Bullitt Foundation Vision

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. . . . Think big.

-Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864-1912)

Cascadia, the Northwest corner of the United States and the Southwest corner of Canada, is ground zero for sustainable development.

Originally endowed with an extravagant abundance of natural biological capital, Cascadia is at an inflection point in its history. Following more than a century of intensive exploitation of its natural resources, Cascadia is now turning green. It is restoring its abused landscapes, and it is now on the cusp of becoming a global model for a new approach to human ecology.

Cascadia already has a reputation for environmentally sensitive leadership. Through its innovations in science, technology, commerce, and culture, the region exerts a disproportionate national, and even global, impact. Its political leaders tend to be unusually knowledgeable about, and committed to, environmental values.

Here, as around the world, human activity has reached a scale where it is interfering with such fundamental global phenomena as the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the hydrologic cycle. Often we have no clear sense of all the consequences of our actions, but we have a mounting awareness that many of these consequences will be dire.

As a result, humankind is searching for political and economic examples that successfully reconcile our obligation to sustain healthy natural systems with our understandable desire for health, convenience, creativity, and prosperity.

If this can be accomplished anywhere on the planet, it will be done in Cascadia. The Bullitt Foundation seeks to catalyze the necessary changes.

This raises two obvious questions: (1) What are the essential elements of a successful model for ecologically sustainable human development? (2) What, realistically, can a foundation with Bullitt’s limited resources do to promote them?

Any theory of sustainable development must be grounded in an understanding that the human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the natural environment. We briefly ignore the big laws—nature’s laws—at our peril. In the long run, we cannot break them.

Sustainable human institutions and enterprises will be founded on the same ecological principles that govern all ecosystems.

Work—by ourselves and others—to foster a sustainable future for the Cascadia region will focus in three basic areas:

First, the region must protect lands and waters that are not yet compromised. These pristine wild lands, healthy watersheds, and productive marine environments are an essential refuge for an enormous diversity of wild plants and animals. Evolved over millions of years, they provide the ultimate models of sustainability as well as boundless genetic wealth that may provide answers to questions we have not yet asked.

Second, the region must work to restore damaged forests, shorelines, rivers, wetlands, and grasslands to enable a return of native fish and wildlife and to provide healthy natural settings for human use and enjoyment. Working forests, for example, should be managed to replicate as closely as possible natural processes that have demonstrated their ability to remain productive for thousands of years. Forests, grasslands, farms, fisheries, parks, wetlands, and other biologically based assets should be valued in terms of the whole suite of environmental services they provide to human communities—not on the basis of a single commodity. Any governmental financial incentives should be structured to promote this comprehensive approach.

Third, the region must promote the creation of human communities, political institutions, and economic enterprises that are designed to minimize adverse impacts on the regional and global environment. Essential (although not sufficient) elements will include:

• Substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, achieving carbon neutrality as quickly as possible;
• Sustainable forest management, agricultural practices, and food systems;
• Elimination of public exposure to toxic materials and biologically active pollutants;
• Efficient cities and towns designed to function in concert with ecological principles in order to minimize impacts on the natural environment, harvest ambient energy, minimize transportation needs, and promote livable communities;
• Recycling and composting of all materials; and
• Networks of urban open space, greenbelts, and regional parks, linked by corridors to larger protected areas.

Historically, the Bullitt Foundation has addressed crucial elements in all these areas. However, in recent years, numerous foundations have focused new resources on the first two realms: protection of wild lands and restoration of damaged natural systems. As a consequence, the Bullitt Foundation’s future work will primarily be focused on the human environment and at the interface of human communities with the natural world.

The Foundation’s resources are, of course, modest when compared to the ambitious mission of promoting sustainable development over a huge region. So its role will necessarily be mostly catalytic.

The Foundation looks for high risk, high potential payoff opportunities to exert unusual leverage. It has a special interest in demonstrating innovative approaches that promise to solve multiple problems simultaneously. It strives to build the intellectual foundations and political support needed for sweeping innovation.

The Bullitt Foundation places high value on being nimble and able to respond quickly to emerging threats and opportunities, while still acting with deliberation and strategic sensibility. At any moment, within its broad mission, the Foundation will be focused on a relatively small subset of explicit priorities that appear especially ripe for progress. The Foundation recognizes that environmental issues are inherently interconnected, and it marshals staff and financial resources across its programs to achieve success.

The Foundation focuses on root causes rather than symptoms. It prefers to prevent problems rather than cure them. It seeks to identify the most talented individuals and most effective organizations and empower them to respond to the most important issues facing the region.

To the very best grantees, the Foundation awards, at its discretion, multi-year general support grants to enable this critical work.

Like all responsible philanthropies, the Bullitt Foundation seeks to achieve measurable goals on reasonable timetables. But these are merely indications of progress—not ends in themselves. In the long run, the Bullitt Foundation will be judged, and will judge itself, by the degree to which Cascadia realizes the dream of sustaining the health and vitality of natural ecosystems while accommodating a growing population in healthy, vibrant, equitable, and prosperous communities.

If these efforts, and those of all our peers and partners, are successful, Cascadia will become an inspiration for others around the world.

Denis Hayes, President and CEO
October 2007