Introduction to the Earth Center in the Delaware Watershed
ECDW’s
Mission
To
help people and institutions in the Delaware Watershed live in
harmony with the natural order.
(We define the Delaware Watershed as the area drained by
the Delaware River and its tributaries.
According to the Delaware River Basin Commission, the
area includes portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
Delaware, and a very tiny piece of northeastern Maryland.)
Our purpose is to restore the balance that must exist if
life in the region is to continue its evolutionary unfolding in
a healthy and progressive way.
We base our thinking on principles of bioregionalism and
the universe story (see below).
How
We Started
The
idea to create the ECDW came during a conversation between
Ralph Copleman and Corky Potter, Director of Shaver’s Creek
Environmental Center at Penn State University.
Knowing that Ralph had become very interested in the
story of the universe and its implications for the way all of
us live, Corky asked how the story could be applied to
transform the traditional approach to nature centers.
What would it look like, he asked, if environmental
education in that form were to take on the mission of
communicating the full story of the universe?
That conversation (and all the ideas and questions it
created) led to exciting talks in Ralph’s living room and
elsewhere. In 2001
a small group of people agreed to create an earth center based
on the universe story and focused on a rigorous understanding
of how we take on the task of educating people in the region
about where we live and how best to live here.
Elements
of a Vision
We
see ourselves as learning, teaching, and celebrating how the
universe expresses itself here in our bioregion.
We see for ourselves a role in helping others come to
their own understanding of our common surroundings and the
story behind them. In
tangible terms, we work toward the day when a Center in
Trenton, NJ, will tell the story of our area, its plants and
animals, its record in the very rock and soil formations upon
which we walk every day, and its peoples and cultures.
Organizational
Status
ECDW
is incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in the State of New
Jersey. We enjoy
tax-exempt status as the result of a fiscal-agent relationship
with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.
They will be handling all our funds, managing our
accounts, paying our bills, and making certain we are in
fiduciary compliance with regulatory and tax agencies.
The
Universe Story and Bioregionalism
The
14 billion-year story that is the heritage of all living
species on earth is the key conceptual underpinning of the ECDW.
The Center sets
itself in clear counterpoint to conventional human, political
history taught in this country.
We say the settling of the region by European settlers a
few hundred years ago is only the shortest, most recent chapter
in the true story of the Delaware Watershed.
Other human cultures, with a different attitude toward
the land and other species, preceded us.
Their legacy lives on.
Their people still live among us.
So do flora and fauna that predate all human occupation
here and which shaped the region and the way we experience it
today.
A bioregion consists of the particular characteristics
of a given place. That
place is defined not by administrative boundaries drawn on maps
by the most recent human arrivals, but by the living patterns
and behaviors of everything that is here.
ECDW
Programming
A
committee has been working since the spring of 2002 to prepare
the way for major strategic decisions the board will want to
consider. Currently
we see three principal directions and several engaging program
opportunities:
 | Learning |
| Celebration |
| Advocacy |
Specifically,
the planning group has selected seven initiatives for which it
will shortly begin preliminary investigation of funding
possibilities:
- Timeline
highlighting bioregional history (human, ecological,
geological, and more)
- The
Earth Business Project: research into the relationship
between business and the environment
- A
periodically published “State of the Region” report
with a universe-story perspective
- Identification
of the governmental role in the promotion of a
sustainability on a local or regional level
- A
program of assistance for individuals and families who wish
to pursue more ecological lifestyles.
- Development
of a school curriculum based on the universe story and
bioregionalism
- Creation
and promotion of a workshop for corporate leaders on the
role of business in a more ecologically-focused community.
Location
Our
purview is the entire Delaware Watershed. We expect for now to
concentrate our work in the Trenton-Philadelphia axis on both
sides of the river. The
Trenton area was the apparent geographic center of the Lenape
peoples who have dwelled here for thousands of years before
Europeans arrived. We
have envisioned a true Center in the heart of the contemporary
city, a model of sustainable design, function, and
accessibility. We imagine it to be a living part of the
present culture and a tribute to everything that has ever lived
here.
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Center in the Delaware Watershed