Ecotrust marks 20, looks beyond the Northwest

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Ecotrust turns 20 this week and is celebrating with some new ideas about regional resource management.

Ecotrust celebrates its 20^th birthday this week by hosting a delegation of global leaders and presenting a report to Gov. John Kitzhaber calling for a new regional "operating system" for the Pacific Northwest.

Ecotrust, a nonprofit based in Portland that's focused on the regional sustainable economy, is advocating that natural regional groups — such as the cooperative known locally as Salmon Nation — take a stronger leadership role in parsing out local resources and caring for local communities than city groups.

"Regional scales better approximate the contours of the natural and cultural landscapes in which people live, work and organize," writes Spencer B. Beebe, president of Ecotrust, and Gun Denhart, chairwoman of the organization's board of directors. "At a regional scale, societies can more resiliently steward nature’s services and provide for human-well-being."

In the report, "Resilience & Transformation in North Pacific America," (available for download here) Ecotrust researchers examine the marine, forest, water, food, energy, built environment and finance systems of the region, which stretches from Northern California into Canada.

The report analyzes potential vulnerabilities — examples include the aging energy grid, a food system that undermines the wellbeing of food producers and problematic forest management — and calls for changes in how systems are managed to reduce the potential negative impact on the region.

The report is in draft form at this point. Ecotrust is collecting feedback and plans to issue a final version later this year.

So far, it's short on specific recommendations, but strong in its call for regional innovation.

In its push to increase its global presence, Ecotrust has opened offices in Canada and Australia, but the organization still espouses a regional approach.

Ecotrust has identified several dozen of what it's calling "resilience regions" — roughly 20 in North America, for example, and 19 for Africa — based on the relationships between people and place.

At its Portland Convening conference this week, Ecotrust is hosting 50 leaders from regions around the world to talk about economic, social and environmental challenges.

Some of Ecotrust's achievements over the past two decades include:

• Launching Shorebank Pacific, billed as the first environmental bank, in 1997. Shorebank was acquired by OneCalifornia Bank last year.
• Renovating its headquarters building, the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center. One of Portland's first signature green buildings, it received the first LEED Gold-certification for a historic renovation in 2001.
• Launching FoodHub, an online meeting place for food buyers and sellers recently recognized by President Barack Obama.

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