Bioregional FAQ
Below you will find some of our most commonly asked questions about bioregionalism. Are we missing something? Let us know, and we’ll do our best to answer.
Bioregionalism at its most simple is a philosophy that connects people and ideas into place, which work watershed by watershed, in ways that are sustainable, democratic and just.
Bioregionalists work to find solutions to the world’s most challenging issues by using bioregions to break large issues down to a local level, creating or magnifying solutions already being practiced in a community, and create accessible pathways for every person living in a region to be able to get active about issues they care about. Each watershed and community will be different, and each region and community will know their needs the best, and be the best to represent those needs.
The word bioregion simply means “life-place.” Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann use the term bioregion to refer to a “geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness—to a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place.” Kirkpatrick Sale distinguishes bioregions on the basis of “particular attributes of flora, fauna, water, climate, soils, and landforms, and by the human settlements and cultures those attributes have given rise to.”
A bioregion is a shorthand designation for ‘bio-cultural region’ and is rooted in the idea that culture stems from placed and that human cultures develop in relation to the natural ecosystems they inhabit. It is a region defined by characteristics of the natural environment rather than by man-made divisions, and the sum of the ecoregions and watersheds of a particular place that gives a unified sense of geographic, topographic and living flora and fauna that all work together to create a ‘bio-region’.