Bioregional Learning Centers

Description

Donnella Meadows:

"“Bioregional Centers are where information and models about resources and the environment are housed. There would need to be many of these centers, all over the world, each one responsible for a discrete bioregion. They would contain people with excellent minds and tools, but they would not be walled off, as scientific centers so often are, either from the lives of ordinary people or from the realities of political processes. The people in these centers would be at home with farmers, miners, planners, and heads of state and they would be able to both listen to and talk to all of them. The job of these centers is basically to enhance that capacity to solve problems in ways that are consistent with the culture and the environment. The centers collect, make sense of, and disseminate information about the resources of their bioregions, and about the welfare of the people and of the ecosystems.... They are able, insofar as the state of knowledge permits, to see things whole, to look at long-term consequences, and to tell the truth. They are also able to perceive and admit freely where the boundaries of the state of knowledge are and what is not known. Above all, the job of these centers is to hold clear and true the context, the values, the ways of thinking, through which all development plans and resource management schemes proceed.”

(https://ecolise.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Bioregional-Governance-Training-Guide.pdf?)

Examples

Sarah Queblatin, Sara Silva et al. :

"Bioregional Learning Centers are opportunities to engage people in a bioregion to come together and develop their bioregional regeneration plans. This is also where functions of governance can be held through activities that foster collaboration. Activities such as meetings, workshops, events, and exhibitions can nurture the weave of connection across diverse stakeholders in a bioregion, whether through formal or informal events. Creating a hub for people to converge to imagine a new reality is one of the ways to activate collaborations.

Some examples of bioregional learning centers

... in Europe and UK are that in Devon, UK by the Bioregional Learning Center, and in Catalonia, Spain by the Bioregional Observatory of La Garrotxa activated and nurtured by Resilience Earth. Both use their centers to engage locals in co-inquiry and diagnosis. Similar to what Donella Meadows envisioned, a bioregional learning center should contain people of all practices and not be walled off as a scientific center. Instead, it would “be at home” with farmers, miners, and heads of state offering a place for listening and engaging.

In Asia, the Forever Sabah Institute offers workshops and activities that engage the Malaysia Borneo’s stakeholders in protecting and restoring their watersheds. The spaces held for convening together allow for reflecting and visioning. The ecovillage model of Bangladesh Ecovillage Development in the Sundarbans engages a place-based approach in bioregioning to address climate vulnerability through ecosystem restoration-based livelihoods.

Some ways of disseminating learning and exchange are not necessarily held in one place in a structure but also apply other forms of learning. The Design School for Regenerating Earth held online by Joe Brewer uses an educational approach to sharing knowledge and practice for those wanting to form bioregional regeneration projects. Jenny Anderrson, co-founder of Really Regenerative, holds learning journeys through her Power of Place workshops.

The Bangladesh Environment and Development Society design their initiatives as ecovillages as learning centers to engage local stakeholders in restoring the Sundarbans through mangrove restoration and other forms of ecological livelihoods.

The Pamumuno Lab of Green Releaf, with partner universities, worked with climatevulnerable cities in the Philippines and is currently preparing for a permanent learning site for permaculture as part of a bioregional learning center. This center will be a learning space to train communities in preventing and responding to climate disasters. It is aimed at engaging the leadership of grassroots farmers, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and indigenous peoples they trained after disasters who will share their knowledge to other frontline community leaders.

While there is a fluidity to defining bioregional governance through Bioregioning, this training guide will refer to two regional experiences to offer a structure to the dynamic process of shaping a design plan of action and learning.

One is the experience from Europe through ResilienceEarth founders Erika Zarate and Oscar Gussinyer (2023) in applying bioregioning to Bioregional Governance based on the framework of Carol Sanford. Also here in this training guide are practices and principles from Asia, shown through the action research with the development of this training material led by Sarah Queblatin, founder of Green Releaf and Living Story Landscapes. We are also weaving learning through partners and resource persons involved in the case studies featured in both regions, such as the United in Diversity and the the Global Ecovillage Network Oceania and Asia, with support from Alam Santi."

(https://ecolise.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Bioregional-Governance-Training-Guide.pdf?)