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Who
The Collaborative for Right Relations was created to help diverse partners build the commitment, enabling conditions and collaborations that create the collective momentum to transform systems and advance community-led environmental conservation and sustainable development.
The Collaborative for Right Relations taps into a network of individual and organizational partners from around the world who are leaders in weaving together diverse earth care practices with an aim to create powerful generative spaces that are responsive to the needs, priorities and power imbalances of everyone involved. The approach focuses on harnessing the knowledge and innovation alive in the system, creating patterns of distributed leadership and strengthening webs of relationships. The Collaborative for Right Relations hold a neutral space between conservation organizations and Indigenous Peoples and focuses on the leverage points - I call it the baking soda effect: those small ingredients that touch every part of the system and if activated, literally make the whole cake bigger.
Erin Myers Madeira
Founder, Collaborative for Right Relations
Hi, I'm Erin. During the past 15 years, I have had the incredible privilege and responsibility to launch and lead two major programs to advance conservation in partnership with Indigenous Peoples - programs that are making a meaningful difference in the world. I worked alongside committed, brilliant colleagues and partners who consistently humbled me with their wisdom and generosity. Together we wrestled some of the most complex social and environmental issues. I was equipped with sophisticated training in environmental science and management, was backed by one of the largest conservation organizations in the world, had access to some of the best technical and economic tools available. Not only did I love my work, but I got to be part of some of the "bright spots" making progress amidst the most daunting issues we are facing today.
And I stepped away from it all to launch the Collaborative for Right Relations.
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I launched the Collaborative for Right Relations because the more immersed I became in the issues we are facing and the closer I engaged with truly sustainable solutions, the more it became clear that the solutions to the challenges we face are not going to be found in what we do, but how we are in relationship to the world around us. All of our grandchildren's future depends on our ability to step into our individual and collective responsibility to care for the lands and waters that care for us. It is how we BE in the world.
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You already knew that, I bet. But it can feel so daunting! However, I am so optimistic. I am optimistic because I have gotten to walk and talk and break bread with people who walk in the world in this way. And they have supported me - sometimes emphatically - to re-member how to walk in this way because our grandchildren's future needs all of us to step into right relations.
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I have found that it is through collaborating on real work in real places that we can build the knowledge, conviction, confidence, and new patterns of being to bend our current trajectory towards a sustainable and equitable future. Collaboration is key to unlock the learning while grounding in concrete actions. However, mutually beneficial collaboration doesn’t just happen.
My approach draws on my experience in systems leadership for social change, building high-impact networks, facilitating collective action, environmental economics, bridging different knowledge systems, research into how places and cultures shape each other, conflict mediation, environmental education and ocean voyaging.