Sovereign Nature Initiative Manifesto
am I a falcon,
a storm, or a grand song?
-Rilke
a storm, or a grand song?
-Rilke
The Sovereign Nature Initiative reimagines humans' relationship with nature beyond extraction and exploitation in attempting to respond in the Anthropocene, a time when a radical reconsideration of the values of Western modernity has become inevitable. We develop tools to reconfigure and restore our planet's ecosystems. We work to acknowledge and strengthen nature's sovereignty, its wealth and power. We know that the human and nonhuman worlds are intertwined – we humans are part of nature and nature contains us. And so we say: let's embrace interdependence. Let's rebalance the relationship between humans and nature.
We are the Sovereign Nature Initiative, a nonprofit seeking to achieve a thriving planet by reconfiguring nature's value. We are located at the intersection of ecology, economy, and emerging (web3) technologies. We seek to open minds to radical approaches toward sustainability and to make nature's agency profitable for all. We believe that we must engage with economic practices in order to bring about change at the scale of a paradigm shift.
We accomplish these goals through three streams: tech, theory, and art.
Technology
Technology is the key to our work, as we believe in the power of innovation to redefine value for people and the planet. Blockchain technology provides the potential for 'flipping the economics' where we can redesign value practices of production, distribution and exchange in ways that allow us to tap into the broad stream of market-based solutions for sustainability without simply rehearsing a capitalist logic of extraction.
We want to develop approaches that can lead to a non-exploitative, non-consumerist economic arrangement of the relationship between nature, humans and technology. We envision a world where trees, hyenas, snails, rivers, elk and algae preserve their own value, and where we humans are invested in that same value and have a stake in their thriving.
We want to develop approaches that can lead to a non-exploitative, non-consumerist economic arrangement of the relationship between nature, humans and technology. We envision a world where trees, hyenas, snails, rivers, elk and algae preserve their own value, and where we humans are invested in that same value and have a stake in their thriving.
We envision a world where trees, hyenas, snails, rivers, elk and algae preserve their own value, and where we humans are invested in that same value and have a stake in their thriving.
Theory
Theory is an essential part of our mission. We live in the Anthropocene, a time when a radical reconsideration of the values of Western modernity has become inevitable. Accordingly, we partner with leading researchers from the academy to help us connect our community's technological innovations and creative expressions with philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. An ecological future needs to be built on a fundamental reconsideration of our conceptual categories such as the separation of humans and nature, scientific mastery and techno-solutionism.
Against this background, we engage deeply with the complex issues involved in global, international, national and local governance as applied to ecological spheres. We're committed to thinking outside the box of traditional protectionist and conservation practices, and towards technology-enabled governance ensuring nature's thriving biodiversity. Our areas of interest in theory include political ecology, ecological philosophy, law, and blockchain technology, as well as algorithmic governance.
Against this background, we engage deeply with the complex issues involved in global, international, national and local governance as applied to ecological spheres. We're committed to thinking outside the box of traditional protectionist and conservation practices, and towards technology-enabled governance ensuring nature's thriving biodiversity. Our areas of interest in theory include political ecology, ecological philosophy, law, and blockchain technology, as well as algorithmic governance.
Art
Art explores the same ideas expressed in our technology and theory streams through a creative lens, opening both hearts and minds to consider nonhuman ('natural') perspectives. We believe that art empowers wider and wilder engagement with our world and that the mysteries of nonhuman life can broaden human perception and help us question nature's otherness.
We read the natural world as a collection of perspectives we seek to understand through acts of radical imagination, and we are inspired by innovative artworks and forms including virtual reality and immersive installations as well as algorithmic, data/AI-driven and bio-mimicking artistic practices in sculpture, visual art, video and narrative works. We believe that art and storytelling have the ability to empower and inspire human communities to listen and look more carefully, to smell, taste, and touch the deeply entangled world around us.
We read the natural world as a collection of perspectives we seek to understand through acts of radical imagination, and we are inspired by innovative artworks and forms including virtual reality and immersive installations as well as algorithmic, data/AI-driven and bio-mimicking artistic practices in sculpture, visual art, video and narrative works. We believe that art and storytelling have the ability to empower and inspire human communities to listen and look more carefully, to smell, taste, and touch the deeply entangled world around us.
We believe that art empowers wider and wilder engagement with our world and that the mysteries of nonhuman life can broaden human perception and help us question nature's otherness.
Through these three streams of tech, theory, and art we gather and create a unique community. We are incubating a movement.
The Sovereign Nature community congregates in many places. Our hubs on Discord and other social media channels are a meeting place for leading thinkers for this ecological future. Our hackathons are known in the tech development community for their uniquely collaborative structure and online engagement across continents. Our live events such as our planned Experimental Zones gather and forge community through in-person engagement with technology, art, and nature.
The Sovereign Nature community congregates in many places. Our hubs on Discord and other social media channels are a meeting place for leading thinkers for this ecological future. Our hackathons are known in the tech development community for their uniquely collaborative structure and online engagement across continents. Our live events such as our planned Experimental Zones gather and forge community through in-person engagement with technology, art, and nature.
To speak of the 'sovereignty' of nature is then a way of acknowledging that nature's autonomous value extends way beyond national boundaries and human laws, and in fact contains and surrounds us.
The Sovereign Nature Initiative proposes a radical change of thinking and living.
When we humans begin to consider ourselves as part of nature and to acknowledge nature's authority, power and value in itself, it leads us to new less human-centric ways of thinking about sustainability and ecology. This is a radical perceptual shift and it's admittedly hard to maintain every hour of every day — but we are eager to encourage these gradual perceptual shifts everywhere through exposure to world-broadening technologies, paradigm-shifting ideas, and nonhuman-centric artistic experiences, that release us from the binary human/nature paradigm and instead show that nature has value in itself, for itself, and that it speaks to itself through countless voices.
To speak of the 'sovereignty' of nature is then a way of acknowledging that nature's autonomous value extends way beyond national boundaries and human laws, and in fact contains and surrounds us.
When we humans begin to consider ourselves as part of nature and to acknowledge nature's authority, power and value in itself, it leads us to new less human-centric ways of thinking about sustainability and ecology. This is a radical perceptual shift and it's admittedly hard to maintain every hour of every day — but we are eager to encourage these gradual perceptual shifts everywhere through exposure to world-broadening technologies, paradigm-shifting ideas, and nonhuman-centric artistic experiences, that release us from the binary human/nature paradigm and instead show that nature has value in itself, for itself, and that it speaks to itself through countless voices.
To speak of the 'sovereignty' of nature is then a way of acknowledging that nature's autonomous value extends way beyond national boundaries and human laws, and in fact contains and surrounds us.
Join the movement!
Our partners in the tech sector include Kusama, Ocean Protocol, Odyssey Momentum, KILT Protocol, Unique Network, Nature Cognita, and our growing community of developers.
Our partners in theory: University of Amsterdam, the International Council for Environmental Law, Logische Phantasie Lab, and individual researchers around the globe.
In the arts sector, partners and collaborators include Marshmallow Laser Feast, Entangled Others Studios, Make New Species, and authors Seth Bockley and Sophie Strand.
And now… you?
Our partners in theory: University of Amsterdam, the International Council for Environmental Law, Logische Phantasie Lab, and individual researchers around the globe.
In the arts sector, partners and collaborators include Marshmallow Laser Feast, Entangled Others Studios, Make New Species, and authors Seth Bockley and Sophie Strand.
And now… you?
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