Bioregion

A coherent geographical region defined by integrated landforms, watersheds, climate, soils, biotic communities, and the human cultures shaped by those features. The scale at which Place meets People.

A Bioregion is a "life-place" — a continuous territory in which the natural systems and the cultures that have grown out of them are inseparable. Larger than any single watershed. Smaller than a continent. Distinct from political units (which were imposed on the land) and distinct from purely-ecological units like ecoregions (which are finer-grained scientific classifications).

Roughly 150 to 200 Bioregions across the Earth, depending on how the integrative cultural-ecological lines are drawn. The integrative scale at which the relationships between all who dwell here — soil and water, plant and creature, sovereign and circle, language and song — are most directly held.

Examples

  • Cascadia — the temperate rainforest territory from northern California through coastal British Columbia, defined by its Pacific salmon, its conifer canopies, its mountain-and-sea geography, and the peoples shaped by those.
  • The Klamath-Siskiyou — the bridge between Cascadia and California's Mediterranean climate.
  • Greater Yellowstone — the high-mountain headwaters bioregion.
  • The Mississippi watershed — by its drainage scale; or the Driftless Area, Ozarks, Appalachia by their distinct cultural-ecological signatures within.
  • Many traditional indigenous nations were already organized at the Bioregional scale.

In LIØNSBERG

In the holofractal scaling, Bioregions federate Ecoregions. Communities federate into Ecoregions (sharing an ecological substrate); Ecoregions federate into Bioregions (integrating multiple ecologies and the cultures shaped by them). Each Bioregion may contain several Ecoregions; each Ecoregion may contain many Communities; each Community is anchored by its own The 300.

The Bioregion is where coordinated stewardship of the cultural-ecological whole happens — the watersheds, the soils, all the relatives of the land, the long arcs of place-care.

Bioregions and Guilds together weave into larger federations:

  • Bioregions hold the place-based dimension — sovereignty rooted in a specific land.
  • Guilds hold the craft-based dimension — sovereignty rooted in a specific practice that runs across many lands.

Both are needed. Neither is sufficient alone. Together they nest upward into Georegional, Planet as Biome, and beyond.

Distinguished From

  • Watersheds — hydrological drainage units. A Bioregion typically contains many nested watersheds; a single watershed (especially a large river basin) may span multiple Bioregions.
  • Ecoregions — strictly ecological classifications based on biota and climate. Multiple ecoregions usually exist within one Bioregion; some Bioregions are defined precisely by an ecoregion (e.g., the temperate rainforest belt).
  • Political regions — imposed administrative units that rarely follow the contours of the land. Bioregions are the territory; political regions are the overlay.

The Reinhabitory Pattern

The bioregional invitation: return to the land that holds you. Learn its watersheds, its winds, its seasons, its kin. Practice the Way in the place where you actually live. Each Sovereign belongs to a Bioregion the way each cell belongs to a body. Find yours. Be found by it.

See Also

Referenced by