforce and more children than ever are raised without a stay-at-home parent. At the same time, public and private policies that affect parenting and the workplace remain largely unchanged. The result is that parents, and mothers in particular, struggle to balance the needs of their children with the demands of their jobs. Some believe that mothers should balance parenting and career. Joan Blades — co-founder of MoveOn.org and one of Ms. Magazine's Women of the Year in 2003 — and Kristin Rowe Finkbeiner dare to argue otherwise.

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at MomsRising.org.

Activist and journalist Marisa Handler takes us on a fascinating journey – from her childhood home in apartheid South Africa to Israel, India, Nepal, Ecuador, Peru, and all over the United States – to offer a rare and revealing glimpse inside the global justice movement. She examines the movement's strengths and contradictions, demystifies its confrontational tactics, and explains why it has become such a powerful force for change. Through her gripping coming-of-age story – complete with vivid details of the many characters and events that have influenced her – she shows how, in a globalized society, we each have within us the power to change the world.

Look for her book at your local library, bookstore, or online at Berrett-Koehler.

Is there a woman making a difference in your community? Honor her by making a donation to Bioneers or by gifting a Bioneers membership.

Indigenous Power
By John Mohawk

When the Spanish first arrived in the Caribbean over 500 years ago, the idea that indigenous peoples might possess rights was given scant attention. Read more

Event: Cultivating Integrity – February 22^nd to 24^th – More Information

Podcast: Listen to Women Farmers – excerpted from the Bioneers Vault

To create Maquilapolis, the filmmakers brought together factory workers in Tijuana and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. to collaborate on a film that depicts globalization through the eyes of the women who live on its leading edge. The factory workers who appear in the film have been involved in every stage of production, from planning to shooting, from scripting to outreach.

Learn more about the film, where it will be screening, or how to get a hold of your own copy of Maquilapolis

13 Indigenous Grandmothers – From India to South Dakota to Africa

Restoring Family Values – excerpted from the Bioneers Vault

Protecting Childhood – Insights from the world of Ecological Medicine

Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature wins award

The Bioneers Store contains many materials related to women's leadership. Here are a few suggestions:

Book

"Leaders take calculated risks." – Ann Evans from Ecological Literacy

DVD

"Those who commit to uncovering the hidden wholeness, the potential in others...may become the architects of the future of the world." – Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Audio Download

"I didn't think I could be who I am..." – Sarah Crowell – Women's Leadership in Transforming Culture

February 22^nd
Ovarian Cancer Benefit Concert
Universal City, California
More Information

March 8^th
International Women's Day
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March 11^th
Barbara Ehrenreich at the Lensic Theater
Santa Fe, New Mexico
More Information

Make sure to visit the Bioneers Events Calendar to view and post events for 2007.

Terrain.org is an online journal of the built and natural environments. Published twice yearly, it searches for that interface – the integration – among the built and natural environments that might be called the soul of place.

The literary, journalistic, and artistic works featured on Terrain.org are of the highest quality, submitted by a variety of contributors for a diverse audience, including some of the finest material previously appearing in Terra Nova: Nature & Culture – works that are idealistic, technical, historical, philosophical, and more. Above all, they focus on the environments around us – the built and natural environment – that both affect and are affected by the human species.

On the Ground Extra!

The Biomimicry Institute is an organization whose mission is to naturalize biomimicry in the culture by promoting the transfer of ideas, designs, and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design.

Listen to a podcast of Janine Benyus' plenary (founder of the Biomimcry Institute) from Bioneers 2005 as she speaks about the design intelligence of the Seven Sisters Oak that helped it to survive Hurricane Katrina.

To purchase a DVD, CD, or audio download of Janine's entire plenary visit the Bioneers Store.

Connect to Terrain.org »

Why does the Solar Decathlon exist? To challenge student competitors —"Solar Decathletes" — to think in new ways about energy and how it impacts our everyday lives. To provide those students with a way to show and tell the world what they have learned. It exists to push research and development of energy efficiency and energy production technologies, and to encourage all of us to act responsibly when making energy choices.

• Architecture professor and the 2005 winning University of Colorado Solar Decathlon Team advisor Julee Herdt facilitated a workshop titled Visionary Architecture and New Urbanism at the Boulder Bioneers this past October.
• See what the 20 competing schools are challenged with for this year's Solar Decathlon and connect with the Boulder Bioneers.
• 83 Ecological Design workshops were conducted at one or the other Beaming Bioneers sites this past October. Learn more about each workshop by visiting the various Beaming Bioneers websites.

The Company We Keep: Reinventing the Small Business for People, Community, and Place by John Abrams is more than the success story of a revolutionary company. It sets down a framework for a model of employee ownership and community involvement that has piqued the interest of entrepreneurs around the country. In the words of Abrams, "This is a book about a different way of doing business in today's world-a way based on workplace democracy, shared ownership, staying small, building community, commitment to a place, and long term thinking."

John Abrams founded the South Mountain Company, a design and building firm, on Martha's Vineyard more than thirty years ago. Through a commitment to place and community entrepreneurship, he has seen the company grow and prosper, while at the same time experimenting with a revolutionary employee ownership model that has challenged the traditional business rhetoric of unchecked growth.

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at Chelsea Green.

Feature articles, news stories, podcasts, and resources are now live and updated regularly on the following topics via Bioneers.org:

• Ecological Design

  Safe by Design by Kim Ridley with Terry Collins

  Industrial chemistry is a dirty business. More than 100,000 synthetic chemicals have been released into our air, water, soil and food, and few have been tested for health effects on human beings or other creatures. Read on

• Ecological Medicine
• Food and Farming

Make these issues your own by joining a forum or posting a blog.

Can the building industry go carbon neutral by 2030? Find out if and how at Architecture 2030.

The Bioneers Store contains a number of materials related to the topic of Ecological Design. Here are a few suggestions:

Book

Nature's Operating Instructions

This book is a compilation of essays connecting the splendors of biomimcry to the wisdom of the indigenous to a heightened spiritual awareness, focusing on how we grow food, construct buildings, manufacture products, and process waste.

DVD

How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World – Paul Stamets

CD

From Campaigning to Governance: Enacting Green Plans – With Peter Warshall, Spencer Beebe, and Huey Johnson

Audio Download

Designing the Next Golden Age – Jay Harman

Seed Saving: Preserving Our Irreplaceable Genetic Heritage

by Kent Whealy

There is great reason for alarm and concern about the loss of native food crop strains, our irreplaceable genetic wealth. The only place genes can be stored is in living systems, either in the living branches, such as in bud-wooded apple trees, or in the living embryos of grains and vegetable seeds. Native varieties rapidly become extinct once they're dropped in favor of introduced hybrid seed.

Read on »

January 22
San Francisco Institute of Architecture
Winter Courses
Berkeley, California
More Information

January 27
Intentional Community and Deep Democracy
Watsonville, California
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January 30-31
Lecture and Workshop: Biomimicry for a Sustainable Built Environment
San Francisco, California
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February 3
4th Annual SNDEI Bioneers Conference
Nevada City, California
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Feb 4
Transformative Dialogue with Global Activists
San Francisco, California
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March 13
Built Green Conference & Expo
Everett, Washington
More Information

May 23-29
"Biologists at the Design Table" workshop
Dupuyer, Montana
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March 25-27
National Green Building Conference
St. Louis, Missouri
More Information

May 15-17
EnvironDesign 2007
New Orleans, Louisiana
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Make sure to visit the Bioneers Events Calendar to view and post events for 2007.

A determined youth leader, Billy Parish is Founder of the Climate Campaign, and Co-Founder and Coordinator for the Energy Action Coalition. Billy has focused on coalition-building within the youth movement, designing collaborative campaigns and developing new leaders by organizing conferences, trainings and tours.

Energy Action, the coalition of over 30 youth-led organizations in the U.S. and Canada, has launched the "Campus Climate Challenge" challenging high schools and colleges to unite and win 100% clean energy policies at their schools. They've teamed up with thinkMTV and created the Break the Addiction Challenge awarding $1,000 - $10,000 to students and campus groups that are making the greatest effort to reduce campus emissions and support clean energy policies!

Billy was a plenary speaker at the 2006 Beaming Bioneers Satellite site in Marion Massachusetts, Bioneers By the Bay, hosted by the Marion Institute. Purchase a copy of Billy Parish's plenary on DVD.

Youth Extra!

Check out the article Young and Green on the Bioneers written by Jennifer Liss for the online magazine Wiretap.

Visit the Bioneers Youth site to keep up with the latest. »

The Challenge

As young people Native Movement observes that the world they are living in is tremendously out of balance. For many of them it became clear at a very young age that humanity is headed in a direction that is leading them towards human and environmental turmoil, if not outright devastation. Furthermore, they understood that humanity has been on this path for quite some time. For example, decisions are based on profitability and greed rather than social welfare, environmental wisdom, human rights, and sustainability.

Organizing Model

Native Movement functions as a collective of projects and campaigns that are led by youth, wherein they support one another both on the personal and professional levels. They focus on peace, sustainability, youth leadership development, healing, community building, and movement building. As they carry out their work, Native Movement collaborates whenever possible with organizations that promote similar values and vision.

Learn more about the organization and its current projects

Spotlight Extra!

Four youth representing five unique backgrounds of culture, education, experience, and insight, led a thought-provoking workshop to a packed Youth Tent during the Bioneers 2006 Conference, delving into the many issues that young leaders are facing in trying to organize, find solutions, and collaborate within their communities.

Download the workshop or purchase it on CD.

In Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, noted environmental educator David W. Orr focuses not on problems in education, but on the problem of education. Much of what has gone wrong with the world, he argues, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that: alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical; deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.

Orr describes the problems of education from an ecological perspective, and challenges the "terrible simplifiers" who wish to substitute numbers for values. He follows with a presentation of principles for re-creating education in the broadest way possible, discussing topics such as biophilia, the disciplinary structure of knowledge, the architecture of educational buildings, and the idea of ecological intelligence. Orr concludes by presenting concrete proposals for reorganizing the curriculum to draw out our affinity for life.

Find a copy at your local library, local bookstore, or online at Island Press

Written by Brahm Amadi director of People's Grocery, a community food and urban agriculture project in West Oakland.

Low-income communities are often ignored or overlooked by politicians, developers and corporations as attractive opportunities for business and the development of markets. One reason for this is that there is a lack of information and data about these communities that can show just how much economic or market opportunity exists within them. The research and data gathering just hasn't been done, largely because no one has wanted to invest the time, energy and money to do the research. Read More