Why I’m Running Again for Re-election in 2024
I am running again in 2024 for reelection to the Board of Directors because I think the lessons I learned in the last three years will be helpful in providing the stability and continuity we need to support our new Community Manager, leading the staff in the process of modernizing the Association and achieving new, 21st century goals. Change is here. We need board members that can support change and adaptation to new situations. There is no time to improvise.
Younger families with kids are here. Climate change is here. Sea Ranch has done a good job keeping up with its original principles, but principles also need renewal, new ideas from the new generations and diverse walks of life that are moving here and are eager to participate.
To build a resilient community, to adapt to new demographics and climate change, we need to change our understanding and relationship with Nature. We need to work with cost-effective Nature-based solutions that support the natural ecosystem services that give us clean water, clean air, temperature regulation, erosion control, protection from winds and storms. We need to build our future with good strategic planning around a new TSRA “ecological balance sheet” that prioritizes our natural resources as high value assets and that reduces environmental damage.
I am asking for your vote to continue working for you, members. As I have been doing in the last 3 years, I will put the time and the effort!
Thank you.
I live here full time and I have a full time job with Earth Team. And, because Sea Ranch gives me so much, I want to volunteer my time to work with a community ready to accept the invitation of Nature to build new ideas for the next 50 years. A sustainable and resilient community on this beatiful coast. A great place to live, share and work.
I’ve worked with many federal, state and county projects during my 25 years as an executive in nonprofits. I have developed good skills to set up and work with high performing teams to achieve the best results. I can provide TSRA with lots of professional experience. As an anthropologist/archaeologist, I am trained in science and research methods and I have worked in several continents with traditional societies and indigenous groups in large scale projects to create working landscapes and innovate in the conservation field.
My endorsements include a wide diversity of people in the fields of environmental conservation, forest and marine science, local educational institutions and artists.
Adrian Forsyth
President of the Board, Osa Conservation
Manuel is more than a dedicated environmentalist and an effective executive. He is a forward thinker whose brilliant strategies unite rather than divide people. I'm happy to hear he may help lead the place he loves the best, The Sea Ranch.
Bob Weir
Musician, The Grateful Dead, The Furthur foundation
We have entrusted Manuel with our funds for ecological projects. We have visited him at his research site deep in his Central American forest. Manuel understands the fine art of saving communities and ecologies.
Environment
The land is the “living space” that gives a community a chance to build a sense of “lived place”. This process of transforming spaces into places is fascinating.
As an anthropologist who has lived and worked among traditional societies and indigenous peoples, I have learned that many consider plants and animals as familial relatives when it comes to the management of resources. This is to say that cultural values are important to define how we live “economically” and “socially” with the land, not just “lightly” on the land. We need a new language to describe the socio-ecological and economic processes that replace “lightly” with the specifics of how we will want to transform this place in the next 50 years and refresh our principles
A copy of Halprin’s organizing design ideas, agreed upon by common consent within the community, 1981.
Community
We all came to TSR to live healthier lives, with lasting friendships, among good neighbors, and a vibrant Nature. Or to come and go to a great second home in the coast. Our borders are not lines on a map. We live in an eco-region defined by biogeographical features, a watershed. We depend on each other, up and down stream: Gualala, the Kashia, GRT, the ranchers, the Conservation Fund. I would like to work with affordable housing for our staff and local workers, assisted-living units for the elderly, so we maintain a wide, inclusive diversity of people of all ages and all places.
