Science, Ecology and Faith Series

Hosted by the Interfaith Consortium for Ecological Civilization (ICEC), this speaker series focuses on climate change and sustainable development and the important role of the interfaith community as a catalyst for change. It is held in partnership with the United Nations Committee of Religious NGOs and the CoNGO Committee on Sustainable Development.


Piper Dumont, Director of The Edible Churchyard at Union Theological Seminary

Edible Churchyards: Faith Communities and Urban Food Justice
February 20, 2013

The Edible Churchyard is Union Theological Seminary’s initiative to re-imagine churchyards and rooftops as gardens to revitalize communities, reclaim food-based knowledge, and nourish the land and our bodies. It connects environmental concerns with Union’s legacy of community justice and leadership development.

Director Piper Dumont will discuss the ongoing development of the Edible Churchyard, including interfaith collaborations in the Harlem neighborhood. Piper is an educator and agrarian who cultivates connections with land and people. Her doctoral work at Columbia University analyzes food education through families, communities, and popular culture. She is part of a movement developing models of community-based ecological and food justice as they convert the built environment into growing spaces.


As a consortium of religious and secular organizations dedicated to ecological civilization, the Interfaith Consortium for Ecological Civilization (ICEC)’s organizing partners are the Temple of Understanding, GreenFaith, the Forum of Religion and Ecology at Yale University, and the International Communities for the Renewal of the Earth, in consultation with the New York office of the United Nations Environmental Program. The mission of ICEC is to facilitate a dialogue among the various sectors of society on ecological civilization, gather wisdom from this dialogue that will inspire and guide individuals and social transformations, and lead in the transition to an ecological civilization. Click for more information >>

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