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Jane Wei-Skillern

    POWER OF BLUE ECOLOGY AS A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY: Michael Blackstock bridges two worlds, Indigenous and Western. His work on Blue Ecology interweaves Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. This is a foundational idea for achieving Water Reconciliation in British Columbia.


    “As the world gets more complex, we just simplify it to two dimensions. It is EITHER-OR. There is no complexity. I think that is a human reflex. My response to that is the concept of Natural Intelligence. There is untapped intelligence out there in nature. It is on our doorstep, but we are not even talking about. As I was writing my chapter for the Bloomsbury Handbook, I came up with this idea of Natural Intelligence. My hope is that the book will elevate the idea within academia and perhaps start a global conversation that trickles down and triggers a re-think,” stated Michael Blackstock.

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    POWER OF BLUE ECOLOGY AS A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY: “My focus on building networks by investing in relationships and community is rooted in values that closely align with those of many indigenous communities. It is about getting the flywheel going. And that is why I am collaborating with British Columbia’s Michael Blackstock,” stated Jane Wei-Skillern, network leadership thought leader


    “It is all about storytelling. Keeping things simple; not getting caught up in academic theory or jargon. Making things simple and accessible is what is going to resonate. The more we can help people understand they have the power to do what we are talking about, right now, in whatever role they are in…and the more they open their minds to it, and the more they practice and exercise those muscles…their work will become easier. It will become more effective. And it will become more fun. Shining a light on that path is what we can help to do,” stated Jane Wei-Skillern.

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    POWER OF BLUE ECOLOGY AS A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY: “If we are more unified with nature, we will be more unified with each other,” concludes Dr. Zbigniew Grabowski. He left the University of Connecticut in 2024 to put his ideas into action as the first executive director of the Mystic River Watershed


    “I did my PhD in the Pacific Northwest to get educated about indigenous world views. I drew a lot of inspiration from Michael Blackstock’s Blue Ecology work on how we can intertwine indigenous knowledge with western scientific methods. Now I am trying to figure out what that means in the context of the US Northeast. I became familiar with Michael’s Blue Ecology framework paper when I was at Portland State University. The PhD program was about doing experiments in interdisciplinary fellowships that tackled real-world problems, not just academic problems,” stated Zbigniew Grabowski.

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    POWER OF BLUE ECOLOGY AS A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY: “It matters what stories we tell and HOW we tell those stories. Solutions lie in the new stories we tell,” stated Dr. Serpil Oppermann, Director of the Environmental Humanities Center at Cappadocia University (Turkey)


    “Though it may sound like a bold claim, my mission is to be a bridge between the humanities and science studies,” stated Serpil Oppermann. “We have to rethink the traditional humanist idea that storytelling is all too human and that humans are the only species with the ability to tell stories. WHAT IF the world we cohabit with a myriad of nonhumans is also expressive and is story-filled? HOW MIGHT our understanding of nature change if we recognize nonhuman stories conveyed in codes, signs, colors, gestures, and signals, as stunning narratives? Solutions are in the stories.”

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “My research is really just bringing us back to the basics of what matters – human to human connection, trust-based relationships AND community,” stated Dr. Jane Wei-Skillern, Senior Fellow with the Center for Social Sector Leadership at the University of California Berkeley, and network leadership thought leader


    “When I was on the faculty at the Harvard Business School, I began my research into the concept of a networked approach that is more focused on network-building and trust-based relationships, and less about building an organization to get to your mission impact. People learn from and are inspired by stories. Work is easier, more effective and more fun when people collaborate. The big idea is to try and seed a culture change and shift in climate-conservation work to one that really values the power of relationships and networks,” explained Jane Wei-Skillern.

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “The more you can build buzz around your work and get people energized, the more feasible it becomes. Success breeds success,” stated Dr. Jane Wei-Skillern of the University of California at Berkeley


    “I was teaching an MBA elective on social entrepreneurship, was doing some case writing, and came across Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. Geraldine Peacock, the CEO, did all of these counter-intuitive things in order to get her organization’s impact bigger. But it was by decreasing their own organizational footprint, investing in their peers and former competitors, and focusing more narrowly on their core business, that enabled them to leverage their resources more broadly and create greater and more sustainable impact in the entire field,” stated Jane Wei-Skillern.

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Research by Jane Wei-Skillern offers insights into how champions in the local government and stream stewardship sectors can ensure that their collaborative efforts can have an impact that is dramatically greater than the sum of the individual parts,” stated Kim Stephens, Executive Director, Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia (November 2021)


    “At the beginning of 2021, the Partnership leadership reflected on our long-term commitment to collaborative leadership and growing a network. From the outset, we had vowed never to fall into the trap of concentrating our energies on building an organization and thus losing sight of ‘the mission’. This view of the world reflected our history as a roundtable,” stated Kim Stephens. “Are there other precedents for our approach, we wondered? Or are we unique? We decided it was time to research the social science literature to definitively answer these and other questions.”

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “By mobilizing vast external resources, networked nonprofits can focus on their own expertise. At the same time, these external resources enhance the value and influence of each organization’s expertise,” stated Dr.Jane Wei-Skillern, co-author of The Networked Nonprofit, which provides context for the Partnership for Water Sustainability vision for collaborative leadership


    “The network emerges around a common goal, rather than a particular program or organizational model. The community mobilizes the resources from throughout the network, and based on existing relationships in the community. The solution is emergent and comes from the community members themselves, rather than being pushed from the top down. And finally, once a network is up and running and proves itself to be effective, it becomes the primary vehicle for change, rather than the individual organizations themselves,” stated Dr. Jane Wei-Skillern.

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