The foundation is rapidly evolving and so please revisit this space for updates. We anticipate being formally established between winter 2021 and early spring 2022.
You can find out more about our vision, mission, strategy and thinking below. If you have any questions or would like to support the EcoQueer Foundation then please email info@ecoqueers.org.
Our Vision
A world filled with thriving, diverse, inclusive, and sustainable communities.
Our Mission
To foster LGBTQ+ community projects that embrace sustainable ways of living.
Our Strategy
The EcoQueer Foundation aims to provide funds, resources, training and advice to support LGBTQ+ community projects that are committed to sustainability. This support is available to individuals and groups who may be at the very beginning of their journeys or who may have been established for many years.
The EcoQueer Foundation additionally aims to connect and foster relationships between diverse LGBTQ+ community projects that are at different stages of their development. Through this network, we will encourage communities to work together and share knowledge and skills to build thriving, inclusive and sustainable projects. To ensure the lessons and histories of community projects are not lost, the EcoQueer Foundation will also document and safeguard the learning and cultural heritage of LGBTQ+ sustainable community-building for the future.
More broadly, the EcoQueer Foundation advocates for inclusive community building and sustainable environmental management outside of the LGBTQ+ groups that it directly supports. The EcoQueer Foundation also advocates for LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion alongside environmental sustainability movements across the UK and internationally, in the aim of promoting a diverse, inclusive, and sustainable global community.
Our Thinking
There are currently very few environmental community projects that embrace LGBTQ+ people. Equally, there is currently a cultural disconnect between LGBTQ+, or ‘queer’, peoples and sustainable ways of living within the UK. We understand that taking climate action requires the engagement of different communities across demographics, including LGBTQ+ people.
The EcoQueer Foundation seeks to foster socially inclusive ways of tackling the ecological crises. Through doing so, we aim to improve the mental and physical health of queer individuals as well as the health of the planet. We believe that building diverse, inclusive, and sustainable communities requires sharing resources and funds, but also the wealth of knowledge that is already held by communities across the UK. We believe that sharing knowledge and skills between communities is essential to fulfilling our mission, and that safeguarding the cultural heritage of LGBTQ+ community-building is key to enabling different community projects to be successful in their own missions.
What could this look like?
Like people, no two communities are the same. The communities and projects that the EcoQueer Foundation will support will take many forms. Some may be based in urban areas, some in rural. Some may involve hundreds of people whereas others may include just a handful of people. However, what links all of the projects and communities that the EcoQueer Foundation will support is a commitment to what can be understood by ‘Earth-care’, ‘People-care’ and ‘Future-care’.
Earth-care: Projects and communities that demonstrate Earth-care will focus upon encouraging the protection of the air, water and land, and the Earth’s non-human inhabitants. This could perhaps include projects that aim to re-wild areas of land in the UK, increase bio-diversity through small community interventions, specialist land management and permaculture training for queer people, and much more.
People-care: As an organisation that puts inclusion and diversity at the heart of its mission, people-care is critical within any venture that the EcoQueer Project aims to support. Some examples of appropriate projects could include developing low-impact urban community food-growing projects, co-housing projects, or low-impact campsites where queer people can visit, learn and connect. Some projects could be temporary, such as inclusive sustainability outreach events, and others more permanent, like an ecovillage or LGBT+ retreat venue. Developing and sharing skills within and between communities also constitutes people-care, and support could be provided with training community facilitators, land-based crafts, sustainability practitioners, nature-based well-being programs, artists, activists, and much more.
Future-care: Sustainability means sustaining life in its diverse forms into the future. We believe that all projects, communities and initiatives should look to the future and embrace a culture with sustainability and inclusion at its heart. We also believe that we must challenge the oppressions and exclusions that jeopardise the future flourishing of people and the environment. Looking back can also help us to look at the future, and projects that help to re-connect queer people with the cultural history of LGBTQ+ community-building can also help us to imagine different futures. Some examples of community projects that engage with future-care could include eco/queer archives, public engagement and outreach, public education activities, activism and more.
To join us or learn more, simply contact info@ecoqueers.org.
