Ecotrust is a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, working to create social, economic, and environmental benefit.
History and programs
Ecotrust was founded in 1991 by
Spencer Beebe, who brought his conservation experience in the
tropical rain forests of Central and South America home to North America's
temperate rain forests
Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain.
Temperate rain forests occur in oceanic moist regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rain forests of North American Pa ...
. Prior to Ecotrust, Beebe was president of
the Nature Conservancy International Program and founding president of
Conservation International.
Ecotrust's advisors have included urbanist
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book '' The Death and Life of Great American Cities ...
,
ecological economist and
steady-state theorist Herman Daly, forestry scientist Jerry Franklin, and counterculture icon
Stewart Brand. In 2003, ecologist
Peter Warshall summarized the organization's activities with the statement, "Ecotrust is about designing a future."
Ecotrust began by surveying temperate rain forests as a distinct
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
, an analysis that led the organization to identify British Columbia's Kitlope River as the largest intact temperate rain forest watershed in the world. Beebe and others from Ecotrust visited the region and engaged the
Haisla First Nation The Haisla Nation is the Indian Act-mandated band government which nominally represents the Haisla people in the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, centred on the reserve community of Kitamaat Village. The traditio ...
, whose traditional territory included the Kitlope. The organization supported the Haisla in launching a Rediscovery Program for cultural education and, four years later, in securing provincial government recognition for over of temperate rain forest as Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees (the
Kitlope Heritage Conservancy
The Kitlope Heritage Conservancy or Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees ("source of milky blue waters") in the Haisla language, is a conservancy located on the Pacific coast of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It preserves the largest continuous ...
Protected Area).
A source of inspiration for the organization has been
Wendell Berry
Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of ...
's quote, "The answers, if they are to come, and if they are to work, must be developed in the presence of the user on the land; they must be developed to some degree by the user on the land." In addition to Ecotrust's work in the Kitlope region, the organization's support of local leadership and communities has included Pribilof Islands, Alaska; Prince William Sound / Copper River, Alaska; Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia; Willapa Bay, Washington; and the Klamath region, Oregon / California
In 1992, seeking to find greater financial resources for entrepreneurial efforts in these communities, Ecotrust initiated discussions with
ShoreBank Corporation, the Chicago-based leader in community development banking. In 1995, the two partnered in founding ShoreBank Enterprise (now ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia), a non-profit community development financial institution (CDFI), and in 1997 ShoreBank Pacific, the nation's first environmental bank. In 1995, Ecotrust also helped to create
Ecotrust Canada, an independent affiliate, based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Another emphasis for the organization has been an effort to characterize the region, based on its human / nature interrelationships. Ecotrust published the first distribution and status maps of temperate rain forests and Pacific salmon of North America, as well as a series of books that include ''The Rain Forests of Home: Profile of a North American Bioregion'' and ''Salmon Nation: People, Fish and Our Common Home''.
Later in the 1990s, with advice from board member Jane Jacobs, Ecotrust expanded its attention to urban markets. The organization redeveloped a Portland warehouse into the
Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, the first historic restoration in the country to earn a Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) gold award, and launched what has become one of the nation's leading programs for
sustainable food and farming.
Recent extensions of Ecotrust's work include: honoring native leaders through the Buffett Award for Indigenous Leadership; promoting regional economies through a series of cartoon-filled newspaper inserts in the Portland and San Francisco dailies and weeklies; creating decision support tools for
ecosystem-based management
Ecosystem-based management is an environmental management approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem, including humans, rather than considering single issues, species, or ecosystem services in isolation. It can be ...
; launching Ecotrust Forests LLC, a private equity fund to manage forestland for long-term regional health, as well as financial returns; and bolstering bioregional identity through the idea of Salmon Nation.
"The line between for- and nonprofit is getting blurry", said environmentalist and author
Paul Hawken
Paul Gerard Hawken (born February 8, 1946) is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist.
Biography
Hawken was born in San Mateo, California, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his father worked at ...
in 2007.
[Hawken, Paul]
"The New Great Transformation"
Long Now Foundation, June 8, 2007. Accessed September 14, 2007. Ecotrust has established an unusual affiliation of for- and nonprofit entities that work at the intersection of
natural
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
,
social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
and economic capital.
Notes
External links
EcotrustEcotrust Canada
{{Authority control
Environmental organizations based in Oregon
1991 establishments in Oregon
Forest conservation organizations
Organizations based in Portland, Oregon