People, practice and philosophies blend to learn with a GRIN!
GRIN-2023 took place between 10 and 12 October at a new venue, namely The Moorings on the edge of the Knysna estuary. This was the 5th annual Garden Route Interface and Networking meeting, a community of practice, hosted in partnership with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Nelson Mandela University’s Sustainability Research Unit in George and the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS). It is a ‘third place’, a neutral place, for diverse national and international practitioners and researchers to dialogue, exchange and learn across multiple organisations, themes and social-ecological perspectives within the context of people, nature and conservation.
GRIN’s metaphor is “Garden Route Bridges,” which enable connection across divides in order to allow flow and exchange between previously disconnected areas; doing this without obstructing the flow beneath them; and eventually transforming these now-connected areas by setting a new trajectory into the future (Izak Smit, 2019 GRIN wrap-up). This bridging, connecting and interfacing happens across multiple spheres, including people-nature, theory-practice (or science-management), doing-governing, past-future, organisations-stakeholders, conservation-production-integrated land uses, social-natural sciences. Further, real bridging recognises the critical importance of identity, inclusivity, confronting bias, plurality, trust, respect and empathy. And that transformative change is a journey rather than a destination.
Over three days, there were 40 formal presentations, engaged discussion sessions and dialogue over teas, dinners and in nature, all spanning transdisciplinary ecological and social sciences and practice. We were also again joined by the ShareScreen Africa team to facilitate virtual bridging to other African conservationists (https://sharescreenafrica.org/video-presentations/). Fittingly, the GRIN community had the privilege of being immersed in the sun’s last rays as it set over the estuarine waters while listening to Prof. Charles Breen speak on the wonders of this estuary and the recently launched book ‘Knysna Estuary, Jewel of the Garden Route’.
The mixture of knowledge, experiences, honesty and even tough questions shared during this event was inspiring and underscores the importance of dialogue and co-learning to inform relevant conservation and benefit-sharing approaches. In closing, Prof. Herve Fritz reflected on the ever-expanding diversity of the meeting – diversity of understanding and pathways to transformation, of perspectives, of emotions, of new disciplines represented, of demographic representation and intergenerationality. He also spoke of the heterogeneity of interfaces at GRIN 2023, including new ones such as cultural-legal, morality-justice, storytelling–data, mind-body. Herve emphasised the dual important functions of GRIN as an arena for social learning and for the health and wellbeing of the GRIN community and its members. The way in which many presenters integrated new insights from earlier talks into their own presentations was testament to social learning in action! Perhaps fittingly, both Herve and Victor Mokoena, in their vote of thanks, toasted GRIN as an energising, safe space for practitioners to express themselves and a call for academia to always remain humble and open to co-learning with practitioners.
The GRIN-2023 community gathered on the edge of the Knysna estuary to share experiences and learnings, stretch their minds and perceptions, foster new understandings, ask tough questions and grow novel relationships and collaborations. Thank you to all members (participants, speakers, organisers, partners) who contributed to the success of this 5th meeting.
The much anticipated and valued GRIN field visit saw us share a reflective and meditative session in the Garden of Eden forest on ‘Care for Environmental Carers’ guided and led by Prof. Wendy Foden.
