The 2016 Buckminster Fuller Challenge has officially come to a close after months of the top full-system design projects competing for $100,000 to support the development of their strategies. Finalists proposed thoughtful projects ranging from solutions to over populated cemeteries to better designs for harvesting water—it’s a wonder the panelists could come to a final decision.
The Rainforest Solutions Project ended up taking the win thanks to their thorough infrastructure plan to save the Great Bear Rainforests in British Columbia. Designed as a collaboration between the three organizations, Greenspace, Sierra Club BC and Stand (formerly Forest Ethics), The Rainforest Solutions Project aims to bring the government, environmentalists and logging companies together to conserve one of the largest rainforests on the planet. That’s no easy task, considering those three parties don’t always have the same needs.
However, by implementing ecosystem-based management—the project’s legal and policy framework for the collaboration—The Rainforest Solutions Project supports the conversation around conservation through an open dialogue that tries to meet both human and ecological needs as best as possible.
“The Rainforest Solutions Project’s cutting-edge work to collaboratively co-design Ecosystem Based Management in the Great Bear Rainforest has resulted in a 15-million acre case study for the paradigm shift required to concurrently respect indigenous rights and conserve the Earth’s lungs, for species, culture and climate, now and for future generations.”
We look forward to hearing more success stories from The Rainforest Solutions Project and next year’s BFI Challenge winner.
Make sure to check out past BFI Challenge winners that are solving some of the world’s most pressing problems here, here and here.
http://www.core77.com/posts/56843/The-2016-Buckminster-Fuller-Challenge-Winner-Brings-Environmentalists-Government-and-Logging-Companies-Together-for-Rainforest-Conservation