Bioneers is excited to announce a series of special events for the Bay Area leading up to the April 2023 Bioneers Conference, taking place for the first time in the East Bay. Many are familiar with the annual Bioneers Conference, which has had a variety of homes in the Bay Area, most recently in San Rafael, CA. We’re excited to be hosting Bioneers in Berkeley this year, where it will take place between Zellerbach Hall in the mornings and throughout downtown Berkeley in the afternoons.
This series of highly curated lead-up events include film screenings, lectures, discussions and panels that will resonate with the Bionneers community and the extended environmental, political and social justice communities. These events will build community, momentum and serve as an exciting launchpad for Bioneers 2023!
Please see below for the events planned for early 2023 leading up to the April Bioneers Conference.
All events are free of charge and will be held in collaboration with our partners at the David Brower Center, hosted in their beautiful Goldman Theater located at 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704.
Presented in partnership with the David Brower Center
Upcoming East Bay Special Pre-Conference Events
February 16, 2023, 6:15 PM PT
Celebrating Youth Arts and Activism
Join us for an evening of good food, spoken word and inspiration with young artists and activists who are working to heal themselves and their communities.
Meet with folks from East Bay organizations to learn about their work and how you can get involved.
Poets from Youth Speaks will perform and MC this event, featuring:
A young leader from Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) who will share how their work shifts the way we think about justice from seeking vengeance and retaliation to a focus on healing broken relationships and trauma.
Dominic Smith and Joe Sweeney, Oakland participants of the Bioneers lntercultural Conversations Program, will share their cultural exchange experience in the Navajo Nation and on the Hopi Reservation where they learned about the tribes’ cultures, histories, and customs alongside local Native youth.
This free event is a collaboration between Bioneers and the David Brower Center.
March 14, 2023, 5:45 PM PT
Women’s Leadership with Nina Simons, Bioneers Co-Founder and Melinda Kramer, Co-Founder of Women’s Earth Alliance
Women’s Earth Alliance in Partnership with Bioneers, invites you to join us to energize, inspire and liberate your own leadership journey through an experiential immersion guided by practices from Women’s Earth Alliance and Bioneers’ co-founder Nina Simons’ book, Nature, Culture & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership.
People of all gendered identities are warmly welcome.
Nina’s book will be available for purchase and signing.
With:
Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.
Melinda Kramer is an accomplished social entrepreneur, environmental advocate, and nonprofit founder and director. She has worked around the world at the intersection of environmental sustainability, women’s economic development, and gender justice. In 2005, she and her colleagues set out to bridge the resource gap for grassroots women tackling our world’s most critical environmental and climate challenges. What began as a small convening of 30 women climate leaders from 26 countries grew into Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), a 18-year organization and thriving global network, elevating the critical work of 25,000 grassroots women environmental entrepreneurs and climate leaders. WEA has been recognized as a top non-profit in the Huffington Post in the field of entrepreneurship, awarded a United Nations Association Global Citizen Award, and has been featured in publications like GRIST, Ms. Magazine, the Huffington Post, Regeneration, and Jane Fonda’s climate book What Can I Do. Melinda is a co-founder of the Global Women’s Water Initiative and serves on the board of Project Regeneration and Planet Women. She is also an Ambassador in Oxfam’s Sisters on the Planet Initiative.
April 6-8, 2023
Bioneers Conference
Now in its 34th year, the Bioneers Conference will be held in Berkeley, California, on April 6-8, 2023. Featuring hundreds of inspiring and visionary leaders, Bioneers 2023 will host thousands of engaged and civically active attendees at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus and in venues across downtown Berkeley for three days of riveting talks, movement building, and connections.
Past East Bay Special Pre-Conference Events
THE TERRITORY Film Screening
January 18, 2023, 7:00 PM (PT)
Doors at 6:30 PM (PT)
Short-listed for an Academy Award, THE TERRITORY provides an immersive on-the-ground look at the tireless fight of the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people against the encroaching deforestation brought by farmers and illegal settlers in the Brazilian Amazon. With awe-inspiring cinematography showcasing the titular landscape and richly textured sound design, the film takes audiences deep into the Uru-eu-wau-wau community and provides unprecedented access to the farmers and settlers illegally burning and clearing the protected Indigenous land. Partially shot by the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, the film relies on vérité footage captured over three years as the community risks their lives to set up their own news media team in the hopes of exposing the truth.
Join us for the screening of this powerful film hosted by Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Co-Director of Bioneers Indigeneity Program and Christian Poirier, a senior member of Amazon Watch’s team.
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, previously served her Mojave-based tribe in several capacities, including as: first Executive Director at the Chemehuevi Cultural Center, a member of the tribal council, and Chair of the Chemehuevi Education Board and Chemeuevi Headstart Policy Council. Cara is also a highly accomplished photographer/artist.
Christian Poirier is a senior member of Amazon Watch’s team. Having coordinated the Brazil Program since 2009, Christian helped lead international solidarity campaigns to halt the construction of large Amazon dams and to call on the global private sector to cease its complicity in environmental destruction and human rights abuses in the Amazon. While managing Amazon Watch’s Paris office, he partnered with European NGOs on Corporate Social Responsibility campaigns. He has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of international development and advocacy, focusing on environmental, agrarian, and social justice issues. Prior to joining Amazon Watch, Christian assisted Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement and managed rural development and micro enterprise projects in West Africa.
