Jon Kohl

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Please Help Jon and Merrick Transform the Global Paradigm in Natural and Cultural Heritage Management image

Please Help Jon and Merrick Transform the Global Paradigm in Natural and Cultural Heritage Management

Never Participated in Crowdfunding for a Good Cause? Your Small Donation Motivates Others’ Small Donations Adding up to Big IMPACT

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$670 towards $9,500

The Integral Approach Has Strengthened My Life and Mission

I Was 29 When It All Started…

In 1998. I worked at a grassroots tropical conservation NGO and observed that all kinds of unimplemented management plans littered the Latin American protected areas landscape. Though most park managers simply blamed insufficient resources and hoped for the best, we were convinced a reason closer to truth lurked below the surface. Since then I have been on a philosophical, practical, and even spiritual journey to uncover deep beliefs about science, technology, and consciousness. These ideas can distort how we plan, treat people and other life forms, and understand reality. In 2006, I joined Dr. Stephen McCool to write a book about these deeper truths that sentence not only plans to dusty bookshelves but tractors to rot in fields, farmers to eat their own seed, donors to build visitor centers that never get used, and trainings that fail to change anyone's lives.

After three years seeking a way to organize our book, we discovered Integral Theory. This philosophy and life practice integrates all forms of knowing into a holistic map of the world and a way to navigate it. It was just the perspective we had unknowingly sought to describe plan failure and more importantly how to plan AND implement in an uncertain and rapidly changing world.

Now I am diffusing Integral Theory through the PUP Global Heritage Consortium, my writing, and spiritual practice with the endgame of transforming the global paradigm for natural and cultural heritage management. I have joined my dear colleague and friend, Merrick Hoben, of the Consensus Building Institute (CBI) and other Consortium partners to design and pilot test an Integral Site Assessment useful for any development organization that works in sites whose inhabitants they wish to understand and mobilize to action.

Merrick is the Director of the CBI Washington, DC Office, and an internationally renowned conflict mediator and trainer. In a recent controversial development project in Honduras involving the World Bank and numerous actors from impacted communities to government leadership, Merrick felt the tension of finding a better approach that could tackle the complexity of systemic issues at hand. Together we drew up our first assessment map that combined Integral Theory and Systems Thinking to explain the intertwined roots of the conflict, illustrating why those involved need to consider not just their particular interests but the entire system of stakeholders in order to achieve any hope of improvement. Moreover, the approach needed to manage issues relevant both internal to people and organizations, as well as the external economic and legal systems at play.




My first attempt to use Integral Theory in a site assessment, 2014. In the Piedras de Tunja Archeological Park in Colombia, I help staff consider the Integral Map (on table) as they analyze their strengths and weaknesses.


Integral Site Assessment Exemplifies Innovation by PUP and MetaIntegral Foundation

The PUP Consortium really prides itself on research and methodological innovation, something we have been doing since 1998. The Integral Site Assessment we hope will takes its place alongside other PUP innovations including public use sectors, interpretive frameworks, condition-based zoning, Holistic Planning, ROS based on Authenticity, and the overall PUP Process.

Your Support Inspires Others to Do the Same

Many projects around the world also use Integral Theory to generate real impact; that's why Merrick and I are teaming with MetaIntegral Foundation's 2015 fundraising campaign. We request your donation to the MetaIntegral Foundation in support of a portfolio of Integral projects, led by top Integral thinkers, experts in their field, forging new solutions to wicked and messy social and environmental problems. Their projects empower people in the MOST compassionate, rational, and sustainable ways, looking holistically beyond simple, superficial explanations and remedies. Their projects operate around the globe in such fields as Psychology and Spirituality, Leadership and Development, Business and Economics, Culture and Worldviews, Healthcare and Medicine, Ecology and Sustainability.

If we truly desire to IMPACT the world, we must apply methods and principles that paint a generous big picture that weaves multiple perspectives in a comprehensive, inclusive way. Help us generate long-lasting transformation for civilization.

Just a small donation — any amount — will help not only me to meet our fundraising goal for the MetaIntegral Foundation, but inspire others to give as well. This in turn supports our Integral Site Assessment project, but even more important: builds an Integral constituency for all human and environmental development work to come.


Our Vision of How to Transform the Global Paradigm

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