Impressum / Kontakt
ABOUT US
We are a group exploring the most promising interventions & ideas to impartially support the flourishing of life, with an emphasis on the longterm future of all life on Earth.
What We Are Here For:
- Learning about the intersections of effective altruism, eco-resilience, regenerative practices, indigenous land stewardship, and biodiversity. We do this individually, in small groups, and as a larger collective.
- Collaborating on projects and share our learnings.
- Surfacing particularly promising interventions, strategies, and organizations that are working on this topic.
Brief Summary of Our Interest Areas...
- First Nations led management ensuring that conservation efforts continue to thrive. Indigenous stewardship & worldviews are often overlooked, yet they manage 80% of the biodiversity on earth. Systems break down if values are not aligned and we must build institutions that will last. Indigenous land managemeners are local experts on ecosystems, successful intervention, and longterm patterns.
- The natural world is the foundation of almost every aspect of our lives. Ecosystem services are so fundamental that it is difficult to realize that "normal" isn't "guaranteed." Recognizing and understanding ecosystem functioning is important before breakdowns have diasasterous effects.
- Many metrics for biodiversity are biased towards shorterm economic value and don't account for the interconnectedness of parts that are essential for continued ecological vitality. There are many non-economic reasons for valuing nature which need to be factoring into management plans.
- Many of us want nature to thrive alongside us and future generations. We observe this is a cross-cultural, common, and enduring human value. We value things like biodiversity, healthy ecosystems, environmental wellbeing, and entering into a positive relationship to these things. Building a future that synergizes with natural systems is one of our interest areas.
Our Research Key Focuses:
- Longtermism
Definition: Strategic decision making on timescales out hundreds to thousands of years.
Description: Planning for the longterm future, which involves trying to ensure interventions will cause impacts beyond hundreds of years. We will consider our rare leverage and unique advantages to act early and change the course of events. Longterm decision making also takes into account unborn people’s needs and desires across many diverse cultures, as well as anticipates changing technological abilities and other geographic and political changes. We will have to grapple with changing valuescapes. Longterm strategy is about ensuring futures which we have reason to expect both we and the future will desire.
- Tree of Life Preservation
Definition: Preserving the greatest portion of the tree of life.
Description: Prioritize preventing extinction in species which are genetically distant from other species. Prioritize projects which will make the greatest difference for the greatest number of species spread widely across the tree of life. Avoid bias towards “charismatic” species like local mammals. This can be quantified using Evolutionary Distinctiveness via genetic uniqueness metrics.
- Resilience/Ecosystem Collapse Prevention
Definition: Ecosystems’ ability to self-repair & preventing the degradation of ecosystems.
Description: Anticipate which ecosystems are at risk of collapse and intervene. Especially when collapses would be difficult if not impossible to reverse. Ecosystem change is natural, but ecosystem change towards reduced flourishing of life, ecosystem services, stability, and other desirable characteristics should be opposed. This will require greater understanding of ecosystems functioning and how to successfully intervene.
The Roots of This Project
It started when Tandena, Eileen & Iska began writing a forum post on ‘Resilience & Biodiversity’ over the summer of 2022 as an entry for Open Philanthropy’s Cause Prioritization Contest. By beginning to explore this topic, we felt a clear draw to deepen in connection and conversation with others drawn to exploring the flourishing of life on Earth; to seeing the interconnectedness of ecosystems, human systems, and earth systems. Since then we've been welcoming others interested in joining our group.
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