Bioregion
Contextual Quote
" Bioregionalism is not a “return” to a more essential form of social life or State of Nature. Rather it is the assertion that the spatial and temporal boundaries for our regenerative paradigm already exist. They emerge from the land itself in the form of watersheds, soil series, and wind currents. People typically understand what is east, what is west of them, but know very little about what is upstream and what is downstream of them. Undualing, at the heart of Regeneration is the fertile ground to grow sovereign bioregional regenerative economies, which must navigate the water which flows downstream, and be accountable to them. Regenerative economies cycle value as they cycle energy and nutrients. They are defined by the “sheds of energy, nutrients, life, and activity which constitute a bioregion."
- Austin Wade Smith [1]
Description
1. John Thackara:
"A strong candidate for that connective idea is the bioregion. A bioregion re-connects us with living systems, and each other, through the places where we live. It acknowledges that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, fibersheds, and food systems – not just in cities, towns, or ‘the countryside’.
A bioregion, in this sense, is culturally dynamic because it is literally and etymologically a ‘life-place’, in Robert Thayer’s words, that is definable by natural rather than political or economic boundaries. Its geographic, climatic, hydrological, and ecological qualities – its metabolism – can be the basis for meaning and identity because they are unique.
Growth, in a bioregion, is redefined as improvements to the health and carrying capacity of the land, and the resilience of communities. Its core value is stewardship, not extraction, a bioregion therefore frames the next economy, not the dying one we have now."
(https://economicdemocracyadvocates.org/2017/02/20/bioregions-notes-on-a-design-agenda/)
2. Knut Wimberger:
"Bioregions are territories which are organized along natural borders of ecosystems. Snyder discusses in wonderful prose his own Pacific Northwest as such a bioregion being demarked by plants like the costal Douglas Fir, which is only home to a territory of a specific climate range. It is this unit of organization which comes closest to Kohr’s concept of cultural regions. Kohr looks at organization according to human cultural boundaries, which have been deformed over the centuries by political power struggles. Snyder integrates human culture and the non-human world into a single system of natural territories.
In the old ways, the flora and fauna and landforms are part of the culture. The world of culture and nature, which is actual, is almost a shadow world now, and the insubstantial world of political jurisdictions and rarefied economies is what passes for reality. We live in a backwards time. We can regain some small sense of that old membership by discovering the original lineaments of our land and steering – at least in the home territory and in the mind – by those rather than the borders of arbitrary nations, states, and counties. [p 40]
I cannot say how much I agree with these lines. Growing up in Austria, in a city which lies at the intersection of three bioregions, I wondered already as a child where I belonged to. I certainly did feel a strange disconnect from the political entity, which was impressed upon me. An early and - at that time of the cold war separation between East and West - extraordinary desire to learn Czech was an expression of choosing the soft hills and thick forests of the Bohemian Mass over the naked cliffs and deep valleys of the Alps as my native bioregion. I chose an ecological region over an economic one, the Bohemian Mass over West European capitalism. It was nevertheless the political entity which decided over my fate as subject of a contemporary form of social organization. Not only was I denied learning Czech by local school authorities, but I ended up leaving my homeland for good being eternally at odds with its unnatural form of organization.
Snyder reminds us that bioregions were and can be the largest possible entities to organize human activity in a maximum overlap of economy and ecology. He gently draws the borders for his home bioregion by applying a deep understanding of the local ecosystem and shows how big the disconnect between modern culture and the natural world has become. If we are to reestablish a meaningful connection of human scale between each one of us and the planet, we must organize ourselves in bioregions, commons and firepits. Only then will we be able to live again in harmony with mother Earth.
Bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to “love nature” or to want to be in “harmony with Gaia.” Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience. For example: “real people” have an easy familiarity with the local plants. This is so unexceptional a kind of knowledge that everyone in Europe, Asia and Africa used to take it for granted. Many contemporary Americans don’t even know that they don’t know the plants, which is indeed a measure of alienation. [p 43] "
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340023596)
3. David Haenke:
"A bioregion is a geographical area whose boundaries are determined by nature and not solely by humans. One bioregion is distinguished from another by characteristics of flora, fauna, water, climate, rocks, soils, landforms, and the human settlements and cultures these characteristics have given rise to.
“Bioregionalism is a comprehensive ‘new’ way of defining and understanding the place where we live, and of living there sustainably and respectfully. In truth, what Bioregionalism represents is only new for people who come out of the Western industrial-technological heritage. Its essence has been reality and common sense for native people living close to the land for thousands of years, and remains so. At the same time, bioregional concepts are rigorously defensible in terms of science, technology, economics, politics, and other fields of “civilized” human endeavor.
“Using ecology as the discriminator, bioregionalism takes the best and most presently relevant of the old, and synthesizes it with the most appropriate of the new. Bioregionalism is the most ecological of systems of social organization, excepting the life ways of native and indigenous peoples who still live traditionally in intact ecosystems. It is a complete and all-inclusive way of life, comprising the whole range of human thought and endeavor. Bioregionalism offers a comprehensive restructuring of most human systems using ecological design principles."
(https://www.recommon.land/litepaper)
Source: 1996 article titled Bioregionalism and Ecological Economics.[2]
Characteristics
Scope of a bioregion
John Thackara:
"A bioregion is not an abstract model; it describes social as well as ecological systems that are unique to each place. The ways these social and ecological systems interact with each other are as significant as are list of species and social assets.
Stewarding a bioregion involves measuring the carrying capacity of the land and watersheds; putting systems in place to monitor progress; and feeding back results. This attention to ecosystem health is direct and ongoing; it involves diverse forms of expertise; translation skills, and open information channels, are needed to share different kinds of knowledge.
A bioregion provides livelihoods, not just amenity. It builds on existing economic relocalisation efforts that measure where resources come from; identify ‘leakages’ in the local economy; and explore how these leaks could be plugged by locally available resources.
Bioregional food – and health
One such ‘leak’ is food – and new kinds of work are involved in ecological agriculture. This work begins with understanding the soils – and growing crops, and rearing animals, in ways that regenerate them. Each farm has to be understood and designed as an ecosystem within a bioregional web of natural systems. This approach to farming is more knowledge-intensive than the industrial model it’s replacing; multiple skills, in new combinations, are needed to cope with that complexity.
At a bioregional scale, ecological agriculture also includes the development of new forms of land tenure, distribution models, processing facilities, financing, and training. With ‘social farming‘ and ‘care farming’- the direct participation of citizens in farm-based activities needs also to be enabled by service platforms.
Health and wellbeing are local and place-based, too. In place of a biomedical healthcare system designed around individuals and diseases, an ecological model of health gives priority to the vitality of food, water, air and other ecosystems, and interactions among them.
In the US, the idea of a Health Commons has been proposed as a geographical model for improving the health of ecosystems and the people who live in them. The Glasgow Indicators Project is another effort to develop tools that link community health and ecosystem health.
Cities are in bioregions, too
The thinking behind bioregions grew out of the conservation movement in the North Western United States, in the 1970s. It was inspired, then, by the notion of wilderness, and focused on protected areas, biosphere reserves, species conservation, and ecosystem management.
But awareness is now growing that our cities are part of the bioregional story, too – that they do not exist separately from the land they are built on, and the resources that feed them.
Blogs and platforms such as Nature of Cities, Ecocity Design Institute, and Biophilic Cities, although they do not focus on a bioregional perspective, do encourage a city’s citizens, and its managers, to re-connect in practical ways with the soils, trees, animals, landscapes, energy systems, water and energy sources on which all life depends.
The urban landscape itself is re-imagined as an ecology with the potential to support us. Attention is turning to metabolic cycles and the ‘capillarity’ of the metropolis wherein rivers and bio-corridors are given pride of place."
(https://economicdemocracyadvocates.org/2017/02/20/bioregions-notes-on-a-design-agenda/)
Characteristics and Scope of Bioregional Mapping
Mathias Rollot:
1. Water, Watershed
This can refer to a body of water (river, stream, lake, ocean…), a water point (natural or artificial lake…), a territory (watershed…), or even the ocean (a shoreline, an island…).
2. Geology, Soils, Subsoils
What defines the place? Is it plains, valleys, mountains, cliffs, unique landforms, or particular soil types (rocky, desert, sandy, fertile)? Are there also significant subsoil features (traces of the Roman Empire, magnificent cenotes, bunkers, tunnels, and other remnants of World War II)?
3. Vegetation Profile
Is there a generally identifiable vegetation type (forests, shrubs, garrigue…)? What are the region’s emblematic plant species? Are coniferous or deciduous trees more common? This category considers both quantity and quality, as well as the cultural imagination tied to vegetation.
4. Human Settlements
What cities, villages, or metropolitan areas define this "home"? This includes urban centers, local shops, workplaces, and distinctive landmarks in the landscape—ranging from classified heritage sites and monumental castles to old ruined mills, beautiful bread ovens, and abandoned factories.
5. Fauna
What is the totem animal of this place? Are there invasive species, welcome exotic species, or native animals that are part of the collective imagination? This could include real animals (deer, vultures, beavers…) or mythical creatures (Yeti, Dahu, the Grésivaudan Wolf…).
6. Infrastructure
What about infrastructure? What should be represented in terms of:
- Energy infrastructure (nuclear power plants, wind farms, solar panel fields…).
- Transport infrastructure (major highways, viaducts…).
- Industrial infrastructure (major industrial zones, semiconductor or nuclear arms industries, gas or fuel storage…)—even if these exist against our will.
7. Agriculture
Is the landscape dominated by vineyards or organic orchards, vast monoculture fields dependent on chemical inputs, or industrial mega-farms for pigs or battery-raised chickens? Are there small-scale local farming practices that are ethical and ecologically sound?
8. Communities
This layer represents the structuring human relationships within this shared "home": your friendships, sources of stability and comfort, and their geographical locations relative to other elements. It also includes neighborhoods you avoid out of fear or people you see as responsible for major social or environmental destruction. This is the "psycho-social" layer, mapping people and places. It’s also an opportunity to identify and name local communities that are "disanchored"—those prevented from participating locally due to exclusion, landlessness, or marginalization.
9. Outbound Relations (Human)
This represents relationships with human and non-human life that extend beyond this mapped "home." Through outward-pointing arrows at the map’s edges, one can place key external relationships (e.g., grandparents who take care of your children every summer, your German boss you meet via video calls, etc.).
10. Inbound Relations (Material, Food, etc.)
This final category covers inbound flows of objects, materials, and energy—things essential to daily life but originating elsewhere (imported clothing from Bangladesh, a phone made in China, extra-European gas used for showering, cooking, and heating, etc.)."
(https://topophile.net/savoir/cartographie-bioregionale-la-methode-101/)
Discussion
What is the difference between a bioregion and a Ecoregion?
Mark Whitaker explains:
"The number of approximately 1,100 ecoregions is not 'bioregions'
(with "bioregions" defined as human cultural regions of natural/environmental affinity over time; like the bayou culture of French Acadians in Louisiana, or the dry desert areas of Spain for cattle raising and meat curing; or the Swiss alps and milk/cheese production, etc., and yodeling...; or the Plains Indians and buffalo hunting culture--once they got the horses from the Spanish in the 1500s. Bioregions are unique historical human-ecological-subsistence relationships with deep cultural meaning as well.)
For the other term, "ecoregions":
Ecoregions are defined more biologically and ecologically without reference to people; ecoregions are the unique flora, fauna, soil and microclimate ecological relationships in the world, that makes a unique places of ecological life on earth--slightly different than their neighboring ecoregions over time. These have only been mapped from around 2001 onward in any first tries.
My total of 1,000 includes both these terrestrial ecoregions and the marine ecoregions (themselves only mapped from around 2007) for:
~1,099 territorial commonalities in ~1,099 total land AND marine ecoregions worldwide
The phrase “TEOW” (Olson et al., 2001) is the abbreviation for “terrestrial ecoregions of the world.” There are approximately 846 to 867 terrestrial ecoregions depending on classification criteria.
The phrase “MEOW” (Spalding et al., 2007) is the abbreviation for “marine eco-regions of the world.” Currently, these are demarcated as 232 oceanic coastal ‘benthic’ zones (with ‘benthic’ defined as the many unique marine ecologies in coastal zones worldwide, measured to an ocean depth of 200 meters). The 232 marine ecoregions already are arranged in their own nested hydrological units with 12 marine biogeographic realms, 62 marine provinces, and 232 base marine ecoregions. This makes any of the 232 marine ecoregion identifiable easily for its own nested marine qualities by merging numbers for biographic realms, then, provinces, and then marine ecoregions. ...
...Totaling up this rich ecological variety, this means the total land ecoregions and the total oceanic benthic ecoregions of glomo 2 are approximately 1,100 (~867 terrestrial ecoregions + 232 marine benthic ecoregions = ~1,099 land/marine ecoregions). Both land ecoregions and marine ecoregions of glomo 2 get nested feedback and improvement from the three common watershed-based glomo levels of 5, 4, and 3. Due to the real-world empirical variety of sizes of terrestrial and marine ecoregions of glomo 2, there are sometimes vast differences in geographic size or internal human population compared to each other"..."
(email, February 2025)
More Information
Bibliography
Dig Deeper: What is a Bioregion? [3]
– Berg, P. et Dasmann, R. 1977. « Reinhabiting California », The Ecologist, vol. 7, n° 10, p. 399-401. – Sale, K. 1985. Dwellers in the Land. The Bioregional Vision, San Francisco : Sierra Book Club. – Sale, K. 1991. Le regioni della natura. La proposta bioregionalista, Milan : Elèuthera. – Sale, K. 2019. L?Hypothèse biorégionale. Une habitation terrestre, Marseille : Parenthèses. – Lawrence F. London, Jr., What is a Bioregion?, 10 May 2000 – Thayer, R. 2003. LifePlace. Bioregional Thought and Practice, Berkeley :University of California Press.