Bioneers 2025 Conference

Community Conversations – Toxic Homelands: On the Frontlines of Ecological Grief, Anxiety & Action

Bioneers brings together a very diverse, discerning, engaged and reflective community, and the curated conversations around crucial topics we have been hosting recently (“Conversation Cafes”) have proven highly popular and stimulating. Each session begins with a very brief presentation by one of the conference presenters as a “conversation starter” to frame the topic, followed by structured group discussion. At the end of each session, a “harvester” who has carefully witnessed and “absorbed” what has transpired, offers us a poetic synopsis/recapitulation of the highlights of our time together.

Growing in Southeast Louisiana near a corridor callously but accurately dubbed Cancer Alley means growing up with the ecological grief and anxiety that accompanies knowing your home and ecosystem are harming you and your community’s health. When your connection to home and family binds you to a place riddled with toxic pollution and politics, what is the antidote? Leave and find a safe community, or stay and take up the work of your ancestors to resist these toxic industries? For those living in and around Cancer Alley, these choices can be a daily battle, but the best elixir for ecological grief is action. 

This youth-led community conversation is for anyone living on the frontlines of endemic pollution or climate catastrophe who has wrestled with the choice of staying and fighting or leaving to find a better place to call home—and for anyone who wants to learn from and support them. With: Lael Kylin Judson from Rural Roots Louisiana; and Skye Williams. Facilitated by David Shaw, Santa Cruz Permaculture and UCSC Right Livelihood Center; and Tenika Blue, an advocate for anti-violence initiatives, social justice reform, and community healing.

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Panelists


David Shaw
Founder
Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College
Tenika Blue
Social Justice Advocate
Lael Kylin Judson

Rural Roots Louisiana