Naturemind-Ed

NatureMind-Ed, as a social enterprise, leads transdisciplinary community-based biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration projects with the aim of building social-ecological resilience in Southern Thailand whereby nature and society interweave in a regenerative manner. The programmes, research projects, workshops, events and activities we lead are community-based and transdisciplinary. As such community engagement, transformative learning and participatory processes are central tenets of our projects’ implementation contributing to project outcome sustainability via increased community ownership and stewardship, contextualized social innovation towards natural resource adaptive management and diversified income sources. Transdisciplinary ecosystem restoration research implies embracing epistemological pluralism and acknowledging the multiple ways of knowing used by the myriad of actors involved in a project in order to co-design effective and sustainable solutions. Accordingly, we rely on a large portfolio of methods and tools ranging from quantitative ecology, i.e. biodiversity assessments, environmental sciences and geospatial analyses to qualitative approaches involving social sciences and humanities. The strong expertise and experience in facilitation our team has developed over the years while creating experiential education programs, provide us with strong assets to successfully implement participatory methodologies such as participatory rural appraisal, participatory mapping, natural resources calendars and many other participatory protocols. Finally one of our team’s main strength is its creative potential and genuine heart centered community partnership development approach. We use photography, film and other visual arts as well as serious games to engage with our community partners or other stakeholder in an authentic way, ensuring lasting relationship can be built and embracing our role as community resilience brokers.