[Venice, Italy] Ensayos is pleased to announce The Venice Agreement, a two-day convening of specialists from the fields of ecological science, conservation, climate change policy with representatives from First Nations that will focus on the value and practice of protecting and restoring our planet’s peatlands at the local level. The convening will be held in Venice, Italy and is being co-organized by Ensayos, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Chile, and the Greifswald Mire Centre in collaboration with TBA21 Academy.
This historic assembly will culminate in the signing of the The Venice Agreement on World Peatlands Day. The Venice Agreement is a poetic declaration offering a statement of needs and best practices for protecting peatlands around the world at a local scale. It will represent a commitment by local and regional organizations from around the world to establish concrete custodial programs for the ecological and cultural management of peatlands. By creating an opportunity for the sharing of similarities and differences of on-the-ground peatland conservation initiatives from different continents, The Venice Agreement’s aim is to identify global opportunities in funding, policy and commitment to face local challenges for global peatlands conservation.
The Venice Agreement is inspired in part by Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol, the Chilean Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 59th International Art Exhibition, curated by Ensayos founder Camila Marambio. Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol seeks an experimental path towards the effective conservation of peatlands, an effort that is intrinsically linked to the future wellbeing of humanity and, in Patagonia, to the rebirth of the Selk’nam people. The installation includes work by Chilean artists Ariel Bustamante (audio), Alfredo Thiermann (architecture), Dominga Sotomayor (film) and Carla Macchiavello (art history) as well as Ensayos contributions from Chile, Australia, Norway and the United States and collaboration with Wildlife Conservation Society Chile (WCS Chile), and the Selk’nam Fundación Hach Saye.
The Venice Agreement takes a bottom-up approach that responds to the need of smaller local initiatives to be recognized as important collaborators in the international process of peatland conservation. The gathering will take place at Ocean Space, an exhibition and public programs venue that belongs to the research and cultural ecosystem center at the TBA21 Foundation, which promotes a deeper relationship of care for and commitment to the planet’s waters and ecology.
The program has been carefully designed to channel its participants’ experiences towards the co-creation of an agreement based on real knowledge, which may help activate the protection of worldwide peatlands on a local scale. The participants who will formulate the Venice Agreement include peatland protectors from Argentina, Congo, Chile, Scotland, United States, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Kenya, Uganda, and Uruguay.
During the two-day convening, 30+ participants will contribute to the Agreement, share their visions for the future of peatland conservation, receive the support of experts such as Dr. Hans Joosten of Greifswald Mire Centre, and connect with global decision makers such as Dianna Kopansky from the Global Peatland Initiative. There will be conversations with artists, conservationists, and other experts during sessions guided by experts such as Charo Lanao and Manuela Zechner, and the work session will end with a public event for the Agreement’s signature and a celebration.
The Venice Agreement was made possible through the generous support of:
- Stiftung Zukunfts Jetzt! www.stiftung-zukunftjetzt.de
- Hartwig Behrendt Stiftung Zukunft www.stiftung-zukunft.org
- Global Peatlands Initiative led by UN Environment /www.globalpeatlands.org/
For more information, visit https://turbatol.org/venice-agreement.html