Giving Voice to the Voiceless

Over the past two months, the Regenerative Outdoor Visioning Project has explored infrastructure, stories, workforce development, health, policy, stewardship, and the future of Alaska's outdoor recreation ecosystem.

On June 9, we're going to do something different. We'll convene a session called The No Voice.

The idea draws inspiration from efforts like Nature on the Board, which seek to ensure that the natural world has representation in decisions that affect it. The premise behind those efforts is straightforward: nature bears the consequences of our decisions, yet rarely has a voice in making them.

Our session won't be a governance exercise or a simulation of a board meeting. Instead, it will be a facilitated conversation designed to help inform the regenerative framework emerging from this project.

Participants will join on behalf of a species, landscape, ecosystem, or natural system they know deeply. Some bring scientific expertise. Others bring cultural knowledge, lived experience, stewardship, observation, or simply a long relationship with a place.

So far, we've heard interest from people speaking for glaciers, herring, salmon, snow, and other "No Voices." We expect birds, trees, plants, mammals, watersheds, and perhaps a few surprises to join them.

Helping ground the conversation will be Ilarion Merculieff, Unangan elder and Director of the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership & Lifeways. For decades, Ilarion has challenged audiences around the world to reconsider humanity's relationship with the living systems that sustain us.

Joining him will be Mackenzie Englishoe, who has been deeply involved in efforts to advance recognition and protection of the Yukon River and has helped elevate conversations about the river's rights, health, and future. During the session, she will speak on behalf of the Yukon River itself.

This is undoubtedly the most unconventional session in the series.

If regeneration means restoring right relationship between people, place, and the living systems that make life possible, then those systems deserve more than a passing mention. They deserve consideration, attention, and perhaps even representation.

Not because rivers, salmon, glaciers, birds, and forests can literally join a Zoom meeting. But because the future we're trying to create depends on them being able to thrive long after the meeting ends.

The No VoiceJune 9 | Noon–1:30 PM Alaska TimeFree on Zoom

Open Call: Invite your fellow species and favorite ecosystems to join you

LINK to register