The original voice of bioregionalism, founded by Peter Berg in San Franciso in 1973, and still going strong. Currently run by Judy Goldhaft.
Defines a bioregion as “a distinct area with coherent and interconnected plant and animal communities, and natural systems, often defined by a watershed. A bioregion is a whole “life-place” with unique requirements for human inhabitation so that it will not be disrupted and injured.”
I wrote to Judy in September 2021:
The idea of creating bioregional councils is not a new one, but it takes on new importance in the context of the present crisis of modern civilization. Our existing governance structures, even the democratic ones, are typically based on political boundaries and are ill-equipped to address the biodiversity issues in the right context or at the right scale.My intention in suggesting these is to provide a vehicle for citizens, experts, and activists to take the larger view, one based on looking at watersheds, ecosystems, and bioregions, to advise existing decision-makers regarding the right approaches to the natural habitat we share with other species. Eventually, perhaps these councils will be granted powers, e.g., to review development proposals. But at the outset, they are simply ways to bring other perspectives to the table.I see them, moreover, as deliberative bodies of Bioregional Knowledge Keepers, including the descendants of the original or indigenous inhabitants who in some cases lived in harmony with their environments for thousands of years, deriving what they needed to live while preserving the health and vitality of these places for subsequent generations. It is increasingly recognized, for example, that the great forests of the Pacific Northwest — which settlers saw as virgin territory, ripe for the taking — were actually maintained and cared for by their Native American inhabitants.In addition to our concern with human and civil rights, we need to think of the Rights of Nature — not simply, as some have proposed, the right of humans to a healthy environment — though that’s also important — but also as the rights of other living beings to occupy their established ecological niches rather than having them destroyed or swept aside in the interest of “development” or commercial exploitation. Bioregional councils could be tasked with seeking the right balance between the needs and rights of humans versus those of the other species we share this planet with — and on whose well-being we ourselves depend on. Moreover, I believe it is possible for humans to thrive without doing so at the expense of other species, and indeed to create systems, such as those of agroecology, where human inhabitants may enhance the environment for other species as well.Thank you for your long-standing championing of these ideas, and for the consistent values you have expressed since the 1970s.