Bioregional DAOs
Contextual Quote
"In order to undual we must dismantle terra nullius (land of nothing) as a moral and economic ideology, and nurture terra ominus, (land of all things). To do so is to unlearn an immanent trope that there is a living world beyond us, and a dead one which we have created. The latter feeding off the former through various systems of enclosure and capture. In outlining the potential for regenerative DAOs to proliferate commons of forests, signals, aquifers and imagery, I’ve tried to outline a scheme through which we relearn to see ourselves and the systems we build as within the world, as expressions of it. In short… to make them vital. Any rights, value, or policy-based framework towards regeneration must be built on dynamic visions of the health of different bioregions, and our place within them. How do we nurture commons which sense the social life of our planet?"
- Austin Wade Smith [1]
Description
Austin Wade Smith:
"Bioregional DAOs are commons composed of diverse skills bound through a shared bioregion or territory. They are pegged to a bioregion.
Bioregional DAOs are communities which form around a region with diverse forms of knowledge. It can be helpful to compare bioregional DAOs to what the political scientist Peter Levine calls, Found Communitarian Commons, because the community which forms is bound by the territory they are from / occupy."
(https://mirror.xyz/austinwadesmith.eth/J2Ac0fFG1XbEHLch5c_TQy2OxfFjebK6BnJpHJKbgFg)
Typology
Bioregional DAOs vs Guild DAOs
Austin Wade Smith:
"This ('Found Communautarian Commons') is to be contrasted with Guild DAOs which can be defined as 'Made Associational Commons' because they act as associations bound by mutual affinity to a craft which the group has created or made. The poles are polemical. Virtually no entity is not already a blend, rather the dynamism occurs in their interplay.
The diagonal axis which forms between Bioregional DAOs and Guild DAOs is one of mutual strengthening where domain specific knowledge and context specific knowledge / resources continuously informs and evolves the process by which we see the world, and tell the stories of its diverse inhabitants. The composable nature of location-based and affinity-based groups highlights the versatility in collaboration made possible between many small groups working together as opposed to larger, more hierarchical entities. Impact can scale, without requiring social webs of trust to grow beyond what’s intuitive and appropriate.
We could imagine, for example, bioregional DAOs committed to guarding the headwaters of a bioregion partnering with earth observation DAOs, digital storytelling DAOs, and regenerative scientists DAOs to form a coherent vision of the state of a watershed. Has the line of deforestation encroached further? Where is toxicity from illegal mining moving downstream? Have keystone species increased? Where has native fish aquaculture proliferated?
Without clear attestations to the pulse of a bioregion, there cannot be informed action to combat its extraction. This pulse must be owned and governed by the territory itself."
(https://mirror.xyz/austinwadesmith.eth/J2Ac0fFG1XbEHLch5c_TQy2OxfFjebK6BnJpHJKbgFg)
Examples
Examples of Bioregional DAOs might include [2]:
First Nations Territories
Biome Guardian Communities
Land Trusts
Native Plant Societies
Urban Parks Programs
Watershed Conservation Areas
Regional and National Environmental Protection