Bioregioning:

from verb “to bioregion”; act of bringing your bioregion into existence through:-

 grounding, connecting, celebrating, belonging

To begin: ground yourself in the here and now. You already live in a bioregion. Manifest it to yourself by exploring the land around you. Wander, discover, get lost, awaken to what is around you. Use your feet to do it; it’s what they are for; it’s what you are for. Garden: as well as crops, collect seed from plants that happily grow around you and introduce them into the spaces that you tend. Intend, tend what is around.

You have set off on what is to become your own personal saga of local connections. You start to reach out to all the life that is around you. Meet the animals and insects that share your bioregion with you. You make friends with your neighbours and start working on joint projects, projects that give you a sense of satisfaction and conviviality. You spend less time driving and sitting in front of a computer screen in search of worthwhile connections. The connections grow, helping create more connections. Like the plants around you, you begin to grow.

Time to celebrate all the abundance! Make up your own rituals. We are all shamans-in-waiting.

As we get more grounded, as we spin our web of local connections, as we celebrate the abundant treasures of our land-and-sea scapes, we come home. We belong once more. We have found the antidote to alienation.

Learn more at: https://bioregioning.com/about/

Remember: bioregioning’s an invitation, not a doctrine.

5 Bioregional Steps Any Person Can Take

Root yourself in place.

Research and learn about where you live. Learn about the physical the geography, geology, ecosystems, where your water comes from, place names, weather, plants, animals, local resources – but also cultural – indigenous place names, history, geography, and what makes each area so unique. Find the context and map where and what you find special, outside of the confines of google maps.

Ask: Why does this matter? How does knowing our place help us to make better and informed decisions about how we live?

Shop Locally.

Pay attention especially to supply chain, sustainability, and the ethics of how they make their products. Don’t stress if you can’t be perfect – this is a first step – and we live in a system which intentionally makes this as difficult as possible. The more bioregional of a society we live, and the stronger our relationships – the easier it becomes. Use compostable packaging. Pay a little bit more on the front end. What your general saving is the price in natural resources, supply chain and ethics on the backend.

Eat and Live Bioregionally

Get food at a farmers market, or from local vendors and independent restaurants. Try to eat foods that are native to each region, grow naturally without extra additives or chemicals, are organic, and have a small transportation footprint. Plant native plants. Become a pollinator ambassador and work with neighbors to create native plant corridors. Focus on removing invasive species from a systemic level.

Support Bioregional Policy

Support policies and people that increase the diversity and social fabrics of our bioregions, communities and increase the well being of our inhabitants.

This can include:

• Support circular economies which focus on long term longevity, quality, reusing products and policies like the right to repair.
• Support Indigenous Sovereignty, language and culture and help redress past cultural failings to create a more vibrant, robust and equitable future. Encourage platforms that empower and magnify voices which may be marginalized or traditionally left out of systemic power structures.
• Sustainable and local energy production, and building standards that make sense of each area. Support walking paths, bicycle paths and viable transportation alternatives that support healthy communities.
• Support local food production. Community gardens. Things that ban harmful pesticides, toxins, and extractive policies.
• Support healthy agricultural, resource extraction and timber policies.
• Use watershed and bioregional frameworks – and frameworks which better represent the place, people and inhabitants for determining metrics of scale and growth. Especially carbon emissions and sink.
• Support access to fundamental rights which better the entire region, such as access to voting, healthcare, education, and basic necessities such as housing, employment and food insecurity.
• Support access to information rooted in fact.
• Focus on long term and generational well being of inhabitants, including environmental and regional sustainability. Make sure that full environmental costs are being factored into corporate responsibility, so undue burden is not placed onto tax payers, or are ignored.
• Create or support a local or bioregional identity, rather than a national one. How can we better become citizens of our watersheds?

Find Healthy Means of Transportation

Use forms of transportation that are carbon neutral. This includes, walking, biking, bussing, and supporting rail in all of its forms. Supporting interim steps to electrify, decarbonize, and reduce our reliance on harmful energy productions methods are also important. Don’t undercut the efforts of others working on similar projects.

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.