URBAN ECOLOGY, FOOD SYSTEMS & RESILIENCE
Today most people live in cities while imagining nature is something that is found far beyond the city limits in vast wilderness tracts. Contrary to many of our historical assumptions cities are functioning ecosystems full of complex species interactions. Soon seventy percent of humans will live in megacities , and thus environmental change and the struggle to preserve life on this planet begins right under our feet where we live. We need to reinvent cities, economies, cultures, commons, and our multi-species urban models.
Fundamental to this is eating -- all life is eating. How we -- and everything else eats shapes the planet, ourselves and our communities. Currently, on one hand, we live in poisoned cities, with food deserts, within a highly dysfunctional food system, while at the same time for us eating is also one of the great pleasures in being alive. Food and eating is something that activates the best in us and we believe that by catalyzing this great change can happen -- beginning right under our feet.
We have a number of active initiatives around rethinking novel urban ecosystems. The Eat Your Sidewalk project is one of our major projects in this regard. Additionally, we are working on a number of projects: reinventing the urban lawn and a spontaneous meadow, developing a multi-species commons framework, moving beyond the native vs invasive ideology, critically considering the deep racist logics within western ecological models, and working with many existing local projects globally.