To become dwellers in the land, to come to know the earth fully and honestly, the crucial and perhaps only and all encompassing task is to understand place, the immediate specific place where we live.

	JEA Building Community Outreach Program Grant
	Environmental Protection Board, City of Jacksonville Brochure Publication
	Northeast Florida Sea Grant Extension Agency University of Florida Paper, Photocopying, Envelopes, Postage, Staff Support
	Department of Philosophy University of North Florida University Center Facilities Discount
	Environmental Education Resource Council of Northeast Florida Book-keeping and Account Management
	Sawmill Slough Conservation Club, University of North Florida Staff Support and Gathering Fire Attendance

A region holds the power to sustain and join disparate people: old ground charged with common wholeness and forces of long-growing life. All people are within regions as a condition of their existence, and regions condition all people within them.

Bioregionalism recognizes, nurtures, sustains and celebrates our local connections with: land; plants and animals; rivers, lakes and oceans; air; families, friends, and neighbors; community; native traditions; and systems of production and trade.

A bioregion is part of the earth's surface whose rough boundaries are determined by natural rather than human dictates, distinguishable from other areas by attributes of flora, fauna, water, climate, soils and land forms, and the human settlements and cultures those attributes have given rise to.

We need to understand our place, a community which nature has formed, to learn its ways, its capacities and limits, its laws, so that we begin to define sustainability and quality of life within the bioregion of which we are part. The bioregion is a basic unit, sometimes identified by its chief natural resource, often by watershed.

EKC History
The EKC is a yearly three-day conference devoted to themes of environmental education and ethics, held at the University of North Florida (since 1995) on the first full weekend in February. The conference is formally an activity of the Environmental Education Resource Council (EERC), a nonprofit organization hosted by UNF. A Steering Committee, the names of the members of which are listed below, plans and carries out each conference.

1988 - Florida Coastal Topics for Creative Writers Workshop
1990 - Environmental Issues, Ethics, and Religion in the 1990s
1992 - Building an Ethic of Hope
1993 - Finding Appropriate Roles
1994 - A Fifteen Generation Approach to Living Lightly on the Planet
1995 - Neighborhoods as a Natural Resource
1996 - Healthy Neighborhoods for a Healthy Earth
1997 - Reconnecting with the Natural World
1998 - Sustainable Economics: Earth as the Bottom Line
1999 - Educating for a Future: Learning to be Human in a More Than Human World
2000 - Coming Home: Discovering our Sense of Place

Educational Focus
The EKC is dedicated to community-based, non-advocacy discussion of themes and issues in environmental education, environmental ethics, local environmental issues, and quality of life issues. The EKC is not a forum for activism. Instead, as we all become educated, we trust that our good sense will direct us in paths that are beneficial for both the inhabitants and the natural context of northeast Florida.

Bioregional Focus
We will be focused, for the next few years, on the local bioregion, essentially defined by the lower St. Johns River Basin/Watershed. We will explore the character of our bioregion, and, given that particular bioregion, consider how we can have high-quality, yet sustainable and low-impact, lifestyles.

Keynote Speakers:

• Kirkpatrick Sale (Cold Spring, NY), well-known writer/lecturer on bioregionalism, is the author of many books, including Human Scale, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, Rebels Against the Future, and the Fire of His Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream.
• Bill Belleville (Sanford, FL), environmental journalist and film-maker, is the author of the critically-acclaimed River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River. Bill has won many awards, including Florida Audubon and Florida Wildlife Federation's "Writer of the Year" awards. He is a film-maker for PBS and the Discovery Channel, most recently having written and produced Wekiva: Legacy or Loss.

• Maurice Coman is Conservation Chair of the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club. He has been active with the Sierra Club for over fourteen years, including two years as Chair of the Northeast Florida Group. Maurice received the Lee and Mimi Adams Environmentalist of the Year Award in 1999.
• Lucy Cortese, Executive Director of Tree Hill, Inc., administers Jacksonville's nature center's operations, develops and implements forest ecology and energy education programs, and provides in-service workshops on a variety of topics. Lucy was for six years Principal of St. Paul's Catholic School, and she is past president of the Adams Environmental Award Board and of the Duval Environmental Educators Network.
• Dan Donaldson is Vice-Chairman of the Sierra Club. Dan recently received the Lee and Mimi Adams Environmentalist of the Year Award.
• Beverly Fleming, Director of EERC and a St. Johns County Park Naturalist, has won numerous awards for her photography and writing, most recently a state-wide first place award for outdoor writing. Her book on northeast Florida nature is designed to help those who are not familiar with the area to become more comfortable with their natural environment in order to develop an appreciation for it.
• Velma Frye, Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, has performed widely in the US and Europe. She shared the stage regularly on public radio in the 80's with such notables as Garrison Keillor, Sydney Pollack, Leo Kottke, and Doc Watson. She continues to perform concerts, teach and record music, and often leads groups in community building activities and songs with positive messages about life, love and nature.
• John Golden is the Chief Park Ranger at the University of North Florida. He oversees and manages the UNF Wildlife Sanctuary and the Robert W. Loftin Nature Trail System.
• Donna Harden, Chef/Owner of Bon Appetit, graduated from the Institute of the South for Hospitality and Culinary Arts with a Culinary Management degree. She has owned her own business for one year.
• Heart of the Earth Council (Tallahassee, FL): Susan Cerulean, writer, wildlife educator; Norine Cardea, therapist, member/founder, Miccosukee Land Co-op; Jeff Chanton, oceanographer/wetlands scientist, FSU; Barry Fraser, therapist; Lucy Ann Walker-Fraser, researcher, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
• John Lambie (Sarasota, FL), as Executive Director of Florida House Institute for Sustainable Development, developed the Florida House Learning Center, the Urbaculture/Florida Farm Learning Center, the Community Design Center, the Sustainable Martin Meeting House, the Sustainable Development Tool Kit, and the MacArthur Foundation's Sustainable Everglades Initiative.
• Harold Lock is a member of the Coastal Salish First Nation.
• Mike Sosadeeter, Director of Operations, Florida House Institute for Sustainable Development. Mike holds a masters degree in Landscape Architecture. He has extensive experience in agricultural programs, permaculture, organic gardening, and Earth Literacy programs in the US, Europe, Haiti, The Bahamas, and Puerto Rico.
• Steve Torma (Earthhaven, near Asheville, NC), who facilitates our conference celebrations and runs the bookstore, has been researching and experimenting with lifestyles focused on sustainability, peace, and justice, for twenty years. He has started or helped animate peace and justice organizations, intentional communities, business cooperatives, eco-spirituality groups, and personal growth support groups.
• Kelley G. Weitzel is Senior Preserve Naturalist at Pelotes Island Nature Preserve. In addition, she serves as the Regional Director for the League of Environmental Educators in Florida. She's published a children's book on the Timucua Indians, and is now completing her second book on Florida's early native cultures for the University Press of Florida.

• David Fenner (dfenner@unf.edu)
• Pat Jeremiah (patj@mediaone.net)

• Sarah Bailey (needmore@aug.com)
• Roger Bass (rdbass@aol.com)
• Diogenes D. Dog (diogenes35@hotmail.com)
• Beverly Fleming (fleminglimpkin@aol.com)
• John Hammond (jham605345@aol.com)
• Barry Heath (barry_heath@email.msn.com)
• Sarah Kivler (skivler@juno.com)
• John X. Linnehan (metanoia1@earthlink.net)
• Martina Linnehan (metanoia1@earthlink.net)
• Harold Lock
• Aileen Miller (amiller@unf.edu)
• Paula Pedersen (swcatalyst@aol.com)
• Toni Stay (jagsrule@thebest.com)
• Art Yeaman (artyea@aol.com)

• Lori Carlson
• John Eisler
• John Flowe
• John Golden
• Joe Halusky
• Bill Hamilton
• John Jackson
• Silver Fox Mette
• Bob Ragland
• Susan Van Hoek
• Bill Watkins

Friday, February 2

8:00 Atrium Lobby
Registration and Refreshments - Toni Stay, Registration Coordinator, & Beverly Fleming

8:30 Fireside - Fire Lighting Ceremony - Harold Lock
The conference fire is a First Nations Ceremonial Gathering Fire. It will be attended throughout the conference - 24 hours a day - by members of UNF's Sawmill Slough Conservation Club (Dan Miller, President) under the direction of the fire tender, Harold Lock, a member of the Coastal Salish Nation. You are invited to spend time by the fire. Please show respect by engaging in gentle conversation and quiet reflection, and by refraining from putting anything in the fire.

9:00 Main Room
Conference Introduction - David Fenner
Welcome - President Hopkins
Dedication of EKC 2001 - Beverly Fleming

9:30 Main Room
Re-cap of Conference 2000 / Overview of Conference 2001 - Martina Linnehan

9:45 Atrium Lobby / Main Room - Break, Exhibits, Bookstore
Please visit the conference exhibits and Steve Torma's incredible bookstore!

10:00 Main Room - Keynote Address

Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision - Kirkpatrick Sale
Bioregionalism - What, Why, Where, and How - especially for north Florida.
Introduction - Pat Jeremiah

11:15 Main Room - Introduction of Workshops - John X. Linnehan

11:45 Atrium Lobby / Main Room - Break, Exhibits, Bookstore

12:00 Lunch, if pre-ordered, in the Banquet Hall OR on your own.

1:30 Workshops

A. Room 1088 - Breaking New Ground in Northeast Florida: Tree Hill's Eco-Sustainable Building - Lucy Cortese
Tree Hill, Jacksonville's Nature Center, is developing plans for northeast Florida's very first eco-sustainable commercial building. In this workshop, participants will travel the journey from the vision of an ecologically friendly facility to the reality of planning Tree Hill's new building. Bring your own ideas about "green" architecture to this session.

C. Fireside - Take A Hike - John Golden
For those interested in an hour-and-a-half introductory guided tour of UNF's richly diverse Wildlife Sanctuary, please assemble at the fire. Ranger John Golden, with members of Sawmill Slough, will meet you there.

D. Room 1003 - Culture: Native Rivers and Rites - Kelley Weitzel
In northeast Florida, the St. Johns River and its surrounding wetlands provided food, technology, and a sense of place to early Florida natives. Find out what life was like for the Timucua people 500 years ago. Learn about survival strategies and cultural adaptations that helped them survive and flourish in early Florida.

3:30 Workshops

E. Main Room - Creating a Bioregional Movement - Heart of the Earth Council
The Heart of the Earth movement has been established in the Red Hills and Gulf Coastal Lowlands Bioregions to advance the essential work of living sustainably and harmoniously within the web of life at this place on our planet. We enter into this work fired by the urgencies facing our planet, and our growing understanding of our human role: that we, as North Americans, are only among 25 percent of the world's population but consume more than 70 percent of the world's resources and eat more than 60 percent of its food. We believe that understanding the ecological gifts and constraints of our bioregion will allow us to develop effective and sustainable strategies so that all of us - human and nonhuman - may continue to live here.
In this workshop, the five members of the Heart of the Earth organizing council will walk attendees through an actual presentation, as it might be offered to prospective members in your own bioregion. You will learn to tailor our blend of contemporary science, energy conservation, ritual and local biological knowledge into a similar movement in your own area.

F. Room 1090 - Getting to Know Your Natural Neighbors - Beverly Fleming
Life along the St. Johns River -- the birds, animals, and plants with which we share space -- is all interconnected. When we become more aware of, and comfortable with, our natural surroundings, our decisions begin to reflect that caring.

G. Room 1088 - Cooking for Health of Body and Soil - Donna Harden
This workshop will illustrate, with tastes and discussion, how earth is self-nourishing: how we nourish ourselves within the cycle of sun and seasons, eating locally, seasonally, and organically whenever possible. Connections will be shown between our diets and the health of the earth.

H. Room 1003 - State of the Region: The Conservationist's Dilemma - Maurice Coman & Dan Donaldson

6:00 Dinner on your own OR at the fire.  John Hammond will prepare a light dinner out by the fire.

7:00 Fireside Sharing: Music, Stories, Poetry - Joe Halusky & Lori Carlson

8:00 Atrium Lobby - Refreshments and Registration

8:15 Main Room - Welcome Back - Steve Torma and Velma Frye

9:00 Main Room - Keynote Addresses

River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River - Bill Belleville
The St. Johns River defined Florida for the earliest settlers - from the Timucua to the Europeans. But its sense of history and sacredness has been lost to modern Floridians. Why is this? And how can we recover that loss?

The Riverkeeper Program

Introduction - Roger Bass

10:30 Workshops - please see above for workshop descriptions.

E. Main Room - Heart of the Earth: Creating a Bioregional Movement - Heart of the Earth Council

G. Room 1088 - Cooking for Health of Body and Soil - Donna Harden

1:00 Main Room - Velma Frye

1:30 Main Room - Community Visioning Workshop, Part One

Sustainable Bioregions by Design: Building New Infrastructure to Implement the Bioregional Vision as Economic Opportunity - John Lambie and Mike Sosadeeter of the Florida House Institute for Sustainable Development (FHI) will walk participants through a vision-based sustainable development process that delivers the future we all want rather than the future we are likely to get.

FHI will introduce its "four system layers" collaborative approach, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software and decision-support tools that can help citizens "make their case" and significantly improve community capacity for teaching and learning. FHI will share its work in creating Community Design Centers as physical places designed to convene the community, provide access to the tools and hold institutional memory around the sustainable development process.

FHI believes that sustainable development means dynamic abundance, not static scarcity. If we apply our collective ingenuity, creativity, and know-how in a comprehensive design process, it is possible for our social and environmental goals to be transformed into economic opportunities for wealth creation and job creation. We can live better and waste less. Our vision of a sustainable future can become a market for entrepreneurs motivated by enlightened self-interest. The future is not something to be feared; it is something to be created.

FHI envisions this workshop being the initial meeting toward convening a Sustainable Jacksonville Alliance that will implement a collaborative vision-based sustainable development process toward the creation of a Community Design Center to house and monitor the progress. We will visit the Jacksonville Community Council's (JCCI) local insights into quality of life issues and indicators used for monitoring the overall health of the community. An action plan will be created of how citizens of Jacksonville can plan a strategic role in the Better Jacksonville Plan toward creating dynamic abundance in a sustainable bioregion by design.

3:30 Main Room - Community Visioning Workshop, Part Two

5:00 Main Room - Positive-ly Velma! - Vocalist/Instrumentalist Velma Frye

6:00 Dinner on your own OR at the fire.

7:00 Fireside Sharing:  Music, Stories, Poetry - Joe Halusky & Lori Carlson
 

8:00 Atrium Lobby - Refreshments

8:30 Main Room - Welcome Back - Steve Torma and Mother Davette Turk

9:00 Main Room - Panel Discussion & Conference Overview - John X. Linnehan

10:30 Atrium Lobby / Main Room - Break, Exhibits, Bookstore

10:45 Main Room - Door Prizes and Conference Evaluations - David Fenner
Please fill out your conference evaluation form at this point, if not before. Door prizes, donated by members of the Steering Committee and other friends of the EKC, will be drawn from submitted conference evaluation forms. One must be present to win!

11:30 Fireside - Closing Fire Ceremony - Harold Lock
 

A bioregion is an identifiable geographical area of interacting life-systems that is relatively self-sustaining in the ever-renewing process of nature. The full diversity of life functions is carried out, not as individuals or as species... but as a community that includes the physical as well as the organic components of the region.

Earth is characterized by basic patterns which contribute to its continual self-renewal. As part of the earth community, humans must reinvent our activities in ways that mutually enhance the activities of the earth community. Conference events, as mentioned below, reflect integration of human endeavors with earth's activities.

Earth as Self-Emerging (energy, work, technology, architecture, transportation) - Just as earth's innate power of self-assembly is expressed in geological activities and weather patterns, for example, human activities also represent earth emerging.
Breaking New Ground in NE Florida: Tree Hill's Eco-Sustainable Building - Lucy Cortese

Earth as Self-Fulfilling (art, ritual, culture, spirituality) - Humans fulfill our special role as we celebrate the mystery of the universe in the unique qualities of each regional community.
Fire Lighting Ceremony & Closing Fire Ceremony - Harold Lock
Ritual/Celebration - Steve Torma
Musical Interlude & Concert - Velma Frye
Fireside Sharing: Music, Stories, Poetry

Earth as Self-Governing (ethics, rights, politics, community development) - An order exists within every regional life community. There exists an interior bonding of the members.
State of the Region: The Conservationist's Dilemma - Maurice Coman & Dan Donaldson
Community Visioning Workshop - John Lambie and Mike Sosadeeter

Earth as Self-Educating (education in all forms) - The unfolding story of life on earth is one of self-education on the part of the planet and its bioregions. The self-education process observed in the natural world forms the model available to humans to educate themselves for survival and fulfillment.
Take A Hike - John Golden
Culture: Native Rivers and Rites - Kelley Weitzel
Creating a Bioregional Movement - Heart of the Earth Council
Getting to Know Your Natural Neighbors - Beverly Fleming

Earth as Self-Healing (health care in all forms, waste, restoration) - The community carries within itself the special powers of regeneration.
River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River - Bill Belleville

Earth as Self-Nourishing (agriculture, nutrition, diet, economics, sustainability) - The members of the community nourish each other in the established patterns of the natural world for the well-being of the entire community and each of its members.
Cooking for Health of Body and Soil - Donna Harden

Earth as Self-Propagating (population, habitat, justice, power) - The community continues itself through successive generations precisely as a community. Each species has an inherent right to its habitat, its place in the community.