Join BioDiversity Zine creator Zoe-Blue Coates for an evening in celebration of the BioDiversity project. The free event will include a brief presentation from Zoe-Blue about BIPOC Ecological Stewards, followed by a screening of the documentary Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

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About the Film:

Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.

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About the presenter:

Zoe-Blue Coates (she/her) is a queer Black woman who was born and raised on One Dish One Spoon territories in Tkaronto (Toronto,ON).

As Administration and Communications Coordinator, Zoe-Blue promotes the CEC’s educational resources and programs. In her role, she coordinates CEC’s social media, communications and marketing, networks with like-minded organizations, and speaks to CRD residents via phonecall, email, and in-person.

During her first few months at the CEC, Zoe-Blue created the BioDiversity zine. This project tells the stories of non-white ecological stewards throughout history. Ecological stewards build relationships of respect and reciprocity with the lands they live on and all its living-beings. These people have had lasting impacts on industries like botany, agriculture, permaculture, agro-forestry, foraging, and herbal medicine. Due to the white-washing of the history of ecological stewardship, many youth like Zoe-Blue believe that any interest in ecological stewardship was a sign of their assimilation into whiteness. She created the zine to push back against that notion and show today’s youth that their passion for the earth makes their ancestors proud.

In her free time, Zoe-Blue learns about herbal medicine, befriends her neighbourhood’s crows, and cooks.

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This event will be hosted live online via Zoom. Registered participants will receive a Zoom link by email 30 minutes before the workshop starts. If you do not see the email, check your junk folder.

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Please pre-register for this event.

You can also register for the event by calling our office at 250 386 9676 or via email by contacting office@compost.bc.ca

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The Compost Education Centre is located on unceded and occupied Indigenous territories, specifically the land of the Lekwungen speaking people—the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. These nations are two of many, made up of individuals who have lived within the porous boundaries of what is considered Coast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Kwakwa’wakw Territory (Vancouver Island) since time immemorial. At the CEC we seek to respect, honour and continually grow our own understandings of Indigenous rights and history, and to fulfill our responsibilities as settlers, who live and work directly with the land and its complex, vital ecologies and our diverse, evolving communities.