Balancing the Biome Summit

The Rights of Nature movement is quickly gaining momentum. How would such a legal system work, and could giving rights to nature create a paradigm shift in our fight against the climate crisis? Or in preventing ecosystem collapse at Great Salt Lake? These are the questions we’re asking at Balancing the Biome: Rights of Nature, an in-person event on October 7-8. Join us as we explore this movement with Great Salt Lake experts, artists and activists, and advocates working within the Rights of Nature movement.

As living communities of animals, plants, people and microbes, diverse biomes thrive when each organism lives in symbiosis with others. This framework inspires CRUDE and Humble Bloom’s third Balancing the Biome Summit, entitled Rights of Nature, in support of Save Our Great Salt Lake.

Balancing the Biome: Rights of Nature is an invitation to reimagine collective stewardship of Great Salt Lake’s precious ecosystems and the world at large. Through engaging firesides, expert-led panels, workshops, and a thoughtful lakeside ceremony, this summit connects the fight for Great Salt Lake’s survival to the wider water rights movement, inspiring cooperation and community to effect change locally and globally.

All proceeds from this event support our organization. Save Our Great Salt Lake is a coalition of organizers, artists, business owners, and concerned citizens working together to prevent ecosystem collapse at Great Salt Lake. We’re here to educate and engage our community to spark grassroots action and ensure legislative action is taken to save our great lake.

When

October 7-8, 2022

Starts at 10am MT

Friday & Saturday

Where

Industry SLC in the Granary District

650 S. 500 W. | Salt Lake City, UT 84101

& Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake

Agenda

Friday

CONFERENCE @ INDUSTRY SLC

10:00 amWELCOME
Solonje Burnett and Danniel Swatosh of Humble Bloom
Denise Cartwright and Krista Parry of CRUDE
Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo and Blake Lavia: Artists, Community Organizers & Talking Wings Co-Founders
10:15 amSOUL MOMENT: WATER WISDOM
Tap into the force universally symbolizing life, movement, purification, transformation, and healing.
~
TBA
10:30 amSAVE OUR GREAT SALT LAKE
The state and fate of Utah’s Great Lake. How we got here, why current strategies have failed, and the need for a broarder, life-affirming movement like Rights of Nature.
~
Deeda Seed: Public Lands Senior Campaigner, Center for Biological Diversity
Nate Housley: Historian & Save Our Great Salt Lake Founding Member
Zach Frankel of Utah Rivers Council
Virgil Johnson: Educator and Native American Activist, Confederated Tribes of the Goshute
11:30 amBREAK: REFRESH & REVIVE
11:45 amSOUL MOMENT: WATERWORKS
Select readings from award-winning authors and poets living and writing in Utah.
~
Jai Hamid Bashir
11:50 amRIGHTS OF NATURE: BEFORE WE RUN DRY
To meet the challenge of saving Great Salt Lake, we need a new approach. Rights of Nature is the movement shifting the paradigm in hearts, minds, and environmental law.
~
MODERATOR
Yessenia Funes: Atmos Climate Editor & Journalist
FEATURING
Grant Wilson: Executive Director, Earth Law Center
Frank Bibeau: Leech Lake Reservation Tribal Attorney
Blake Lavia: Artist, Community Organizer & Talking Wings Co-Founder
12:50 pmSOUL MOMENT: REFLECTION & JOURNALING
Rights vs. Rites: Changing laws doesn’t change minds. Explore the cultural shift needed to accept our relationship to nature and each other.
~
Solonje Burnett and Danniel Swatosh of Humble Bloom
1:00 pmLUNCH
2:00 pmMOVEMENT MOMENT
Meditative movement and breathwork for grounding and energizing bodies and minds.
~
Kera Thompson: Registered Yoga Teacher
2:15 pmINTERSECTIONS OF A LIMINAL STATE
We sit at an interconnected series of crises threatening our survival. In order to heal and survive, we must take an intersectional approach to ecological restoration and grassroots organizing.
~
MODERATOR
Alastair Lee Bitsóí: Public Health & Environmental Journalist
FEATURING
Ashley Finley: Doula & Black Lives Matter SLC Co-Founder
Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo: Artist, Community Organizer & Talking Wings Co-Founder
Katie Boué: Outdoor Advocacy Project Founder
Isaias Hernandez: Environmental Educator
3:00 pmSOUL-UTION SESSIONS
Community building and alternative learning workshops rooted in empathy and strategy.
~
Mesei González of HEAL Utah
TBA
4:00 pmBREAK: REFRESH & REVIVE
4:15 pmKEYNOTE ADDRESS
~
Frank Bibeau, Leech Lake Reservation Tribal Attorney
4:45 pmINTERSECTIONAL IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLENCE
Environmental trauma can seriously impact our physical and mental health. Discover how community care is connected to self care.
~
MODERATOR
Kristy Drutman of Green Jobs Board
FEATURING
Ashley Cleveland of Outdoor Afro
Brooke Larsen: Community Organizer & Writer
5:45 pmINTEGRATION & REFLECTION
~
Solonje Burnett and Danniel Swatosh of Humble Bloom
6:00 pmCLOSING REMARKS
~
Denise Cartwright and Krista Parry of CRUDE
6:15 pmMOCKTAIL HAPPY HOUR & CREATIVE CONNECT

Saturday

A DAY AT THE LAKE

9:30 am BUS DEPARTURE TO GREAT SALT LAKE
10:00 amWELCOME + GROUNDING + INTRO TO GREAT SALT LAKE
10:20 amSOUL MOMENT
Honoring the lake and its traditional stewards.
~
TBA
10:30 amBREAKOUT SESSIONS:
GREAT SALT LAKE PLANT WALK
~
TBA
~
FACILITATOR
WRITING IN RELATIONSHIP TO GREAT SALT LAKE: GIVING VOICE TO GRIEF AND PRAISE
~
Nan Seymour of Save Our Great Salt Lake & River Writing Collective
12:00 pmPICNIC LUNCH
1:00 pmCOLLECTIVE HEALING
Imagining a new future: the change we want to be and see.
~
Brooke Larsen: Community Organizer & Writer
Alastair Lee Bitsóí: Public Health & Environmental Journalist
1:30 pm CLOSING REFLECTIONS & INTEGRATION
Denise Cartwright of CRUDE
1:55 pmTHANKS & BUS DEPARTURE

Equity Fund

Like our biomes, communities thrive when each part of the larger system can rely on the others for connection, healing, and sustenance. We created the Equity Fund to provide deserving community members with lesser means the opportunity to join us for the Balancing the Biome Summit.

Apply for the Equity Fund

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