Why birding benefits us & the planet Matthew Zylstra, PhD, was recently invited on as a Guest Speaker for BirdLife South Africa’s Conservation Conversations to speak about the wellbeing benefits
EarthCollective is a peer-to-peer network catalysing and enabling initiatives that enhance people’s relationships with nature, themselves and their communities.
We believe in our shared interconnectedness and this motivates us to act in selfless service for the greater good.
We believe that our actions should always be intentioned to support a flourishing earth and thriving humanity.
This is our enduring motivation.
EarthCollective works a bit like mycelium. It is, above all else, an amorphous collection of connection: a purposeful entanglement of energised interactions, relationships and conversations that, under the right conditions, fruits into forms that then have value in themselves. It is in this sporadic fruiting of a new initiative, publication, event or collaboration that we find tangible reward and which may lead to visible structures, institutions and outcomes.
EarthCollective is therefore itself somewhat of a non-entity in the sense that it is not a registered organisation with a set physical address. Rather, it is connective tissue – fascia moving between a body; a changing expression and tension of relationships that ebb and flow in response to reason or season.
As individual members, we pollinate and therefore have formal affiliations and associations with multiple other organizations. But for EarthCollective as a whole, we are quite content for our efforts to remain largely unseen, unassuming and perhaps unfamiliar. As mycelium does, we too are satisfied to serve as a medium for facilitating meaningful communication and connection between organisms and entities, between people and nature.
Since its inception in early 2006, EarthCollective has facilitated the successful setup, support and coordination of diverse range of local and international initiatives including: tertiary conservation field study courses; transdisciplinary research programs; multi-stakeholder participation processes; landscape-scale restoration research and implementation; community training, up-skilling and empowerment for nature-based learning; and produced creative online media, art, outreach and advocacy in support of ecological awareness, social resilience and sustainable futures.
All these actions ultimately serve to recognize a profound appreciation of humanity’s interrelatedness and shared aspirations for a better world.
Simply said, it’s about getting:
“Positive ideas. Happening”
