Ecotrust works to promote a sense of place and stewardship among the citizens of the northwest region. The organization has several project areas, including Natives, Fisheries, Forestry, Food and Farms, and Citizenry programs.
Activities
Affiliated with Ecotrust Canada and several other related organizations, Ecotrust works around several main concepts. The idea of a Salmon Nation brings together all people living within the traditional home range of pacific salmon species and asks them to unite around this environmental icon. The organization also works to develop a Conservation Economy, which builds smart growth and economic development around principles of sustainable living. Community development, planning, ecology and natural resources management, and facilitation projects all focus on Ecotrust’s defining principle—that all successful communities must incorporate ecology, economy, and equity into decision-making.
Relevant Project(s)
In addition to ongoing outreach to create a sense of place using the concept of Salmon Nation, Ecotrust has several specific tools and initiatives:
- Knowledge Systems. An informational toolkit housing the organization's analytical, technical, and map-making capacities. The System integrates ecological and economic information into sophisticated analyses and map-based outputs, building a data-rich foundation for the Salmon Nation. An example of this work appears in the Groundfish Fleet Restructuring Project. The first toolkit—the Ocean Communities 3E Analysis Network (OCEAN) allows users to apply a spatial lens to fisheries management. Complementary toolkits for the food and farms & forestry sectors are now in development.
- Tidepool. An associated website provides daily news for the western rainforest region.
- Inforain. A web clearing house, Inforain presents Ecotrust’s GIS and mapping resources and hosts the GIS analysts that perform most of Ecotrust’s work. The analysts may be available to provide data or services to related projects.
- Conservation Economy. Maintained as a separate website, this initiative provides information about economic opportunities and linkages for the emerging sustainable economy in the northwest.
- Salmon Nation. The main citizen outreach and empowerment project, Salmon Nation seeks to foster a unified regional identity, capture the interest and participation of most citizens in the region, and encourage sustainable lifestyles that relate to salmon.
Relevant Methodologies
The work of Knowledge Systems includes reporting, planning, and visioning: Ecotrust assesses and monitors biophysical and socioeconomic patterns and outlines alternative scenarios using the toolkits. A result of Knowledge Systems work is the transformation of Ecotrust's intellectual capital into a series of stand-alone toolkits for assessing and monitoring the state of the bioregion and envisioning new market infrastructures within it.
The Salmon Nation project heavily utilizes storytelling and community participation methods to bring out personal feelings and connections to the land; a primary goal of the project is to reach a majority of citizens in the region. One of Ecotrust’s great strengths is the organization’s ability to think along interdisciplinary lines, using as evidence everything from population statistics on salmon to poetry and personal narrative on the meaning of the species. Using The Natural Step Framework, Ecotrust also helps communities conduct visioning projects and characterize themselves prior to conducting any planning or management project. Dr. Stuart Cowan was instrumental in designing some of the organization’s methods and projects, and his use of pattern language theories has critically impacted the Conservation Economy program.
Region
Northwestern United States and Canada
More Information
http://www.conservationeconomy.net
Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center
Suite 200
721 NW Ninth Avenue
Portland, OR 97209
503-227-6225 (phone)
503-222-1517 (fax)