News

We’re excited for the 2020 NCLC! Heading into our fifth year of bringing together nature connection organizations, we’re very excited for the changes we’re making.

The conference is a three-day gathering of nature connection school leaders designed to support growing our visions into successful, economically viable and regenerative businesses. This year we will continue our focus on equity, justice, inclusivity, and right relations and we will expand our offerings in regards to programming. Stay tuned for more!

This year we’ll be at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, NY, a bucolic 385-acre site with beautiful indoor and outdoor spaces. The new location will give us even more access to winter wilderness and more capacity allowing for each of us to bring more members of our teams.

Dates and pricing for the 2020 conference are on our website:
https://wildearth.org/schools/nature-connection-leadership

Wed-Fri, January 22-24, 2020

at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, NY

Dear All,

Thank you so much for being on the call with us yesterday and we hope that you were able to take some time to process.

We’d like to reiterate a few things that were mentioned during the call:

1- Please consider becoming a member of the Nature Connection Network.

Your membership is vital to support our collective work, it provides you with access to our listserv, materials gathered from multiple years of the Nature Connection Leadership Conference, and future webinars.

Join the Nature Connection Network now for as little as $75 per year.

2- Please send us your feedback and responses to the call/recording.

You can email us directly or use the comment/contact form at the bottom of this page.

We would also love to read any guidelines/content/actions/debrief of actions, that you or your organization may have created with regard to the Cultural Appropriation ‘Mastodon’ topic.

And, if you’re looking for more context about why the call happened, check out David and Saskia’s original announcement.

Without further ado, here are the recording from the video call:

3- Looking to learn more?

Here is some suggested reading/watching:

Dear Settlers: Before Using Our Medicine, Be Aware of Your White Privilege

Authors Note: I’m not an Elder or Medicine Person, so I’m aware I have no authority to say who’s allowed to use our medicines and in what way. I simply want to explain how I feel and why. I’ve noticed a lot of well-meaning non-Indigenous people have really taken a liking to our traditional Ceremony.

And here are some helpful definitions:

White privilege – Wikipedia

White privilege (or white skin privilege) is the societal privilege that benefits people whom society identifies as white in some countries, beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or economic circumstances.

Decolonization – Wikipedia

Decolonization ( American English) or decolonisation ( British English) is the undoing of colonialism: where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over one or more other territories. The term refers particularly to the dismantlement, during the second half of the 20th century, of the colonial empires established prior to World War I throughout the world.

Indigenous decolonization – Wikipedia

Indigenous decolonization describes ongoing theoretical and political processes used to contest and reframe narratives about indigenous community histories and the effects of colonial expansion, genocide, and cultural assimilation. Indigenous people engaged in decolonization work adopt a critical stance towards western-centric research practices and discourse and seek to reposition knowledge within indigenous cultural practices.

Microaggression – Wikipedia

A microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group. The term was coined by psychiatrist and Harvard University professor Chester M.

Cultural appropriation – Wikipedia

Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of elements of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture. Because of the presence of power imbalances that are a byproduct of colonialism and oppression, cultural appropriation is distinct from equal cultural exchange.

Historical trauma – Wikipedia

Historical trauma ( HT), a term used by social workers, historians, and psychologists, refers to the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event. Historical trauma response (HTR) refers to the manifestation of emotions and actions that stem from this perceived trauma.

Since we don’t have Elephants on this continent, David Vanderhoop and I (Saskia Vanderhoop) propose to have conversation around the Mastodon in the room.

Recently, you may have seen some email trains zoom by that were prompted by an anti-racism training and resulting in a bunch of intense conversations around racism, decolonization and cultural appropriation. With many perspectives fresh in our mind and hearts, David and I would like to turn to our Nature Connection Network for related conversation about the following:

(1) David – with the support of a panel – is going to lead a workshop on cultural appropriation during our upcoming Nature Connection Leadership Conference, in the assumption that it is time to address the Mastodon in the room. The room being our approach and our teachings that heavily “borrowed” from natives, and the Mastodon being cultural appropriation versus appropriate cultural sharing.

(2) We would like to invite all to a webinar style conversation on that same topic to allow us to kickstart conversation prior to the conference, AND to allow those, that are not able to join the conference, to participate. For this webinar – or zoom call – David and I hope to be supported by several others that have shown up passionately during the recent conversations and are committed to doing this work.

(3) We welcome all of us to start another email train conversation, so we can begin to exchange the work we do at home and in our organizations. We recognize that this is a sensitive, deep rooted, and complex topic, and we encourage conversation as we are trying to figure out what this Mastodon is really like, up close and personal.

A video/audio Zoom call was held on Sunday, Dec 9 and was recorded. A recording of the call is available on the Nature Connection Network website.

Excited to announce that registration for 2019 Nature Connection Leadership Conference is now open!

Details about the conference are online:
https://wildearth.org/schools/nature-connection-leadership

Wednesday noon through Friday at noon
January 23-25, 2019
Lifebridge Sanctuary in Rosendale, NY

The conference has sold out every year. Register today and reserve your space!

The Nature Connection Network and its member organizations, together, seek to remedy the disconnection from self, others, and the earth it has witnessed in communities and attributes to the drastic reduction in time spent out of doors (the EPA estimates 93% of the average American’s life is spent indoors) and concurrent lack of unstructured play, free time, purposeful work, and over-use and addiction to technology.

Programs are designed to help any individual, but especially youth, gain mentored access to pristine wilderness spaces and the undeniable benefits of spending time in nature. Research overwhelmingly indicates that time in nature has a positive effect on almost every aspect of a child’s life, including: stress reduction and improved self-discipline (Wells and Evans, 2003) (Taylor, Kuo and Sullivan, 2001); improved social relations as a result of unstructured, out of door play (Burdette and Whitaker, 2005); increased creativity, problem solving, and intellectual development (Kellert, 2005) (Bell and Dyment, 2006); increased attentiveness (Kuo, Browning, and Penner, 2018); and improved academic performance in social studies, science, language arts, and math (American Institutes for Research, 2005).

In areas of dense urbanization and socioeconomic inequality, the need is even more pronounced. Though our member organizations share a deep commitment to financial access to its programs, the most vulnerable children in surrounding communities continue to be implicitly excluded due to their families’ lack of ability to seek out and pay for extracurricular activities, a common and critical issue among disadvantaged students.

According to a 2015 White House whitepaper entitled “Economic Costs of Youth Disadvantage and High-Return Opportunities for Change,” the realities of the challenges facing at-risk youth, as well as the benefits of alleviating them, are enormous. According to the paper, income-inequality has created a severe disparity in enrichments families are able to afford their children: families in the highest income quintile now spend a staggering seven times more on things like books, computers, summer camps, music lessons, and other activities than families in the lowest income quartile.

Accordingly, familial income – and its effects on academic success, access to enriching out of school activities, and exposure to caring adult mentors – is an even greater indicator of future success or failure than in previous generations. Further, youth of color are disproportionately impacted by these trends, with 38% of black children and 40% of Hispanic children living in poverty as compared to 20% of all children and just 11% of white children. The paper also cited research that linked participation in extracurricular and out-of-school programming to reduced incarceration, reduced teen pregnancy, increased graduation rates, decreased mortality rates, and over the long run, better job placement and a lifetime of earning more wages.

Throughout the U.S., Canada, and internationally, there is a growing movement of nature connection organizations and wilderness schools that are cultivating character, confidence, passion and perseverance in young people and adults through long-term nature-based mentoring.

The experiences and programs offered by these organizations range from topical workshops to multi-day experiential learning, and rites of passage. Set in forests, mountains, and streams, programs are adventurous and joyful, offering nature skills and crafts, awareness building activities, team and community building, and story and song, facilitated by multi-generational mentors.

The Nature Connection Leadership Network (The Network) was founded to support and strengthen its member organizations and amplify this work through sharing resources, knowledge and best practices.

Since 2016, each January, we have convened a Nature Connection Leadership Conference. The conference has attracted over 100 leaders from 30 schools in the northeast United States and Canada. During the conference, we have focused on very practical organizational issues including: fundraising and grant writing success, engaging the board of directors, data tracking and communications, building capacity through community partnerships, attracting volunteerism, and budgeting basics. At our most recent conference, we tackled issues related to cultural appropriation, building reciprocity with native communities, and reaching urban and underserved youth. Over the past three years, attending organizations have benefited a great deal from this initial effort at strengthening each other through sharing our best practices, and have asked for more support and collaboration throughout the year.

For the past three years, efforts at convening and leading the conference and founding the network have been taken up primarily through the volunteer work of Wild Earth Wilderness School (David Brownstein and Simon Abramson), EarthWalk Vermont (Angella Gibbons), Sassafrass (Saskia Vanderhoop) and Vermont Wilderness School (Sam Stegeman). Going forward, we are creating a model of a self-sustained, well-funded, and properly staffed network that serves the mission of the network and the nature connection movement overall.

Dear Colleagues and Fellow Nature Connection Leaders,

We are excited to announce the 4th Annual Nature Connection Leadership Conference will be held Wed-Fri, January 23-25, 2019 at the Lifebridge Center in Rosendale, NY.

The Nature Connection Leadership Conference is designed for established nature connection organizations (2+ years old), and each organization is encouraged to send 2-4 leaders. Together, we will share best practices that support growing our visions into successful, economically viable and regenerative businesses.

The NCLC conference is designed and conducted on a shared leadership model. You, as a leader attending the conference will be invited to offer presentations and workshops, lead activities and discussions, or to participate in other ways.

We are so excited to get together with so many talented and experienced leaders this January! Be sure to add the dates to your calendar: Wed-Fri, January 23-25, 2019 at the Lifebridge Center in Rosendale, NY.