Name: Sarah Queblatin
Location: Philippines
Initiative Title: Living Story Landscapes
Short Description of Initiative: Living Story Landscapes envisions the healing of ecosystems with historical trauma from places of refuge into sanctuaries of life. Using a trauma-informed approach to ecosystem protection and restoration with communities healing from colonization, climate emergencies, and conflict, it works with the process of “restoring” and re-storying” collective belonging and identity with nature, in service of a bioregion’s resilience and regeneration, for both human and non-human life. It draws on cultural memory and imagination, bridging the arts and sciences, and working in collaboration with artists, wisdom keepers, regenerative innovators, the academe, local governments, and social enterprises.
Sectors: Civil society; Indigenous peoples; Cultural; Creatives
Website: www.livingstorylandscapes.com
Instagram: @livingstorylandscapes
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/livingstorylandscapes
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/livingstorylandscapes
Sarah Queblatin works with cultural memory and imagination as a response to the polycrisis. As a regenerative design and development specialist, she has been weaving collective experiences across peacebuilding, biocultural heritage, mental health, and humanitarian innovation for over 15 years. She founded Green Releaf Initiative to advance regenerative solutions in disaster and displacement contexts. Sarah also serves as a LUSH Spring Prize juror, a council member of the Global Ecovillage Network Oceania and Asia, a founding member of Permaculture for Refugees, and an inner council member of the UNDP-convened Conscious Food Systems Alliance.
Her initiative, Living Story Landscapes, envisions the healing of ecosystems with historical trauma, transforming places of refuge into sanctuaries of life. Grounded in a trauma-informed approach to ecosystem protection and restoration, it works with communities healing from colonization, climate emergencies, and conflict. The initiative focuses on both "restoring" and "re-storying" collective belonging and identity with nature, in service of a bioregion’s resilience and regeneration, for both human and non-human life.
Amid the backdrop of the polycrisis, Sarah’s work seeks to shape existing or emerging learning centres for bioregional regeneration by drawing from cultural memory and imagination. Her approach bridges arts and science by collaborating with artists, wisdom keepers, regenerative innovators, academics, local governments, and social enterprises.
When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I embarked on an inner healing journey. I left my work in humanitarian assistance for a typhoon-impacted community and began to examine the deeper systemic issues that disasters reveal and invite us to look within. During this time, while caring for her, I paused my Expressive Arts studies and explored other forms of disaster: personal, physical, emotional, social, and ecological. A pattern began to emerge, showing how deeply interconnected our personal and collective experiences are, and how our lives are entwined with the Earth—whatever we do to it, we also do to ourselves.
Art became a lens through which I could understand this transition from illusion to intuition to imagination. This perspective was affirmed through my work with cancer patients and with communities on the frontlines of climate and conflict—those my non-profit supported. Fast forward 12 years, and those patterns continue to mirror frameworks for both personal and collective healing.
My work exists within the context of the polycrisis, focusing on communities at the intersection of climate change, conflict, and historical colonization. Many of these bioregions are home to many of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and carbon sinks. They also hold a wealth of Indigenous wisdom that has persisted and evolved over centuries, and can offer powerful tools for resilience.
Even though many Indigenous and local communities have a smaller carbon footprint than wealthier, more industrialized nations, they remain among the most vulnerable to climate impacts. This is because their lives are deeply intertwined with natural ecosystems. When empowered to protect and restore their homelands, these communities can play a vital role in climate mitigation by keeping carbon in the ground, restoring watersheds, improving soil health and air quality, and nurturing the overall well-being of a bioregion.
Photo by Sarah Queblatin for Living Story Landscapes. Listening circles with indigenous wisdom keepers with University of the Philippines Cebu.
There are already numerous development models aimed at tackling climate vulnerability, biodiversity loss, and large-scale ecosystem restoration. However, many are shaped by international development institutions and bodies that follow top-down priorities. The lack of inclusion and local leadership in the design and implementation of ecosystem regeneration plans perpetuates the colonial heritage of the global North.
Engaging a bioregional approach invites us to reclaim our narratives of place and our sense of belonging. Within a bioregional governance model, we engage in participatory ways of analyzing and addressing ecosystem challenges specific to a bioregion. Through storytelling and creative practices rooted in arts and culture, we invite a deeper sense of ownership and accountability to place and build empathy for the realities faced by those who inhabit it. This approach deepens how people understand the challenges of their ecosystem, and feels more relatable than technical planning tools.
Indigenous wisdom and biodiversity reflect centuries of resilience and adaptation to specific ecosystems. If we can work with native trees, heritage crops, and culture bearers to guide the resilience of a bioregion, we can co-create ecosystems that are more robust and regenerative in the face of the growing polycrisis.
Photo 1 by Jaff Abdulwahab for Green Releaf Initiative. Women IDPs of Marawi at at the vermicompost site they built.
Photo 2 by Photo by Department of Education Kalinga. TEK and Permaculture learning site in Kalinga, Philippines.
For many years, I struggled to trust my own voice. I believed others, especially those with influence, could speak for me. Founding and running my own non-profit helped me believe in myself and in my ideas, even when they didn’t align with mainstream thinking.
I had to unlearn the conditioning that told me I wasn’t good enough, that I was too idealistic, or too emotionally invested, “a bleeding heart” archetype. I often judged myself for feeling the suffering of others a lot, and that my response to this was to shape solutions that would come from wholeness and not from fragmented solutions. I often judged myself for feeling others’ suffering deeply, and for wanting to create holistic, not fragmented, solutions. That’s not a mainstream view in my country, where development is often siloed: food, economy, energy, etc.
I had to begin listening to my own voice and trust that my heart, rooted in compassion, would attract the right people and resources to bring these ideas to life.
I’ve learned deeply from wisdom keepers around the world and, locally, from the Babaylans (shamans of the various ethnic groups of the pre-colonial Philippine islands) I’ve worked with and studied under. Ritual plays a central role: as a bridge between the human and spirit worlds, between the seen and unseen. It helps us facilitate forms of acknowledgement, requests, and reparations. Ritual is a powerful way of remembering the sacred. It gathers people to remember and connect with their ancestral heritage, their values, and, more importantly, the critical needs and priorities of their place. It strengthens our commitment to restore our relationship with nature and each other. And it can be embedded in any kind of work—governance, advocacy, enterprise, and beyond.
Photo 1 by Sarah Queblatin. Opening ritual during the indigenous peoples gathering at COP21 with Chief Phil Lane, Jr. and Janet Dolera, a Babaylan from the Philippines.
Photo 2 by Sarah QueblatinChalk art of indigenous weaves of the tribes of Mindanao for the signing of the peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
It may not be an exact expression of the invisible that emerges from this process, but it is the making of it that matters. It is how we create meaning from the wisdom and stories held in place that becomes important. The intangible coexists with the tangible as an expression of its “soul.”
This is part of the human journey—or in the case of my project, it is part of a place and its people discovering their relationship to soul: the soul of their forest, their rivers, their land.
Art can serve as that bridge, translating what is felt into paintings, music, or embodied expression. This work gives value to the relational alongside the rational. The cognitive with the affective. The data with the story. Without narratives, the information we gather—facts, numbers, charts—has no meaning.
Photo 1 by Four Worlds International A memento with Mamo Senchina of the Kogi people of Sierra Nevada Santa Marta of Colombia during a gathering of the indigenous peoples from Abya Yala.
Photo 2 by Sarah Queblatin. A vision of elders from the Kankanay people of Sagada, Mountain province as part of their disaster risk reduction planning.
Having a support system with mentors and coaches—whether someone who guides you or a peer you learn with as you exchange insights—is essential. Innovation work is not easy; you’re often setting a course that no one, or very few, have walked before. It can be a lonely path, shaping something that sits outside the norm.
I’ve also realized how important communication support is. Writing doesn’t come easily to me, and I need more time to focus on the actual work. Documenting the process, creating content, and promoting the initiative are not easy tasks to do alone.
In 10 years, we will have passed the 2030 threshold—both the point at which climate impacts may become irreversible, and the target for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. I hope that before then, we will have established foundational bioregional learning sites in critical ecosystems, enabling communities to address their climate vulnerabilities. And by 2035, that we will have doubled the number of bioregions engaged in this work.
Photo by Community volunteer. Learning about the earth spirituality of the Tagbanwa people of Palawan, Philippines.
This insight is part of a series highlighting our first cohort of the Exploration Co-Lab. Read more about the Exploration Co-Lab here.
You can also read more insight pieces like this here.
The content of this piece represents the author’s own views and does not necessarily represent the views of Unearthodox or of any of its collaborating institutions.
