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✨🌀Haumea Ecoversity News🌀✨

Dear Reader

When creatives and cultural professionals begin exploring sustainability, the journey can feel overwhelming. Reflecting on my journey to become more ecoliterate this week, I was reminded of the invaluable guidance I’ve received from teachers and friends who helped me cultivate an ecological worldview.

An eco mindset is central to my creative practice, ecoliteracy teaching at Haumea Ecoversity. Cultivating an ecological worldview is foundational for all of us to act for a more just, equitable and harmonious world.
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​Appreciating Ecological teachers and friends

One such teacher is my dear friend Jan Alexander, who began Crann in the 80s and later chaired Pro Silva Ireland, advocating for Close-to-Nature forestry. Her work inspired my ongoing Hollywood Forest Story work. I fondly recalled working on a simple video with Jan in 2006, documenting the largest community native tree planting programme, The Local Project, that Crann had begun over a decade earlier in South Leitrim, Ireland. Recently, a person reached out after seeing their late grandfather in a clip from this video. I was moved to hear how the young Oak wood he planted continues to thrive in his memory, and it brought me back to the immense efforts of Jan and Crann forester, Noel Kiernan to envision a different forestry for Ireland.

Noel’s work has always been an inspiration. I rang him this week and he mentioned being interviewed by Brendan Dunford of BurrenBeo for the Irish Farmers' Journal this summer. With Brendan, Noel shared his holistic approach to forestry, farming, and habitat restoration. It's an extraordinary read when calls have only recently entered mainstream media to rethink forestry, farming and wildlife conservation with more urgency. I’ve long admired how Noel has quietly led the way in integrating ecological practices long before rewilding became a familiar concept. Haven't I had incredible ecologically-minded, teacher-friends?

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Becoming ecoliterate is an ongoing journey with many teachers

Also this week, a friend in Aotearoa New Zealand sent me an article featuring Māori elder Pauline Tangiora, whom I had been trying to contact for some years.
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​Reading about Pauline’s work on the Earth Charter Council in the 90s around the time of the UN's first Earth Summit over five years ago, confirmed for me that the Earth Charter could be a powerful, inspirational and accessible guide for creatives (and all people from all walks of life) to fully articulate integrated environmental and social values for personal, collective, planetary and intergenerational well-being. Discovering Pauline's story from afar, reinforced my belief in the Earth Charter’s importance in building a shared ecological vision - I'm going to write to thank her and tell her a Kiwi has been inspired by her work 10,000 miles away!

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Honouring others walking this path is so important to help us realise that an ecoculture shift is underway

These encounters this week also reminded me of an exercise I learned during my training with Earth Charter International to become an accredited sustainability educator: that it is valuable to reflect on when we became ecologically conscious and who inspired us. It’s a meaningful way to connect with our motivations, great teachers, and ancestors, and can help others on their journey too.

So, I invite you to pause and reflect: Who has been an inspiration in your ecological journey? Feel free to share your story by replying to this email. Your experiences could inspire others, your friends and family too.

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PS: Reflecting on our journeys can deepen our understanding and our resolve to do more with others' efforts in front of us. If someone specific inspired your ecological awareness, I'd love to hear about it! Reply to this email and share your story, or just drop a name and why they made a difference. I read every response, and your experience might alert me to other people who could be an inspiration for those learning through Haumea Ecoversity.

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