The following is taken from an introduction to the
Bioregional discussion list:
The notion of bioregions emerged from descriptions of planetary
diversity in terms of "biogeographical provinces." If, as Gary
Snyder says, "the world is a place of places," then what makes up the
world are not nation-states and global corporations but rather
bioregions and peoples -- the difference is fundamental. The
breakthrough to the notion of bioregions came in the 1970's when
human culture was added to biogeographical provinces as an integral
element of a new vision of the human relationship with nature. Peter
Berg, along with the well-known wildlife ecologist Raymond Dasmann,
gave the first and most influential definition of a bioregion.
Bioregions are geographic areas having common characteristics of
soil, watershed, climate, native plants and animals that exist within
the whole planetary biosphere as unique and intrinsic contributive
parts A bioregion refers both to geographical terrain and a terrain
of consciousness -- to a place and the ideas that have developed
about how to live in that place... A bioregion can be determined
initially by use of climatology, physiography, animal and plant
geography, natural history and other descriptive natural sciences.
The final boundaries of a bioregion, however, are best described by
the people who have lived within it, through human recognition of the
realities of living-in-place...there is a distinctive resonance among
living things and the factors that influence which occurs
specifically within each separate place on the planet. Discovering
and describing that resonance is a way to describe a bioregion.
Bioregions should replace arbitrary political jurisdictions such as
Washington and British Columbia. Watersheds, ecoregions, and
macro-bioregions should become the basis of analysis, planning and
"resource management" for they are our prime natural addresses. Each
provides a natural and holistic frame of reference. In a scientific
sense, bioregionalism seeks to join ecology to anthropology through
geography. The key is linking ecosystem, region, and culture.
The problem today is how to link the local and planetary levels of
life and culture. What fascinates me is precisely that forgotten
country which lies "in between" local and global spheres of action.
And what joins local life to planetary levels is the region itself,
for the region mediates between parts and wholes. More than ever we
need to learn to find our way carefully and respectfully stepwise
through all the concrete mediations between parts and wholes, local
and planetary life. Rather than repeating tired cliches such as
"think globally, act locally" we might say instead "dwell
regionally," for then our actions consciously resonate on every other
level in a way appropriate to it. Regions are not artificial spaces
arbitrarily imposed by distant powers, but rather shared
life-contexts, natural integrities as well as structures of meaning
and value, a common "house" that holds us, creature and human alike,
together in the arms of the earth itself.
Mobile beyond our wildest dreams, ready to leap off-world into outer
space or descend into the uncharted realms of electronic
"cyberspace," we need to learn how to "live-in-place." As Peter Berg
and Raymond Dasmann suggest: "Living in place means following the
necessities and pleasures of life as they are uniquely presented by a
particular site, and evolving ways to endure long-term occupancy of
that site. A society which practices living-in-place keeps a balance
with its region of support through links with human lives, other
living creatures, and the processes of the planet -- seasons,
weather, water cycles, as revealed by the place itself. It is the
opposite of a society which makes a living through short-term
destructive exploitation of land and life."
The first task, then, of "knowing home" -- reclaiming a natural
address and discovering a placed identity -- is what bioregionalists
refer to as "reinhabitation." As Raymond Dasmann and Peter Berg
observe: "Reinhabitation means learning to live-in-place in an area
that has been disrupted and injured through past exploitation. It
means becoming native to a place through being aware of the
particular ecological relationships that operate within and around
it. It means understanding activities and evolving social behavior
that will enrich the life of that place, restore its life-supporting
systems, and establishing an ecologically and socially sustainable
pattern of existence within it... Simply stated, it involves
becoming fully alive in and with a place"
