Originally endowed with an extravagant abundance of natural biological capital, the Northwest United States and Southwest Canada – the region known as 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 on the cusp of becoming a global model for a new approach to human ecology.
Cascadia already has a reputation for environmentally enlightened leadership. Through its innovations in science, technology, commerce, and culture, the region exerts a disproportionate national, and even global, impact relative to its size and population. Its political leaders tend to be unusually knowledgeable about, and committed to, environmental values.
If big change can be accomplished anywhere on the planet, it will be done in Cascadia. The Bullitt Foundation seeks to catalyze the necessary changes.
In pursuing this goal, 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 searches the world for successful projects and policies that can be adapted to the Pacific Northwest. It strives to build the intellectual foundations and political support needed for sweeping innovation.
If these efforts, and those of our partners, are successful, Cascadia will become an inspiration for others around the world.
For more information about the Bullitt Foundation, visit www.bullitt.org.