By Erik Brinkman, Communications & Special Projects Coordinator

For better or for worse, humans have become the globally dominant species, not surprising for earth’s most complex super-cooperator. Our unique blend of specialization, creativity, and cooperation combined with an insatiable biological self-interest, has resulted in an unparalleled collective capacity to bend the earth’s systems to our will. Or so we believe.

Now our industrial civilization’s unintended side effects threaten the critical balance on which the future of all human well-being depends. This newsletter is an acknowledgement to the people working hardest to turn this situation around — to create an ecological civilization that consciously nurtures the biosphere’s future.

In these pages you’ll read about the artists, warriors, greeners and specialists that make up the Brinkman family. From tropical rain forests to treacherous cutblocks, each of us is engaged in a different aspect of the same epic task: restoring the balance that every living thing depends on.

At Brinkman we continually seek to identify and enhance undervalued or missing landscape benefits. We partner with First Nations on the front-lines of sustainable resource stewardship, ensuring maximum benefit to the local communities while responsibly managing the ecosystems we rely on. Every tree we plant restores resilience to our forests, soils, and ecosystems. Every project we complete reinforces an essential truth: in restoring each local ecosystem we restore ourselves, our children and our future.
The economy and the environment are often pitted against one another, but there can be no long-term growth without sustainability. So it is our job to reconcile the two through the building of an Ecological Civilization.

There are thousands of incredible, and heartfelt teaching stories to tell along this journey. From the newly caulked boots grappling the wet cliff slash on the Coast of B.C. to the CEO’s holey socks in sandals at an international climate convention, this newsletter is a snapshot of the last year’s many adventures. It is an honour to work alongside the ecological civilization-building employees of the Brinkman Group.

Let’s go let’s go let’s go!