Bioneers 2007 Conference Starts Tomorrow

If you are interested in living a happy, healthy, sustainable life in an environmentally and socially just world (and are in the San Rafael, CA, area this weekend) The Bioneers 2007 Conference starts tomorrow. If your not familiar with Bioneers it is a forum for connecting the environment, health, social justice, and spirit within a broad progressive framework. Now in its 17th year, Bioneers has been a leader in connecting scientific and social innovators to share visionary and practical models that restore the Earth and communities.

The organization conducts programs in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity, traditional farming practices, and environmental restoration. With a holistic perspective, Bioneers looks at environmental issues through the natural landscape, cultivated landscape, biodiversity, cultural diversity, watersheds, community economics and spirituality. Their mission is to unite nature, culture and spirit and create economic models founded in social justice.

The Bioneers Conference is a highlight of the organization’s work filled with inspiring talks by visionary thinkers and doers from wildly varied fields, cultures and walks of life. In addition to talks, the conference will present green-living workshops, organic dinners, image festivals, networking receptions and performances.

Here’s just a few of the many scheduled presentations:

• Clean Tech Comes of Age
• Building Local Living Economies and Successful Social Ventures
• From Ecovillages to Ecocities
• No Nukes or Green Nukes? The Debate over Global Warming and Nuclear Power
• Gimme Shelter: Green Building in an Age of Mega-Cities and Meta-Collapse

And a sample of the speakers:

Van Jones (www.ellabakercenter.org), an activist working to combine solutions to social inequality and environmental destruction, founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which promotes alternatives to violence and incarceration, in 1996. The City of Oakland has adopted the Ella Baker Center’s “Green Jobs Corps” proposal, and Van is pushing to create the first-ever Green Enterprise Zone in Oakland. More on Van Jones in National Initiative to create 250,000 Green-collar Jobs for Urban America at TreeHugger.

Paul T. Anastas, Ph.D., widely considered the founder of “green chemistry” during his work for the U.S. EPA and as director of the U.S. Green Chemistry Program, is a professor at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and also serves as the director of Yale’s Center for Green Chemistry.

Evon Peter, the chairman of Native Movement and former chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska, has served as the co-chair of the Gwich’in Council International and on the executive board of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council. Evon is an advocate of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, youth activism and a balanced world, and is active as a speaker, strategist, writer, and organizer. His experience includes work with United Nations and Arctic Council forums representing Indigenous and environmental interests.

Ka Hsaw Wa, (www.earthrights.org) co-founder and executive director of EarthRights International (ERI) and a member of the Karen ethnic nationality, was one of the student leaders in the 1988 Burmese student democracy uprising and has been a human rights activist ever since, working to document and resist human rights and environmental abuses within Burma (and around the world).

The conference goes through Sunday and is sure to be an extremely interesting, positive and uplifting event. You can get more info at Bioneers.