B002 Build Eco-Region Creation Networks for Crucial Impact
Resolved, the House of ________________ concurring,
That the 81st General Convention urge and equip bishops and dioceses to form strategic Eco-Region Creation Networks of incarnational impact for the healing of the world God loves in this time of climate crisis; and be it further
Resolved, that bishops and dioceses work together to form regional networks, to be called “Eco-Region Creation Networks”, based on shared ecosystems or watersheds. These Eco-Region Creation Networks link people, projects and properties dedicated to nature-based solutions to slow climate change through preserving and restoring plant communities appropriate to their bioregion; modeling transformative agriculture and food systems; and tackling issues of water quality and supply; and be it further
Resolved, that in this triennium up to five pilot Eco-Region Creation Networks be formed, to include the Episcopal Grasslands Network (which includes the dioceses of Kansas, Western Kansas, Nebraska, Northwest Texas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana) and one Eco-Region Creation Network centered outside the continental U.S; and be it further
Resolved, that new Eco-Region Creation Networks, up to five, can be established through a letter to the Presiding Bishop’s office, copied to provincial Presidents, from three bishops of contiguous dioceses describing their particular eco-region, current sites, and creation actions planned, and be it further
Resolved, that each network engage a Creation Fellow and/or Consultant whose task is to tend the network: produce communications that inform and celebrate efforts across the network; collect data about the participating members, projects and properties; plan and implement an annual meeting and other gatherings; write grant proposals as needed; and use the Episcopal Asset Map, Restor, or other mapping tools to track progress on carbon sequestration, increased biodiversity, water quality and scarcity and agricultural transformation; and be it further
Resolved, that each network identify a diocese within the network to serve as the administrative center to disburse funds and manage the network; and be it further
Resolved, that the Presiding Bishop’s Creation Care staff and the Good News Gardens partner with these networks and support the work of the Creation Care Fellows and Consultants; and be it further
Resolved that General Convention allocate an additional $150,000 to the proposed triennial Creation Networks and Resources budget (line 168), to be assigned specifically to support Eco-Region Creation Networks. ($50,000 to be disbursed three times over the course of the triennium divided equally between any, up to five, networks that have been duly organized and named networks by the Presiding Bishop.)
Explanation
This resolution offers concrete next steps to fulfill:
2022-A087 -- Commit to Net Carbon Neutrality by 2030
And be it further Resolved, that the General Convention request the diocesan bishops of every diocese to begin to build networks of landowners and creation trustees in each diocese who will devote portions of their land to reforestation, prairie restoration, wetland and coastland preservation; adopt and share regenerative agricultural and ranching practices; collaborate with neighboring dioceses for best water practices to protect our watersheds; collaborate on creative means of distributing food; and pray for future generations dependent on the land and water we steward; and be it further
2018-D053 -- Call for Model Policies for Sustainable Church Land Use
Resolved, That the 79th General Convention recommends that all dioceses, faith communities and institutions create partnerships enabling the use of church-owned land for regenerative agriculture and biodiversity conservation projects in order to sequester carbon and to mitigate climate change;
This resolution responds to the call of experts at COP28 who demonstrated that there is “no pathway to safeguarding and restoring ecosystems, staying within +1.5 and safe-guarding biodiversity, as well as feeding 10 billion people by 2050, without transforming the ways we produce, distribute and consume food and inhabit our land and in-land waters.” The resolution continues partnership with the Anglican Communion Forest and aligns with the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework.
The faith of the Church informs and underpins this resolution. First, we understand and embrace the truth that Christ has made us one body, bound together in the overflowing love of God. This way of understanding the world, which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr expressed as “the interrelated structure of reality,” can also be called “the Body of Christ” or “the Beloved Community.” Ecological Regions help us understand through experience that we have a true home in God. When the Origin Story in Genesis says that God set a dome in the heavens, it is a way of expressing the wholeness of Creation. Our responsibility is to serve and tend towards this integrity of Creation. A significant step towards a healthy stewarding of Creation is the discernment of eco-regions. Humans attending to our ecosystems, nurturing the existing interconnections between species or “tending the wild” as Indigenous People have done for millennia, is part of God’s design. By relating to existing ecosystems, we trend towards understanding the Earth as whole.