2042 Today
Young Leaders Reimagining Conservation
2042 Today is a new training initiative, in collaboration with the Center for Diversity and the Environment, that responds to a particular need that is arising within the conservation community of the United States.
More and more conservationists are thinking about the exciting significance of 2042, the date one generation out when demographers predict that every metropolitan statistical area will be predominantly non-white, but few efforts are in place today to equip conservation leaders with the leadership skills to engage difference of all kinds. How does the conservation field diversify itself, and how do conservationists learn to ally themselves with and learn from other movements for change? Today’s conservation leaders, men and women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, have faced one set of challenges, those about transactional strength: buying land, changing laws, and building institutions. Leadership skills required for the next generation are as much relational as they are transactional: how will conservation be integrated – or not – into the needs and values of a changing American public?
Center for Whole Communities and Center for Diversity and the Environment will be partnering with others to develop an innovative leadership development program aimed squarely at preparing young conservation leaders from all backgrounds and sectors to strengthen their collective work by 1) gaining the historical context that the activists and non profits from other sectors share, 2) learning the skills to engage in alliances and collaborations that are necessary for their own work to succeed in a changing America and 3) discovering the perspectives that will help them to understand how their success is fully dependent on the success of environmental and social justice advocates across the board. We know this program will be inter-cultural and inter-racial; it will include a leadership retreat, one-on-one mentoring, and special follow-up training over a year-long period.
Resources for 2042 Fellows:
Demographic analysis of 2042 in the US, with maps, census projections.
Readings on dispossession of land
Climate change impact on US geographies and populations