HISTORY
 The Earth Restoration Corps (ERC) was formally established as a non-profit corporation in 1999 and obtained tax-exempt 501(c)3 status from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 2000. But before its formal establishment, the ERC’s history spanned decades of preparation and activities – first-hand experience, reflection, spiritually grounded activism and advocacy, launching projects, networking – by its visionary founder and president, Hanne M. Strong of Denmark. |
 After witnessing the environmental and human-cultural consequences of an unbridled development that depends on devouring and poisoning the Earth, Hanne Strong gradually developed the concept of the ERC. It started in 1973, when she helped launch a youth organization in Kenya for street children with anthropologist Richard Leakey and Wanjira Mathai, who later became a legend in her country and Africa for environmental action. Mrs. Strong later organized two parallel conferences for children and youth at the UN Habitat Conference, where for the first time young people addressed the General Assembly with their concerns and recommendations. |
 During the 1980s, Hanne Strong worked closely with North American indigenous groups. She directed her efforts to at-risk Native American youth, organizing youth camps focusing on environmental restoration on reservations throughout Canada. This led to the founding, with Thom Henley, of the Rediscovery Four Corners in Crestone, Colorado. For seven years, they conducted youth environmental training in the Colorado wilderness. By 1988, her ideas crystallized into an Earth Restoration Corps whose principles – personal and social transformation as a requirement for restoring Earth – were presented to an endorsed by key Native American elders. |
 In preparation for the historic 1992 “Earth Summit” (UN Conference On Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro, organized by her husband and partner, Maurice Strong, Hanne lobbied many governments in support ERC principles, including initiating a national service dedicated to environmental restoration as an alternative to military service. During the Earth Summit she organized a gathering of indigenous peoples that gave voice their concerns and took part in a assembly of 35 non-governmental organizations that endorsed the concept of the Earth Restoration Corps. Following the Earth Summit, the ERC employed a full time representative to lobby Americorps, in the United States, to adopt ERC principles. While Americorps did embrace many of the concepts, it did not adopt a main principle of the ERC: consciousness transformation or changing the way we humans, particularly in the West, relate to Earth. |
 Also convened after the Earth Summit was an ERC curriculum development workshop. This led to an international pilot training project in 1994 at a primitive base camp in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Crestone, Colorado. From this emerged the Environmental Leadership Training Program for youth between 16 and 25, which in 1995 and through subsequent summers until 2001 trained scores of participants from all continents and cultures. During this time and until 2000, the ERC was a project of the Manitou Foundation (and since 1994) the Manitou Institute in Crestone, Colorado, institutions founded by Hanne and Maurice Strong. |
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After decades of gradual growth, during which time our collective future has become more precarious, the ERC is poised to engage young adults worldwide in environmentally sustainable livelihoods that serve not only to restore the earths environment but also instill a deep sense of purpose, meaning, and direction in their lives. |
At the start of a new millennium (2000), the ERC embarked on program development work aimed at establishing a program presence in selected countries. As preparation, the ERC became its own legal entity as a non-profit corporation, formed a board of directors, and received tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service in the United States. The ERC is re-structuring to function as a training resource program in partnership with existing local and international organizations around the world. Toward this end, it is preparing a master trainer retreat to be held in Mexico at the end 2003 to in part finalize a draft cross-cultural curriculum guide for use as a reference and transformational tool. Master trainer teams from the nine diverse countries will then initiate local training of trainers programs and facilitate the subsequent training and follow-up work with target populations.