Draft:Loka Initiative

• Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Idk2411 (talk) 00:17, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

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Loka Initiative

Formation	2019
Founder	Dekila Chungyalpa
Type	Capacity building and outreach
Location	Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Director	Dekila Chungyalpa
Affiliations	University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for Healthy Minds
Website	https://www.lokainitiative.org/

Loka

The Loka Initiative is an award-winning capacity-building and outreach platform at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for faith leaders and culture keepers of indigenous traditions who work on environmental and climate issues. Loka’s mission is to support faith-led environmental and climate action efforts, locally and around the world, through collaborations on project design and management, capacity building, training, media, and public outreach.

History

The roots of Loka lie in Dharamsala, India, where in 2011, Dekila Chungyalpa, Richard Davidson, John Dunne, and Jonathan Patz first met while presenting at the Mind and Life “Ecology, Ethics, and Interdependence” conference. The Mind and Life conferences are presided over by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During that convening, a dialogue was initiated on how environmental protection efforts and climate action required a bridge to be built between faith leaders and scientists, scholars, policymakers, and other experts in the secular world. Chungyalpa had recently launched the Sacred Earth program at WWF in 2009, a faith-led conservation initiative working with Buddhist leaders in Asia, including His Holiness the 17th Karmapa. At the 2011 meeting, His Holiness advised Chungyalpa to widen her focus to include all religions at a global scale. In response, she expanded the WWF Sacred Earth program to successfully work on conservation issues with Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, and Evangelical leaders in the Amazon, East Africa, the Himalayas, the Mekong and the United States. In 2014, Chungyalpa was awarded the Yale McCluskey fellowship for her work and spent 3 years at Yale, in dialogue with over 50 faith and Indigenous leaders, to design and test the prototype of the Loka Initiative before launching it at UW-Madison.

In August 2018, Dekila Chungyalpa, Richard Davidson, John Dunne, and Jonathan Patz invited His Holiness the Karmapa to UW-Madison in order to participate in a vision exercise on what an education and capacity-building platform for faith and Indigenous leaders could look like. At the gathering, His Holiness said, “Science needs religious leaders to help convince people that environmental protection is an urgent moral issue and not only an economic or political one. Without science, people lack the knowledge on how to solve environmental or social problems. But if you can add religious support to scientific expertise, you are able to generate greater courage and commitment among people to address these issues. For this reason, science and religion must find ways to work together.”

By the end of the meeting, 7 UW-Madison institutions championed the concept initiative and 8 months later, the Loka Initiative was launched.

In April 2019, over 60 faith leaders and culture keepers of Indigenous traditions working on environmental and climate issues, scientists, scholars, poets, artists, and resilience experts came together over a three-day period to design Loka’s vision and to co-create its first set of program priorities. Many of the gathered experts and leaders continue to advise and participate in Loka’s programs today.

Projects

Khoryug

Khoryug (Rangjung Khoryug Tsungkyob Tsokpa) is an association of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in the Himalayan region that was created in 2009 under the auspices of His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje. Its mission is to protect the environment in the Himalayan and Tibetan landscapes. By solving environmental and climate problems, implementing projects, and connecting to local people, Khoryug monasteries and nunneries seek to transform the environmental impact of humans living in the Himalayas while preparing local communities for the impacts of climate change, including increased and more intense disasters.

Loka founder and director, Dekila Chungyalpa, helped establish Khoryug with direction from His Holiness the Karmapa in 2009.

Creation at the Crossroads

Between 2019 and 2023, the Loka Initiative collaborated with A Rocha, Care of Creation, and the World Evangelical Alliance and other organizations to equip leaders from 63 church institutions with training and resources on environmental topics. This initiative fostered a global support network for these faith leaders, centered on creation care and climate action both in the US and internationally.

Resilience in the Anthropocene (RITA) Summit

The Resilience In The Anthropocene (RITA) Summit was a three-day online event created by the Loka Initiative through a collaborative process to share experience, science, scholarship, and analysis on the most recent findings around eco-anxiety, climate distress, environmental grief, solastalgia, and other conditions; examine these findings through the lens of intersectionality and justice; and make available contemplative and other wellness expertise that can help increase resilience and well-being of people at the frontlines of environmental and climate impacts.

Sacred Wisdom Sacred Earth (SWSE)

In 2021, Loka and the International Mayan League organized the Indigenous-led Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Earth convening.  In 2022, Loka began executive producing a documentary guided by our Indigenous Advisory Council, highlighting Indigenous resilience and ecological wisdom in the Great Lakes region as vital for environmental healing. This offering, also titled, is now a compelling feature-length documentary on how the efforts of Wisconsin’s Native American tribes to restore their spiritual, cultural, and environmental resilienceares rooted in their sacred connection to the land and waters of the Great Lakes.

Psychology of Deep Resilience (PDR)

Loka created and runs a free, online certificate course on edX titled Psychology of Deep Resilience in 2024, which is co-instructed by our Director, Dekila Chungyalpa, Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, Dr. Richard Davidson, and the Dean of the Nelson School of Environmental Studies, Dr. Paul Robbins. PDR was created in collaboration with experts in contemplative science, clinical psychology, Indigenous knowledge, and community resilience. The four-course program explores the psychological impacts of the environmental and climate crises and introduces resilience practices drawn from Buddhism, Indigenous land-based healing, and somatics, with optional certification available. Over 2000 people from 70+ countries have taken the course.

Preparing Religious Environmental Plans (PREP)

Loka created and ran the first iteration of PREP (Preparing Religious Environmental Plans), a free 10-week online course for faith leaders from around the world in 2026. The core goal is to train and guide participants through community-based project design and management planning so that faith leaders are best prepared to address local environmental and climate challenges. His non-credit training integrates environmental science with religious and traditional knowledge. The 2026 course included lectures, readings, discussions, and a faith-based homeroom. It culminated in an in-person convening in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2026.

Research

Loka has launched a research project exploring how ecological emotions show up in different communities and which contemplative practices can help buffer and regulate our emotions and encourage community and individual action. The work includes a study embedded in the Psychology of Deep Resilience course with guidance from a diverse advisory board of environmental professionals. Loka is also developing a Deep Resilience conceptual framework that can be applied at all scales.

Publications

1. Chungyalpa, D., Gauthier, P. E., Goldman, R. I., Vikas, M., & Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D. (2025). A framework for deep resilience in the Anthropocene. Humanistic Management Journal, 10(1), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-024-00195-7
2. Gauthier, P. E., Chungyalpa, D., Goldman, R. I., Davidson, R. J., & Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D. (2025). Mother Earth kinship: Centering Indigenous worldviews to address the Anthropocene and rethink the ethics of human-to-nature connectedness. Current Opinion in Psychology, 64, Article 102042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102042

External Link

1. https://www.lokainitiative.org/
2. https://centerhealthyminds.org/work/programs/loka-initiative
3. https://www.lokainitiative.org/prep
4. https://www.edx.org/certificates/professional-certificate/wisconsinx-psychology-of-deep-resilience
5. https://www.sacredwisdomsacredearth.org/
6. https://badgerherald.com/news/2022/12/09/the-loka-initiative-what-climate-scientists-can-learn-from-religion/