Bioregionalism: Reclaiming Our Place on Earth
Bioregionalism offers a transformative vision for humanity, rooted in the understanding that our societies, economies, and cultures must align with the natural systems that sustain life. It is a movement centered on “living-in-place,” which means following the necessities and pleasures uniquely presented by a particular site and evolving ways to ensure its long-term occupancy. This approach stands in stark contrast to short-term, destructive exploitation of land and life.
At its heart, bioregionalism recognizes that a sense of belonging to and responsibility for the region we inhabit is crucial for individual, community, and cultural identities, and is fundamental to sustainability. It emphasizes intimate knowledge of natural cycles, local flora and fauna, and sensitivity to ecosystem disturbances.
The Origins and Evolution of the Idea of Place
The concept of a bioregion originated in the early 1970s and was first propagated by writer Peter Berg and ecologist Raymond Dasmann, working through an organization called Planet Drum and a newspaper called Raising the Stakes. It developed from a grassroots interest in local environmental protection and restoration. Berg and Dasmann’s work was influenced by Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and the ecological wisdom of Indigenous peoples. The term “bioregion” itself first emerged around 1973.
Bioregionalism’s roots can be traced to the alternative lifestyle of the “back-to-the-land” movement of the 1950s and 60s, rather than mainstream academic establishment. This period saw thousands reject city life for simpler rural existence, forming the foundation of the movement. Peter Berg, along with Judy Goldhaft and others, created the Planet Drum Foundation in 1973, which became a strong advocate for bioregional ideas. The movement’s early intellectual territory was laid out in “bundles” of maps, poems, and essays, even before the term “bioregion” was widely used.
While the word “bioregion” has been around since 1973, the underlying ideas and values are ancient, found among traditional, aboriginal peoples who lived in close relationships with nature. Many who promote bioregional values may not even use the term, as it has been described as “a name that does little to attract new adherents”. Yet, the word has persisted due to its unique meaning: fusing human culture with nature within a specific natural place.
Defining a Bioregion: Beyond Artificial Boundaries
A bioregion is a geographic area characterized by common features such as soil, watersheds, climate, and native plants and animals. It is distinguishable from other areas by particular attributes of flora, fauna, water, climate, soil, and landforms, and by the human settlements and cultures that these attributes have given rise to. Bioregions are considered “geopolitical entities” where boundaries are set with sensitivity to natural conditions, often following watersheds, changing flora or fauna, differing soil types, or geological formations.
Crucially, bioregional boundaries are not rigid but fluid, reflecting nature’s flexibility. They are primarily defined by Nature’s self-regulatory processes, which in turn shape local culture and settlement types. Local history, archaeology, religious customs, and mythology should also be considered when determining bioregional boundaries. The most vital bioregions often align with areas that have, for centuries, been the life-support systems of ethnic groups deeply linked to the land by spiritual affinity, culture, and tradition. The Planet Drum Foundation translated “bioregion” into “life-place,” highlighting that it is both a geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness. This dual nature explains why traditional societies could readily identify their ‘life-place,’ even if precise biological, geological, or topographical definitions are difficult.
The term “ecoregion” is similar, primarily used by governments to catalogue natural resources and assist in regional management, focusing on physiographic and biotic features. However, “bioregion” explicitly incorporates the human cultural aspect, distinguishing it from the more objective purpose of ecoregion definition.
Core Concepts and Values of Bioregionalism
- Reinhabitation and Living in Place: This is a central idea, meaning “learning to live-in-place in an area that has been disrupted and injured through past exploitation”. It involves becoming native to a place, understanding its unique characteristics and needs, and adapting human activities to the land rather than forcing the land to conform to human demands. It is about building a just, humane, and ecologically sustainable culture and society. Peter Berg and Gary Snyder eloquently describe this as “inhabitation,” the active process of learning how to live in a specific place and cultivating a deep personal identification with it.
- Sense of Place and Bioregional Consciousness: This refers to a deep feeling of community with all natural beings in a region, a closeness with its elements, geology, animals, and plants. It’s about being aware of the dynamical processes of nature in one’s local environment, which can help dissolve the “self-world split” prevalent in dominant worldviews. This awareness is essential for people to assume responsibility for where they live and contributes to self-realization of one’s ecological self.
- Respect for Diversity: Bioregionalism not only tolerates but thrives on the diversity of human behavior and varied political and social arrangements. It sees this diversity as a source of creativity, innovation, and synergy that enhances life. The movement itself is diverse, attracting people from all walks of life, though it may not proportionally reflect the ethnic, racial, or class structure of the U.S. population.
- Integration of Traditional and Scientific Knowledge: It is of crucial importance to re-evaluate traditional knowledge worldwide and synthesize it with the understanding gained through three centuries of specialized reductionist science. Bioregionalism advocates for integrating traditional ecological knowledge with modern science to create holistic solutions tailored to specific landscapes and cultures.
- Spirituality and Celebration: Bioregionalism inherently touches upon spiritual values due to its strong moral stance on nature’s well-being and its demand for commitment and meaning. Many, including Peter Berg, view ecology as a spiritual pursuit. It is seen as “applied deep ecology,” sharing an ecocentric perspective that defines humans as beings in fusion with the whole of nature. Bioregional values emphasize a positive, loving relationship with the natural world and seek to joyfully celebrate it. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry argue that the principal role of humans in the universe is celebration—to enable the entire community of life to reflect on and celebrate itself.
- Interconnectedness and Multi-Scale Awareness: The perceived and the perceiver are one, and intimate knowledge of our environment ultimately teaches us about ourselves. Bioregional thinking emphasizes the linkages and context of place, recognizing that a bioregional place is nested within other places spatially and temporally, rooted in the Earth system and connected to the Cosmos. Efforts for bioregional regeneration must consider the planetary context of dynamic change, including global finance, policies, and supply chain disruptions. To restore planetary health, it is necessary to create a patchwork of regions, each restoring its own health, demonstrating that local actions can have global impacts if organized at the bioregional scale.
The Advantages of the Bioregional Model
Bioregionalism is presented as a “better model” that makes existing, failing economic and political systems obsolete.
- Sustainability and Self-Reliance: Bioregions define the appropriate scale for regional self-reliance and responsible environmental action. The goal is for bioregions to be almost entirely self-reliant, providing for human needs within natural limits.
- Economic Resilience: Bioregional economies prioritize local food, renewable energy, and regenerative industries, reducing dependence on distant markets and fragile supply chains. They are more stable, and money injected into them has a larger local multiplier effect due to diverse local products and services. This model accounts for “true costs,” as current global economy prices often don’t reflect environmental damage; if these external costs were factored in, the balance would shift towards smaller-scale, diverse local and regional development.
- Decentralized Governance and Social Justice: Decision-making becomes more decentralized and participatory, empowering communities to manage their own resources. This fosters creativity and innovation by thriving on the diversity of human behavior and social arrangements. Bioregional planning supports participatory democracy and community building, ensuring resource allocation on a more equitable basis.
- Ecological Health and Restoration: Bioregionalism is a call to action for regenerating degraded landscapes and restoring ecological health. It advocates for transforming agricultural, manufacturing, and construction industries to function within the carrying capacity of the bioregion. This includes efforts like river restoration, desert reforestation, and regenerative agriculture.
- Cultural Revitalization: It strengthens cultural ties to place, preserving indigenous knowledge and traditional ecological wisdom. Cultural regeneration goes hand-in-hand with ecological regeneration, embracing language revitalization, intergenerational learning, local festivals, and storytelling to reawaken the bioregional imagination.
- Security: Smart investment in eco-technologies within a bioregional framework can increase national security by reducing reliance on external sources of water, oil, and minerals, which are often secured through aggressive corporate or military strategies. This also increases personal security in poorer nations. Global security is linked to global equity, health, and sustainability, all reliant on empowered, participating citizens cooperating locally.
Challenges and the Path Forward
While offering significant benefits, bioregionalism also addresses challenges stemming from humanity’s current trajectory. We are in danger of losing humanity’s collective inheritance of locally appropriate wisdom due to a disregard for traditional ways of knowing, leading to rationalization, centralization, and excessive specialization. The current dominant economic and political systems are failing to sustain ecosystems, nourish communities, and secure a future for coming generations. The price for global awareness has been a drastic decrease in diversity.
A significant challenge is the difficulty in precisely defining bioregional boundaries, as natural systems are adaptive and fluid, unlike rigid human-constructed borders. However, modern computer modeling can map critical issues like water and energy to examine overlays, conflicts, and potential synergies.
The project of understanding place is not nostalgic or utopian but a realistic, everyday occupation with practical chances of curbing waste and recklessness. Bioregionalism suggests a shift from an exploitive anthropocentrism to a participative biocentrism, where humans become participating members of the Earth community.
Practical Applications and Pedagogical Elements
To realize the vision of bioregionalism, practical action and a reimagined approach to learning are essential:
- Bioregional Planning: This approach “turns conventional planning on its head” by recognizing humans as biological entities who need systems designed to foster symbiotic relationships with the bioregion’s complex ecological systems. It involves public education and participatory democracy, with active community involvement in decision-making. It encourages self-help projects, recycling, and regeneration programs that build community while solving local problems, tailoring economic activity to local materials and resources.
- Bioregional Learning Centers: These centers are deemed crucial for spreading regenerative practices and mindsets globally. They serve as living tapestries of education that help people become part of the creative expression of life-serving-life. They can offer project-based, immersive learning experiences where students “learn-by-regenerating” through practical implementation on the ground. Examples of such centers are actively being developed in Colombia, the Great Lakes, Cascadia, and the Colorado Basin, among other places.
- Mapping to See the System: Educational programs need to help people learn how to perceive and act within their region, making vital systems visible and actionable through mapping geology, ecosystems, social networks, and dynamic feedbacks.
- Cultivating Regenerative Mindsets: This involves fostering curiosity, compassion, empathy, and insight in individuals of all ages, essential for grappling with chronic stress and continuous change.
- Working at Multiple Scales: Bioregional efforts seek to work systemically by simultaneously dealing with changes at multiple scales, from individual farms to cities and planetary processes.
- Spiritual Regeneration and Ethical Integration: This addresses the profound need for integrating ethical livelihoods into daily life and aligning meaning with purpose, foundational for prosocial norms and behaviors.
- Regenerative Economics: Principles like robust circulation, right relationship, empowered participation, edge-effect abundance, and adaptive agility should guide economic systems, treating human society as a living system embedded within larger interdependent life systems. This can include exploring alternative currencies based on biophysical flows (energy, nutrients) rather than debt-based fiat money.
- Co-creation and Community Engagement: It is vital to engage entire communities in scenario planning and agenda setting for their collective futures, building agency and vision. This involves partnering with communities and creating conditions for emergence by deeply listening and co-creating with what arises in the moment.
- Embracing “Planetarians”: Peter Berg distinguished “Planetarians” (those rooted in a specific place on Earth) from “Globalists” (temporary residents of any place for economic gain). Education should help people see themselves as planetary citizens who care for specific places while collaborating to preserve planetary health.
- Becoming Gaia’s Immune System: Framing bioregional regeneration as humans setting up management systems to restore and maintain Earth’s self-regulation capacities.
- Addressing Climate Refugees: Creating community resilience in areas where bioregional regeneration occurs can act as a “stop gap” for future displacement, while also developing interregional relationships to spread resilience to areas receiving climate refugees.
- Four Steps for Territorial Development: A field-tested pedagogical framework involves four steps: convene a multi-stakeholder group, map the system together for shared understanding, create future scenarios, and set a shared agenda for collaborative action.
- Continuous Inquiry: Given the complexity of interconnected systems, it is crucial to “remain in inquiry,” continuously updating mental models to represent the world as it is becoming. Understanding “systems logic” is more important than specific measurement frameworks.
- Long-Term Commitment: Regenerating the Earth is a multi-generational effort requiring deep commitment and collaborative networks. The ultimate goal is to earn the gratitude of future generations by making the world livable through regenerative cultural practices.
Ultimately, bioregionalism is not just about ecological science or governance models; it is a cultural and spiritual awakening. It invites us to remember our relationship with the land, waters, the more-than-human world, and each other, asking what each place needs to heal and how we can collectively co-create a future rooted in care, reciprocity, and reverence. It provides a goal, a philosophy, and a process to create a necessary, desirable, and possible world for the continuation of our species.
(AI-enhanced)