Bioregionalism is a vision of a future that works for people and for the Earth.
Simply put, [bioregionalism] means learning to become native to place, fitting ourselves to a particular place, not fitting a place to our pre-determined tastes. It is living within the limits and the gifts provided by a place, creating a way of life that can be passed on to future generations.
—Judith Plant
Bioregionalism is a movement, an ethic and idea that has been growing for more than four decades which seeks to do just that, by using natural features such as mountain ranges, and rivers as the basis for political and cultural units, rather than arbitrary lines on a map. Together, it is a political, cultural, and ecological set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions. At it roots it is a way to restructure society to work within each given region, rather than transforming each to human needs.
“There’s little natural about the boundaries that divide states and countries. They’re often imaginary lines that result from history, conflict, or negotiation. But imagine what the world would look like if borders were set according to ecological and cultural boundaries.”
- Source needed
It is taking the time to learn the possibilities of place. It is mindfulness of local environment, history, and community aspirations that lead to a sustainable future. It relies on safe and renewable sources of food and energy. It ensures employment by supplying a rich diversity of services within the community, by recycling our resources, and by exchanging prudent surpluses with other regions. Bioregionalism is working to satisfy basic needs locally, such as education, health care, and self-government.
Bioregionalism is an age-old way of viewing the world. Regions are not delineated by imaginary, straight lines as scribed by humans, but by the climate and land forms which make that part of the planet uniquely distinct. Local life-forms, cultures, traditions and hopes for the future reflect that particular place on the planet in which they’re rooted.
Bioregionalism interprets the world through a variety of regional value systems which reflect the parameters of the regions from which they are born. These value systems cannot be superficially based on prejudices and presumptions but must be fitted to the ecology of their place.
Bioregionalism recognizes, nurtures, sustains, and celebrates our local connections with:
Land
Plants and Animals
Springs, Rivers, Lakes, Groundwater, & Oceans
Air
Families, Friends, Neighbors
Community
Native Traditions
Indigenous Systems of Production & Trade
The bioregional perspective recreates a widely-shared sense of regional identity founded upon a renewed critical awareness of and respect for the integrity of our ecological communities. People are joining with their neighbors to discuss ways we can work together to:
Learn what our special local resources are
Plan how to best protect and use those natural and cultural resources
Exchange our time and energy to best meet our daily and long-term needs
Enrich our children’s local and planetary knowledge
A key principle in bioregionalism is reinhabitation, which means building healthier ways of living that are responsible, ethical, that not only maintain but regenerative our local ecosystems, and working with our natural ecosystems, aligning human activity with our bioregions, rather than for human habitation. This is both on a societal level, and a personal one - which starts with every person developing a sense of place. Of rooting ourselves into the history, the things that make each region special - the plants, the animals, the types of soils, the mountains and rivers. How things change over time - why different areas get different rainfall - and how agriculture, energy production, buildings can all best tie into that in well thought out ways.
Bioregionalism acts in two ways
Short Term & Pragmatic. Works within our system to adopt policies and changes that move us in the right direction of bioregionalism, and away from systems which are actively harming our planet and communities
Long Term & Visionary. Works outside of our system in ways that are utopian, visionary and long term.
Bioregional movements work to connect these to ideas together. To shift our borders, governing models, and ways of living from non-bioregional ones - to bioregional ones. One government, or nation, or many governments and nations doesn't ultimately matter, so much as every community large or small, that is impacted by a decision has a voice in that matter.
From two pioneers of bioregionalism, Peter Berg & Raymond Dasmann bioregions exist as bio-cultural regions that are "a geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness—to a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place" with particular attributes of flora, fauna, water, climate, soils, and landforms, and by the "human settlements and cultures those attributes have given rise to." From this gives rise to the idea of bioregionalism - administrative units based around watersheds rather than arbitrary lines on a map, and local cultures that grow using lessons and in balance with the natural ecosystems they inhabit, and that will be different for every specific geographic areas.
Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions. It is both societal, but also deeply personal. A bioregion’s environmental components (geography, climate, plant life, animal life, etc.) directly influence ways for human communities to act and interact with each other which are, in turn, optimal for those communities to thrive in their environment. As such, those ways to thrive in their totality—be they economic, cultural, spiritual, or political—will be distinctive in some capacity as being a product of their bioregional environment.
We believe that every person and community impacted by a decision are the best able to speak to their needs, and in building systems based on mutual support and empowerment, rather than disenfranchisement, gerrymandering and exclusion. Bioregions are the natural countries of the planet, containing within them many nations, inhabitants, watersheds and ecosystems. Culture stems from place.
It is a positive, pro-active movement & philosophy, geared towards building the changes that we want to see in the world (“overgrow the system”), rather than reactionary, or only responding to situations established by the existing power frameworks, which often force you into those very frameworks you are opposing. We are all experts of the places we live, and have something to contribute.
By creating a place based politic - sharing our land, air and water; regardless of personal belief we will have shared values, and common concerns rather than a distant seat thousands of miles away with no vested interest in our place or people.
Our goal is to help humans collectively re-inhabit the continents and bioregions that they live within. We encourage lifestyles that are healthy and democratic, self resilient communities living within the a sustainable carrying capacity for their area, and more so working to actively regenerate their region and world. Why should Spokane in eastern Washington be a part of the same state as Seattle in the west? Why should Medford in Southern Oregon be a part of the same state as Portland in the North? Cultural realities that arise from these two place are dramatically different, and by decentralizing governance down to local communities, strongly enshrining personal freedoms, civil liberties and personal protections for every inhabitant by creating shared agreements where our needs and interests overlap, a lighter weight, more representative bioregional approach can be applied in which everyone comes off happier.
Ultimately, we will never accomplish real change by working within the cartography of the systems creating the very problems we are trying to solve, nor will we be able to achieve a future that we cannot clearly envision or articulate. Instead, new maps will be needed, and new processes that involve all of us required. Just as we must work to democratize the ways we live and the societies we live in, a new form of map making is needed.
Creating these holistic cultural, economic, ecological and democratic systems are why ideas like Cascadia are so important.
What is a Bioregion?
“A bioregion is defined in terms of the unique overall pattern of natural characteristics that are found in a specific place. The main features are generally found throughout a continuous geographic terrain and include a particular climate, local aspects of seasons, landforms, watersheds, soils, and native plants and animals.” (Peter Berg)
“A bioregion can be determined initially by use of climatology, physiography, animal and plant geography, natural history and other descriptive natural sciences. The final boundaries of a bioregion, however, are best described by the people who have lived within it, through human recognition of the realities of living-in-place.” (Peter Berg & Raymond Dasmann)
“People are also counted as an integral aspect of a place’s life, as can be seen in the ecologically adaptive cultures of early inhabitants, and in the activities of present day reinhabitants who attempt to harmonize in a sustainable way with the place where they live.” (Peter Berg) “A bioregion refers both to geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness -- to a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place.” (Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann)
A bioregion is an identifiable geographical area of interacting life-systems that is relatively self-sustaining in the ever-renewing process of nature. The full diversity of life functions is carried out, not as individuals or as species, or even as organic beings, but as a community that includes the physical as well as the organic components of the region.
—Thomas Berry
Bioregionalists use the Native American term for North America: “Turtle Island.” Ish River is the left shoulder of Turtle Island, including both the “Puget Sound” and “Strait of Georgia” drainage basins.”
Bioregions are geographic areas having common characteristics of soil, watersheds, climate, and native plants and animals that exist within the whole planetary biosphere as unique and intrinsic contributive parts.
—Peter Berg
Bioregion is short for “bio-cultural” region, and at it’s root simply means “life-place”. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries, soil, rainfall, forests, animals and terrain characteristics, as well as the human cultures living within them. At their smallest, a bioregion is a the smallest unit it takes to be self-reliant, and at it’s largest the full extent of a regions watersheds from where a raindrop falls, to it’s ultimate terminus. It is the largest sense of scale in which connections based on physical realities will make sense, and is rooted in the idea that those who live in an area will have shared concerns and values based on that area, and that each community must be able to have a voice in the issues that may impact them, no matter how tangentially.
Key Policy Points:
Develop and use a bioregional framework for decision making.
Take into account cultural and ecological realities such as watersheds, fire sheds, fiber sheds, food sheds, air sheds, growth management, transportation, urban planning.
Use data driven and peer reviewed information that is transparently funded.
Watershed administrative districts and commons.
Let natural borders and cultural realities help define political administration.
Every community impacted by a decision deserves to be a part of that decision.
Culture stems from place. Different areas will have different needs based on the realities of that place.
Explore place appropriate technologies and indigenous ways of living.
Use a bioregional assessment model for carrying capacities in each region and to develop benchmarks for emissions and growth.
Support economic systems which are local, sustainable and ethical.
