Reconnecting Nature and Culture - Webinar Today

Earthscan invites you to join a free webinar presented by the authors of Biocultural Diversity Conservation and Sacred Natural Sites for an event that explores the important relationship people have with nature and how vital it is for the future of our natural world.

Reconnecting Nature and Culture

• Understand the concept of biocultural diversity
• Learn how to integrate cultural and spiritual values into conservation, tourism and heritage management practices
• Discover how embracing the values of local people can dramatically increase the success of conservation and sustainability efforts, for the benefit of all.

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 17:00 (UK time – GMT), 12:00 (EDT), 9:00 (PDT)
Click here for free registration

Luisa Maffi will introduce the concept of biocultural diversity; and explain the benefits of understanding the linkages between biodiversity and culture for conservation and sustainability. Robert Wild will further the discussion through a focus on sacred natural areas. He will explore the benefits of utilising the connection between these natural areas and cultural values in order to protect landscapes.

• Luisa Maffi is co-author of Biocultural Diversity Conservation, she is a linguist, anthropologist, and one of the originators of the field of biocultural diversity. She is co-founder and Director of the international NGO Terralingua. She is based in British Columbia, Canada.

• Robert Wild is co-editor of Sacred Natural Sites. An ecologist and social scientist with 25 years practical experience of working with communities at protected areas in East Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Europe. He is chair of the IUCN's Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, and is based in Scotland.

Who should register? Professionals and academics working in the fields of conservation, tourism and heritage management. Can’t make the date? Simply email Rachel.Butler@earthscan.co.uk with Reconnecting Nature and Culture recording in the subject line and we will send you a link to the archived event.
Receive a 20% discount on a book, too: type EARTHCAST into the voucher code box in your shopping cart when ordering any book. For more information, and to view all previous Earthcasts, please visit http://www.earthcasts.co.uk. [17 November 2010 - Earthscan Ltd]

National Creativity Network Launched in Oklahoma City

In conjunction with the seventh annual Creativity World Forum 2010 held in Oklahoma City, November 15-17, the National Creativity Network officially launched at a special meeting with Founding Chair, Sir Ken Robinson, on November 15 from 9:00-11:30 am at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel.

For two years, creativity and innovation leaders in the U.S. have gathered with Sir Ken Robinson and leaders in Oklahoma who began a statewide creativity movement, Creative Oklahoma, linking education, commerce and cultural efforts, in 2006. On November 15, representatives from the states of Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Colorado, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York joined with Oklahoma leaders to announce the formation of a new National Creativity Network, linking statewide and regional creativity initiatives in the United States.

The National Creativity Network will facilitate the exchange of ideas, share best practices, and encourage collaboration among partnering geographic districts committed to creativity and innovation in America across the three sectors of education, commerce, and culture. Network members are committed to the urgent need in the U.S. to nurture and promote the development and expression of creativity and innovation, in education, in business and in the community; ideas and actions so that America can remain a world leader in innovation, discovery, free enterprise, and learning.

“As the pace of change quickens around the world, many communities throughout America are facing powerful economic challenges. In addition to the recession, they include the decline of old industries and the need to generate new forms of businesses and employment. Patterns of community life also continues to change and evolve, causing social challenges,” explains Sir Ken Robinson, Author of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and Founding Chairman, National Creativity Network.

“To face these challenges, we must develop high levels of imagination. Throughout the country there are many regions that are rising magnificently to these challenges. The purpose of the National Creativity Network is to connect these regions so that they can support and enrich each other's work and promote the vital spirit of economic and social innovation across the whole United States," said Robinson.

The National Creativity Network will be based in Oklahoma City with a national board. Sir Ken Robinson is the Founding Chair and George Tzougros, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Arts Board, is the Board Chairman.

NATIONAL CREATIVITY NETWORK BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Sir Ken Robinson, Founding Chairperson, NCN
International Creativity, Innovation, and Human Resources Consultant
California

Dennis Cheek, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Pennsylvania

Steven Dahlberg
Director
International Centre for Creativity and Imagination
Connecticut

Carrie Fitzsimmons
Executive Director
ArtScience Labs
Massachusetts

Jean Hendrickson
Executive Director
Oklahoma A+ Schools/University of Central Oklahoma

Wendy Liscow
Program Officer
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
New Jersey

Susan McCalmont
Executive Director
Kirkpatrick Foundation
Oklahoma

Robert Morrison
Founder
Quadrant Arts Education Research
New Jersey

Scott Noppe Brandon
Executive Director
Lincoln Center Institute
New York

David O’Fallon
President
Minnesota Humanities Center

Mark Robertson
Attorney
Robertson & Williams
Oklahoma

Susan Sclafani
Director, State Services
National Center on Education and the Economy
Washington, DC

George Tzougros
Executive Director
Wisconsin Arts Board

[15 November 2010 - Creative Oklahoma For more information, contact: Kathy Oden-Hall, Creative Oklahoma, 405-203-5742, kodenhall@stateofcreativity.com]

Alice Dancing Under the Gallows - Official Trailer

Commentary: On Creativity and Food

By Todd Gabriel
Creativity + Social Change, University of Connecticut
Media Reviewed:

TED: Jamie Oliver
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jamie_oliver.html
Read Jamie Oliver's challenge: How can we raise kids' awareness of the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?

Jamie Oliver explains very simply how most of the food we eat in America is nonnutritious and highly processed. His focus is on children, stating that every new generation will lose 10 years off their lives through obesity because of the bad food they eat. His mission is to raise awareness of the processed foods we eat as adults and feed our children, not only at home but in schools around the country as well as places of work. He wants to get good, local, whole foods back into our homes and schools.

Processed foods are usually made up of two products -- corn and soy beans. These crops are extremely cheap and can be grown in huge quantities in this country. Most large scale farmers in the United States produce three things -- corn, soy beans and animals that can be ground into processed meats, such as turkey (not the kind you eat at Thanksgiving) to make “turkey products” such as turkey bacon, turkey sausage, etc. The corn and soy beans can be refined to make fillers for a plethora of foods. If you look at the label of processed foods, you will find one if not both of these two ingredients in some form, such as corn syrup, corn starch, corn meal, soy protein, corn oil and hydrolyzed corn gluten, to name a few. They are added because it keeps cost down and adds a flavor of one or more of the three things that the food industry has learned we respond to -- sugar, salt and fat. We crave these things, so if they can some how get these things into the foods they sell us in a cheap way than they have succeeded. What they don’t realize or don’t care about is that it is killing us. And not only through weight gain but by using man-made products that our bodies can't metabolize properly and can lead to many unknown effects.

Jamie Oliver states three major things we can do. First, raise awareness about the foods we eat. Second, to get money and resources to the people who will help change the food environments from processed to whole foods. And third, start cooking at home. He states we lost our traditions of cooking real foods at home and passing down to next generations recipes and the know how of cooking. Children are a focus because they can change and stop the cycle before it continues.

I believe in Jamie Oliver’s cause. I personally look at food as a link in a long chain of fundamental change. If we can learn to understand the importance of sustainable, local foods and environments in our neighborhoods it will benefit us greatly in many ways. Jamie is creative in the way he took a passion for food and turned it into a way to change a country or countries for the better. He’s also creative in his execution. For example, he shows the kitchen he opened that took local, healthy food and distributed it to schools using local people. He put into action what he is speaking about. It takes many creative ideas and ways of thinking to be able to change conventional ways. Jamie is demonstrating this here with his food movement.