Bioregions
Making the Dark Matter of Bioregioning
We are working to build the supportive infrastructures for the field of bioregioning.
There is a growing ecosystem of bioregional praxis. We deeply acknowledge the dynamism of this field and all the efforts of practitioners and experts who have been working on bioregional topics for much longer than we have.
For our part, we are working to build the supportive infrastructures that can bridge between the extractive logic of existing systems and the regenerative alternatives that bioregional practitioners are already living. Our hope is that this will allow our place-based partners to focus on their deeply contextual work. This platform has been designed to openly share the work that we are co-developing with our direct project partners and to make the tools and learnings available to a wider audience.
Understandably the terms bioregion and bioregionning mean different things to different people. How do you interpret or live them? What is our current understanding? What might they mean to future generations?
What the word “Bioregion” means to us…
- Bioregions are “whole-life places”, they organise around the patterns and distinct resonance of life in place. They are more than just supply-sheds of water, food, minerals, and fibre.
- Bioregions show coherent ecosystems and other geo and earth systems as well as coherent cultural values that humans have developed for living in harmony with the natural systems.
- A bioregion’s boundaries are best defined by the people who (have) inhabit(ed) it
- Bioregions transcend the idea of artificial jurisdictional boundaries
- Bioregions are defined by hard, soft, and human lines
- Hard: geological, tectonic, etc.
- Soft: ecological, climatological, etc.
- Human: cultural, identity, etc.
- Bioregions can overlap and be nested in one another
What “bioregioning” means to us…
- Bioregioning is the active, ongoing practice of reinhabiting place — learning to live in ways that are deeply attuned to the ecological, cultural, and historical realities of a bioregion. It’s about becoming native to a place through attention, relationship, and reciprocity.
- Where bioregionalism offers the conceptual framework — the maps, principles, and values of living within ecological boundaries — bioregioning is the verb: the situated, experimental, and often messy work of translating those ideas into lived reality.
- Bioregioning involves weaving together community, ecology, and economy at a scale that makes resilience and regeneration possible.
- It is both repair and reimagination — tending to the wounds of disconnection and extraction, while also co-creating futures rooted in mutual care between human and more-than-human communities.
As we all know, each bioregioning journey is unique. Context matters enormously in this work. And yet, from talking to practitioners, there are also patterns in common values, goals, and challenges. Overall, we have noticed a broad-stroke process architecture that many teams seem to follow. The language and concepts that we use here are one interpretation and we welcome others.
Bioregioning interacts with non-linear systems and the sequence presented below is intended as a practical scaffold rather than a step-by-step process. From initiating a bioregioning journey to having new financial and holistic measurement structures, each section is a modular element to support the wide-ranging efforts in your bioregion.
Preparation
This is the phase of ideas, talking, thinking, dreaming, scheming…… It might also feel quite overwhelming. Where can you look for strong examples? Who is doing what? Where? How and with whom? You are probably thinking about convening a team and setting up an organisation. There are so many variations and you don’t want to get swamped by red tape before you have even started. What is good enough for now but will also allow the initiative to grow and evolve?
Mapping & Analysis
As your bioregioning aspiration starts to feel more tangible, it will be useful to harvest information about the different activities, habitats, biodiversity, stakeholders, capabilities and cultural assets of your bioregion, to provide a baseline for decisions. Similarly you might want to start sketching rough bioregional boundaries.
Convening & Activation
Bioregioning is a highly participatory practice and the success of your efforts will likely depend on whether important stakeholders feel involved and genuinely represented in the work. . A lot of relationship weaving and trust building is needed to prepare for generative co-creation.
Strategy Development
A Bioregional Regeneration Strategy is a 20- 100+ year or multigenerational plan for regenerating your bioregion. Again, a strategic plan this ambitious will need to be co-created and supported by many stakeholder groups in order to stand a chance of being implemented successfully.
Portfolio
Who is working on bioregional regeneration? What are the projects, businesses and initiatives that will help to meet the strategic objectives? The Portfolio of interventions is a registry of all mission-aligned action in the bioregion and helps to identify financing needs over time.
Measurement, Evaluation & Learning
How can you visualise and understand the dynamic health of the Bioregion? What can you learn and embed into governance decisions? Ideally, the metrics used are collectively agreed upon, honour multiple types of knowledge, and embrace the complexity inherent to living systems.
Financing
A locally rooted architecture of enabling financial infrastructure will be essential to matching appropriate financial flows to bioregional priorities. The financial design can take various forms, depending on the place-based needs and possibilities.
Comms & Embeddedness
- Continuously develop Bioregional comms plan
- Continuously integrate into planetary movement
Continuous Iteration and Looping Back and Forth ↺