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The Knowledge Café on Dealing

with the Value of Nature

Published: 16 August 2016 

The Café intends to contest prevailing relationships between humans and the rest of the living planet and dominant discourses about "Natural Capital & Natural Value." The ICE Network will present a broad range of values relating to nature as experienced by different peoples, religions, cultures, and custodians, and the spaces of common ground and shared belief between them. The Café will offer ethical perspectives on human relationships to each other and to the Living Earth, as well as a moral and spiritual examination of globalized economic systems and structures of power and imbalance.

Code: #WCC_9785 

Room: 311-6

Date: 4 September 2016

Time: 08:30 - 10:30

Stage language: English

Focal point: Junghee Min
Inter – Religious Climate and Ecology Network

Email: mujin21@gmail.com

Tel: +82-10-5612-7504

Facilitating the Knowledge Café on Value of Nature is the Inter-religious Climate & Ecology (ICE) Network, seated within the Bangkok-based Secretariat of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. The ICE Network arose as an interfaith initiative to address the challenges of climate change. It is an inclusive pan-Asian network, with affiliates spanning Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Animist, Shamanic and Hindu practices and belief systems. This knowledge café is a place for modelling, studying, and discussing existing strategies to cope with the impacts of climate change, through a frame of spiritual values and an interfaith common ground of sacred ecology and deep interconnection with each other and all beings. We aim to do this in cooperation with stakeholders who represent a cross-section of faith-based and civil society organizations, climate scientists, and social entrepreneurs. ICE strives for gender, age and identity-equitable participation.

 

Objective: 

What does humanity value? Is it all about capital? The Café intends to contest prevailing relationships between humans and the rest of the living planet and dominant discourses about "Natural Capital & Natural Value." The ICE Network will present a broad range of values relating to nature as experienced by different peoples, religions, cultures, and custodians, and the spaces of common ground and shared belief between them. The Café will offer ethical perspectives on human relationships to each other and to the Living Earth, as well as a moral and spiritual examination of globalized economic systems and structures of power and imbalance. The café aims to raise awareness of the possibility of an interfaith, interspiritual common ground approach to understanding nature, creating mutually supportive relationships, and modelling sustainability in local communities.

 

Outcome: 

The event hopes to draw out and more clearly articulate the shared values of participants and representatives in the Café, while expanding awareness and strategies for subsequent application of those values through action.

Audience: The café will be open to all parties who wish to explore a faith-based or spiritual approach to biodiversity loss and climate change. A particular emphasis will be given to local actors, traditional knowledge brokers and stewards, indigenous peoples and others whose wellness and livelihoods are closely entwined with marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The ICE Network will invite faith leaders and practitioners from a variety of spiritual and value-based practices present at the conference. ICE Network warmly invites participation and engagement on the part of the IUCN commission and secretariat.

 

Modalities: 

The Café will explore and model examples from the network for collaborative eco-temples, faith-leadership in climate education and action, alternative energy projects, mindful markets, and mindful living. Experienced facilitators within the ICE Network will host the conversations.

Partners

  1. International Network of Engaged Buddhists ( Thailand )

  2. Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy 2013-2016

  3. IUCN Regional Office for Asia (ARO)

  4. We Have Faith, SAFECI

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