On Wednesday 3rd June afternoon from 16 to 18, during the Green Week in Brussels, a citizens’ initiative called ‘King of the Meadows’, which is also part of Leeuwarden-Fryslân European Capital of Culture 2018, will be presented.
‘ King of Meadows’ is a citizens’ initiative that aims at bridging the wide gap between citizens, landscape, commons and biodiversity. They call this movement “Biocultural Diversity”.
The collective includes artists, scientists, farmers, citizens, ecologists and more.
Below you can find an invitation letter from the collective, while – on the right column – you can download their manifesto.
Greetings from the Netherlands.
We invite you to a meeting to discuss how to connect European community initiatives dealing with landscape, art and commons. We are a citizen’s initiative called ‘King of the Meadows’, which is also part of Leeuwarden-Fryslân European Capital of Culture 2018. We have a transdisciplinary approach to trying to solve the wide gap between citizens, landscape, commons and biodiversity. We call this Biocultural Diversity. Our collective includes artists, scientists, farmers, citizens, ecologists and more. The ‘godwit’, a migratory bird is our icon, it guides us along its migratory route in Europe (and West Africa) and it serves as a metaphor for the relationship between citizens and their landscape. Our website is http://www.keningfanegreide.nl (in Dutch).
Together with a network of community initiatives from Spain, we drafted five points for a meeting on ‘Towards a Participative European Union’, held on 24th April 2015 together with European Parliamentarians, members of Commons initiative and European Cultural Foundation (see http://www.culturalfoundation.eu/library/newpact-debate-23april for a report).
We are invited by our local provincial government to present the King of the Meadows initiative on Wednesday 3rd June afternoon 16-18 pm, during the Green Week in Brussels. In order to make use of the event, we would like to organise an additional meeting near Brussels of half a day on Wednesday 3rd June (morning). The idea is to invite some 5-7 key people representing innovative communities along the migratory route of the godwit, i.e. Netherlands (Marga will join), Belgium, France (Frédérique Sultan from http://www.remixthecommons.org), Spain (Sergio Couto will join), Portugal (possibly José Alves, biologist from Portugal). We have also invited staff from European Network on Rural Development (ENRD) to explore the possibilities of a transnational programme around this topic, and to celebrate biocultural diversity in 2018 through a traveling festival along the migratory route of the godwit.
As for a draft agenda, the following points could be addressed:
* Getting to know each other
* King of the Meadows as a citizens initiative on commons and biodiversity
* How is nature and culture connected along the migratory route of the godwit?
* Theory U as an inspirational methodology to connect head, heart and hand
* Work towards a European “Book” (or cultural expressions) on European Biocultural Diversity in 2018, first draft end of 2015?
Would you be interested to be involved in building this European exchange programme? Would you – or other key people you know – like to be invited for the presentation in the context of the Green Week, on 3rd June? If you want to attend, please send a mail to: kingmeadows@snn.eu. Could you help us to identify possible locations and key persons?
Best wishes!
Wim Hiemstra
Civic Participation Agenda King of the Meadows
