On the road to 12 Zoöps by 2025!

During the Zoonomic Assembly on Friday, 1 November, we celebrated the inauguration of no fewer than 7 new organisations that will become Zoöps in 2025! Just like the 5 organisations that became Zoops in the past two years, they will now actively include the voices of plants, animals and other living beings in their decision-making. Together we celebrated this new beginning and established the Council for the Living - the advisory body for Zoöps and their Speakers for the Living.

The annual meeting marks the symbolic start of the organisations becoming Zoöps. The upcoming Zoöps introduced themselves and spoke about why they want to take this step. They also introduced their Speakers for the Living and their plans for the future. 

Recent and upcoming Zoöps: 

• Creative Coding Utrecht (CCU) is a platform for digital creativity, working towards a practice of permacomputing. They became Zoöp earlier in 2024, but did not present themselves at the Zoönomic Meeting before.
• De Arnicakwekerij is a biodynamic outdoor nursery of predominantly native plants in Dwingeloo.
• Tetem is a development institution and platform for digital culture and making culture based in Enschede.
• Vereniging Leven met het Land makes regenerative estate de Kleverbergh in the Ooijpolder near Nijmegen a home for all forms of life.
• Amsterdam-based Waag Futurelab works at the intersection of technology and society and, as Zoöp, will explore how digital technology can contribute to ecological regeneration
• De Zaak van de Dieren tegen de Mensen is a film project based on the 10th-century but still topical texts of the Basra Brothers from Persia. This film project on animal rights integrates non-human perspectives throughout the process from development and production to editing and distribution, and will be the first film-zoöp.
• Design Innovation Group is a creative, social and strategic design studio based in Amsterdam, for (co-)creating creative solutions to complex societal challenges.
• The municipality of Amsterdam is also working on plans to apply the Zoöp model in various contexts.

An important new part of the Zoöp movement is the Council for the Living. This group of human experts - from ecologists to economists - support the Zoöps and their Speakers for the Living, with solicited and unsolicited advice. During the meeting, this advisory council was officially established and introduced by Sander Turnhout, strategist of SoortenNL and chair of the Zoönomic Foundation. 

 
We organised the Assembly at Kunstfort near Vijfhuizen (one of our Zoöps!). Take a look below to get an impression of the day.