Bioregionalism Ft. Saint Andrew

Why don't we just do that now in media res podcast? Yeah, we'll make every podcast like Finnigan's Wake, where the opening of the podcast is like halfway through a paragraph that the end of the paragraphs or at the end of the episode starts every everything will be a circle. Let's just Sophie. I think that's the new plan. Okay, okay, Andrews, what do you guy for us today? Right? So, today I wanted to talk about bioregions and bioregionalism. It's uh

philosophy slash movement slash way of viewing things. There's a lot. So today we'll be exploring what it is, where it came from, and the role I see it playing in our strides towards anarchy. But first, of course we'll really gets some context bioregionalism. Have any of you heard of it? By the way, I have heard the tournament right right,

So it's actually pretty recent, um, all things considered. UM. It was coined as a term by a guy named Alan Van Newkirk, found of the Institute for Bioregional Research, and as a movement it really gained a lot of popularity in the late seventy is in the Osaks, Appalachia,

Hudson River, and San Francisco Bay Area regions. UM. They had a conference in a prairie, interestingly enough, their Kansas City, and they've also had conferences in the Squamish bioregion of British Columbia as well as the Gulf of main By region on the Atlantic. And of course with all these different people coming together sharing all their different ideas talking about cool nature stuff, they developed us sort of a platform which they outline in papers on subjects changing from

agriculture to forestry, to arts, economics to community. So while it was a very North American focused movement and philosophy at first, it has also expanded to Europe and Australia and these groups, they are hundreds of them all over. Um. They get involved with local ecological work like preservation and restoration, cumic culture or that. And they also form networks so they would link on specific issues like water conservation or

organic farming or cheap planting. And of course bioreginal groups also get involved in attempts to make communities more self sufficient by mapping and utilizing local assets and well, as you come to see, um, bioregionalism and maps kind of go hand in hand away, um, because it really is about that sort of big picture looking at the earth and the environment and outplace in it. So what is

bioregionalism exactly? In essence, it's a philosophy based around the organization of political, cultural, and economic systems around naturally defined areas called bioregions sort of bioregions. There are areas defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries, soil and terrain characteristics, flora, fauna, and climate. Bioregionalism also stresses the determination of a bioregion is a cultural phenomenon and emphasizes

local populations, local knowledge, and local solutions. Because humans are actually surprisingly part of nature, our cultures or settlements. They arise from nature, They arise from the characteristics of the bio regions that we inhabit. So I mean that to me is a clear duty and bioregionalism and landmack. And it also points to me, um, the fact that while bioregionalism maybe a fairly recent philosophy starsh movement, its roots and the ideas it presents are nothing new, you know, Um.

I mean bioregionalism posits that, you know, human societies must learn to honor our bioregions and the connections between them if we have to be ecologically sound. And this was an active is really old news, you know, for the indigenous peoples who have maintained these lands and been stewards

of these lands for thousands of years. I think that thinking in a bioregional scale allows us to establish regenerative and circular economies, effectively restore local ecosystems, restructure our systems using ecological design principles, and of course deepen our cultural connections to the land inhabit. So that to me really stresses the importance of bioregionalism in our approach to environmental issues.

Before I continue, I just wanted to say that for those who want to like visualize, because I know this is a podcast, you can only hear my voice. Um One Earth has a pretty decent map of bio regions on their website, so you could just google bio regions

and it should come up. They basically have like bio regions on their map, and well, according to that map, trend that is part of bio region anti NT standing for neotropic and E standing for the East, and tadas grouped with South America and particularly the Venezuela Guyana's region for obvious reasons being that the or no coup and other rivers that come from the Amazon flew out to you know, trend ads shows really so clunky segue Um.

There are a couple of different concepts that one might want to keep in mind when approaching or attempting to

curate a bio regional understanding of the world. Of course, perspective and a bioregional perspective is important, and it's basically one that seeks to ensure that political boundaries match ecological boundaries, highlighting the unique ecology of the bio region, encouraging the consumption of local foods where possible, encouraging the use of local materials where possible, and encouraging the cultivation of natsive

plans in the region. I will point out, like from now, that's from what I've read about bioregionalism and the talks that I've seen, there are definitely some you know, liberal sensibilities, some capitalist realism um in the way that some bioregionalists talk about, you know, things like organizing our politics and

our states and stuff around bio regions. Obviously, you know, they are pushing things pretty far because they do talk about, you know, going and really orienting our economy around you know, bio regions and thinking in terms of that. But at the same time, there's still like an almost passive acceptance in some of the readings that I've seen of capitalism. You know, I think that's pretty common in a lot of what I like to call almost radical um ideas

and philosophies and stuff. Of Course, when I approached these ideas and these philosophies and stuff, I always try to, you know, keep that anarchist analytical freework in my head, understanding that you know, these ideas are still being filtered through an ultimately like Campitus society and capitalist world, and so you're gonna want to try to navigate that and sift that out and really get the nuggets of gold

within these ideas. I don't see states, UM, and I think you would agree with me being the path out of you know, that's a climate catastrophe. UM. For those who have been reading like you know, Against the Green and you know Grieb's work, we know that states have been pretty equalsider from their very inception. So I think that if paroigionalism would be effective, I think it would be best if it stayed away from that sort of

status um conception. They do emphasize localism UM as the political localism, but it's always in the context of was often within the context of like the relationship between the local and the state and that sort of thing almost like a kind of I don't know if I'm using this to him correctly, but like monarchism, does that makes sense some kind of was it some kind of like

municipalist almost something like that. But yeah, yeah, we should probably talk a little bit about like what what manarchism and municipalism are um, just so people don't get kind of caught up on the terms UM, and particularly I think that like within a context of like the United States, UM municipalism is kind of an easier way to sell folks who may be more conservative on certain anarchists principles.

It's basically the idea of yea strong community sort of control and autonomy UM, as opposed to uh, strong overarching kind of federal or state control over over uh you know, different communities. Yeah. Yeah, because menarchism is kind of like a weird grab bag thing that's like it's it's it's sort of like, Okay, so you want to be in anarcho capitalist, but you can't because you're just smart enough to realize that you can't have a proper right of

the state. So either the America state is the only thing it does is enforced property rights. And yeah, I think that's a slightly terrifying vision, but I think but you know, it's it's yeah, it's a more self away

than the age. Yeah, but you know this is yeah, and I think that is less of a focus specifically on property rights and more of more based out of an understanding that UM like strong hierarchical federal or even state level control UM generally winds up creating reach a lot of a significant amount of like regional um uh, what's the word I'm looking for, um inequalities um and and is responsible for a lot of like ecological devastation

and whatnot. This idea that you can have, like like one of the things that you would have with an actual municipalist system is you wouldn't be allowed to operate a company like Coke Industries that's abled who um you know, be based out of I think Kentucky, um, but operate a series of refineries in the Gulf Coast that render large sections of that area uninhabitable because you would leave kind of control over what can be actually done in that area to the people who live there, rather than

being able to have um a corporation by land there and have its right to pollute enforced by the state. Right. That's kind of like one little example. UM there's a municipalists the system in northeast Syria and Rojava is is

sort of a municipalist system and one of the specifically libertarian. Yeah, I mean there's an distinction between like, well generally and yeah, we're we're getting into the weeds a little bit here, but these are these are like that's kind of the basics of what those terms mean, just so that people don't get lost when you when you bring them up, because I think a lot of folks, um, you know, don't have necessarily that kind of those definitions, don't just

pop up in their head when you use that word. Right, yeah, fair enough. UM. I also mentioned that states have been eco sidle from their inception, so I feel like I

should probably trying to find that as well. UM equal side and ecosidal is um is basically UM this idea that came out to the environmentalist movement um menttive points to the survey harm to nature, the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems that's you know, caused over decades by you know these companies and really buy the system as

a whole. So it's often viewed through like a legal lens, as in, you know, these UM companies should be tried for their crimes UM and as like for committing eco side and that kind of thing, because it's it's often viewed like as like a llegal like lawer should be put in place to classify ecoside as a crime and that sort of thing. UM. Only a few countries have done that like actually quotified ecoside, but it is something that um, so environmentalists pushed, you know, really raise awareness

as a crime against humanity and the planet. Yeah. I think it's also kind of important understand with Equal Side is that like there's a lot of focus I think in like left like in fronmoutal movements just purely incorporations and even if you go back to the companies memes just like Hunter companies destroying the planets like well yeah, like like half of the merse they don't. Yeah, and so you know, yeah, this this is something like like with the Equal Side, it's like yeah, it's like it's

not just corporations that do this. It's you know, it's it's this the state as a structure. It's the state as an institution. Is the state as exactly, Yes, it's their agencies as they're sort of And that's that's what I try to like what I realized this is kind of important now and I guess it is kind of

like slowly like shifting away from bi rationalism, but that's fine. Um. What I will say that I've tried to like consciously, um sort of put into practice is emphasizing that like capitalism is not the only issue, you know, um Like, I those people like try to separate capitalism on the state,

as if they could ever truly be separated. Even people who understand that, you know, aca capitalists are misguided and that you know, the state is necessary to maintain capitalism, there's some sort of like disconnect where there's like a whole ton of you know, organization and meming and all that about capitalism, and you know, oftentimes these sort of efforts are like particularly with reformist types and unions and stuff, they try to mediate with capitalism through real the state,

you know, through the government, look ree, local government or federal government, whever the case and be. And what I really tried to emphasize is that it's not enough to

have like a theory of capitalism. I think it's even more important to have a theory of hierarchy because I think it avoids it helps to avoid getting into these sort of traps of like um well, class reductionism for one, but also like recreating certain structures within your organizations and in your efforts to change things, recreating the very you know, circumstances you're fighting against. You can't like condense everything into one problem, because try as we might, it's not that

everything is one problem. It's an interconnected mesh that binds all of our problems together. And you can focus on, you know, really big extensions of that mesh, but it still is kind of just a mesh. And the mesh isn't the thing, but it connects to the edges of all of the things. And yeah, that type of ecology can be useful and even even relating to bioregions um in terms of how they also connect with other territories

and entities. I think it also you know it this is one of the sort of problems that you have if you know, it's like, okay, so your plans it

takes sort of sovereign state power. It's like, well, you do it, right, But I mean the thing is if if you if you you know, you seez control of power of a state, right, your borders are essentially just like where the state's war machine ran out of steam, and you know, and this this becomes a normal problem because like I mean, if if you look at the bioregional maps, right, it's like there's there's literally no way you could ever have states with these borders because yeah,

it's not like this. It's it's it's impossible, like you you cannot do it. And you know what that means is that states are sort of necessarily going, well, they're either going to be like a small fraction of a bioregion or they have multiple in them. And that's another sort of that becomes a sort of logistical problem because you know, like if you want to look at like a lot of the worst sort of ecological sort of like human disasters, it's when you get states attempting to

apply like states environmental issues. Yeah. Yeah, it's more certifically like it. It's it's you know, they have something that like sort of works in one test environment and then they broadly apply it across you know, an enormous sort of variety of areas and regions to have their own biospheres and have their own and that stuff. That's like that's like the fastest way to kill an enormous number

of people. Yeah, just like it's like forcing a jigsaw piece that obviously doesn't fit into a spot where you want it to, but you're just breaking the pieces. I want to say as well, that like that sort of I mean, at least the states are testing it, right, Um, I remember I kind of remember the exact name of

like the the sort of like ideology or whatever. I think it was like this Elie Soviet Union probably one of your name, This Elie Soviet Union practice related to like farming that they just applied over like a vast fast region end up with like a huge decrease in like food production. I can't remember the name of it. Like Senku Oh yeah, yeah, he just had this, he had this theory and it's just like puestionate and yeah,

it led to some serious issues. Yeah, and I think you know, if we're gonna talk like what's important about sort of birationalism, it's you have to have if you're going to implement anything, right. You know. It's especially when you're trying to sort of manipulate biosphies, you're trying to preserve a biospheares, you have to have local knowledge from the people who have been living in these biospheres for

you know, enormous amounts of time. And that's something that states are really bad at and you know, tend to actively suppress and it's something you know, and I will say this there there's there's there's a kind of like there's like a kind of neoliberal version of this stuff. First like oh, well do you know who local have like local knowledge blah blah blah. And then they're like, well, well we'll have local knowledge. But they that this will

help them create market solutions to things. It's like that also doesn't work. And it's basically just like yeah, but because that I really like sits let doesn't sit well with me. You know, like these sort of like see that.

You see a lot of liberals like doing it a lot these days where they'll be like doing the whole land acknowledge months thing and they'll be doing the that thing where they would just like say that, oh this is from so and sue culture and whatever, and then's just like boom and then carry yeah, carry on with business as usual. Yeah, which is I learned this technique from SO and so. Try no, let me because I

can sultan for your company. Yeah yeah, yeah. It's it's commod it's commodifying the thing, and that that both produces a warped replication and then it also kind of makes the original thing seem like used in a weird way as well, like it wasn't designed. Yeah, yeah, I once reminded a bit of alienation and how we are just sort of separated from you know, aspects of our actual

humanity because of the structures we live under. Right, So instead of relating with the environment, or relating with our culture, or relating to other people, we're just relating through like these commodities and these products and these you know, just bastardized versions of things. And I think that is also something that sort of pleagues like some environmentalists in terms.

So there's there's there's almost like this subtle ill nation from the nature that um many of them seek to preserve, right where on the one hand, yes, you're trying to you know, preserve it and protect it and as commendable, and the other hand, the way you're going about it is basically like anti tactical to those schools, because you don't have that connection with the nature that you're trying

to help. You know. What it seems like a lot of people not recognizing is that you know, humans are of hearts nature, right, and this is not a bioregional concept, right, This thing called bioregional reinhabitation in it in being that um meaning that we must come home to the geographical and biophysicalter and reinhabit, understand its ecologically uniqueness, and familiarize ourselves with the stories woven into the fabric of said land.

It's history, it's peoples, it's cultures, it's flora, it's fauna. You know. It's only once we come home to the our byo regions and to our ecosystems, to our places, that we can really work together to see its potential, to see how we fit into it, how we can

facilitate its healing, you know, bio region by bioy region. Yeah, that definitely mirrors stuff I've been working on relating to that type of like cognitive dissonance that you're talking about, and that alienation not just from like human to human, but human to human to place, because yeah, we have like developed this like this commodified other version of nature that isn't actually what nature is, um It's it's it's we've arm this thing that is separate from us, which

is not how we need to think about it, because it should be. We are all part of the same of of of that same system. We are not separate from it, and we're not isolated from it or its effects.

We are just another part of it. So it's about getting in like getting a sense of ecology with both your bioregion and then the biosphere as as as a whole, and getting that ecology which kind of will break down this notion of nature being in other and and I think because of the idea of nature being another that really kind of fosters our extraction that's led to our our current problems because we don't use problems affecting us. We give you them as a practice as affecting the territory.

And if we're if we're not the territory, then we can be safe. But that's not so I go on. I think, I think I may have talked about this on the show before, but you know that there's another aspect here, which is that viewing humans is sort of like separate from like this abstract nature is how you

get a lot of really bad like racist environmentalism. Like if you haven't read The Trouble with Wilderness by yeah, crowning the Trouble with Wilderness is one of the things that like if you're study, yeah, if you do environmental studies at all, like this is one of the first things they hand you and the reason they hand it to you is because it you know, so the image of wilderness that we have is sort of like, oh, it's this like completely untapped thing, and it's like, well, yeah, okay.

So the reason the reason we have this image of like a wilderness with nothing in it is because there used to be people there and we killed them all or fortunately deported them. Yeah. Yeah, and it's especiically wilderness. Yeah, it was for us literally planted those forests were I think even more pointedly should it should be stated those forests were a work of engineering that's on par with the Pyramids at Giza, if not absolutely massively in excess

of it there. They are a work of engineering that's every bit as impressive as any city ever built. Um, and every bit is like intense and required as much knowledge and scientific understanding. People just all we had, all of those people had died by the time white folks really because of the spread of disease or just because of act Like yeah, like I I think that's true.

Definitely the East coast, Like with the West Coast, I think it's even grimmer because the West coast you and this this happened, you still see this where like a lot of like the American National Parks were literally like like people would go and ethnically cleanse the population that was there and then be like, oh hey look it's it's now wilderness. This is now and this this is

like the origin of the environmental movement. It's all of these like just like the most racist people you've ever seen in your life, like people yeah, well and even even even before them, like in you know, like early hundreds, like not not just people like those guys hundreds. Yeah. Yeah, it's like when when when when those guys are talking about like the purity of the wild like they're everything they think about the wilderness is also just about the

purity of the white race. And it's it's yeah and if if if when you when when you start making that this like that's the separation between hemes of nature, Like that's that's how you get this, Like that's how that's how you get these you know, ethnic cleansing like genocide forests. I've been reading this very good book, just started last night, and I think we're gonna have the

author on the show soon. Chris Begley. He's an underwater archaeologist and he wrote a book called The Next Apocalypse that's about collapses throughout history and how they actually differ from the popular conceptions of them. And he actually talks about a lot of the stuff we talk about in

this show UM. And one of the points he makes is that this idea of like lost cities in dark jungles and whatnot UM is based entirely on misconceptions first of all about like what jungles are, and then second on like these these very Eurocentric ideas towards what lost means.

Like he points out, every time there's been a lost city or civilization discovered, it's because archaeologists just like asked the people living there where the ruins were in there, like, oh yeah, it's like right over there, Like we we've known about this since forever. It was never lost, we just stopped living in that specific area. And the other thing he points out is that like this idea of a jungle as like a difficult and primeval place is ridiculous.

If you had to pick anywhere to be stranded in the world of in terms of bioregions, you would pick a jungle like the Amazon, because it's pretty easy to survive there. That's why people live there for so long. Yeah, there's a ton of the Amazon Amazon as you know, as we've discovered, you know, there were cities and stuff happening the Amazon. You know, it was like planted. There's

food jungle like food forests and whatnot. Is the term people use it within the jungle like people set the people set the jungle in the Amazon up to provide them with food in a way that isn't exactly isn't the same as like what we consider to be agriculture,

but it's absolutely a kind of agriculture. And because people don't see it as our just like oh, that's just you know, they were just running around the forest before we arrived, you know, it's like, yeah, no, they had they had essentially built themselves a big smart house in the middle of the woods that provided them with everything they needed. Um with upkeep that we would consider minimal based on like what a lot of our European ancestors that certainly like did in terms of labor to keep

farms going. Like if you compare, I mean you could also talk about how like peasants in the medieval period probably worked less than a lot of people in the United States duties. Yeah, like everyone works less we do now, But it's a lot harder to keep like a mono culture farm going than it is to to keep a food forest going. Yeah, because I mean, once it's established, it literally maintains itself. Hm. But what was the name

of the book that you were talking about? Just it's called The Next Apocalypse and it's it's very good so far. Chris Begley is the author. I think we're gonna have them on next week. But um, yeah, I've I've found it so far about a third of the way and very good. Or someone check that out. Okay, who wants to say we're back you just that's the intro. Now

that's the exit at it. You're welcome here we are or so so Yeah, once we have like embraced our understanding that you know, we belong to the land and not vice and was therefore pattern ourselves and societies based and its needs. Um, you know, that's when we get to that place of bioregional regeneration, which is another key concept of bioregionalism. And lastly, there's the concept of bioregional sensibility,

which was developed by Mitchell Thomas Shoe. It's about developing the observational skills to observe the bioregional history, to develop the concept or skills to juxtapose you know, the scale of you know, the community and the region and the bio ecosystem, the bioregion, all these different levels. Ability to like think in terms of all of them. To develop the imaginative faculties too. Really, I would say, play with

multiple landscapes and develop the compassion. Two, empathize with and work with both local and global neighbors, not just local and global human neighbors, but also you know, the flora and fauna living next door. There are a lot of different bioregional practices happening all of the world. Um I didn't not that it started in North America, but I noticed a lot of the big projects happening in like

South America. You know in Brazil, Sinaldo Ville, in Costa Rica Regenerativa, to think Colombia Regenerativa and the Pluriversity in the Himalayas as well, and many others. They're basically engaging in efforts involving applied education, alternative agriculture systems, mapping, green belt restoration. There's the you know, the green Belt project in Africa, as well. And these are all efforts to really understand and work with the bio regions that these

people inhabit. So just a few tips that I wanted to end this off with you before we and things off UM. I was trying to link um the things that I talked about in some way to what people on the groups they are part of, the organizations, they're part of, the communities, they are part of can do you know, as an action to strengthen their resilience or to develop you know, autonomy. Right in this case, it is the strength and resilience and also to develop the

vitality of the bio region you inhabit. So, first of all, I think it's important that we learn as much as we can about our areas and learn especially through action, whether it be through cleanups, you know, observing the space around you, whether it be through observing weather patterns, UM better be through looking at the we're on hikes and looking at the way that the temperature changes and the texture of the soil changes as you go up and

down in um altitude. I think it's also important to try to get involved with actions too um restore natural features and to understand the police that those natural features have in the broader bio region. Of course, there are lots of sustainable projects happening all over the world. You know, if they aren't any in your area, UM be the

change you want to see. Start one, make it happen, and really also, I would say, find ways to link projects for environmental sustainability and restoration with projects for human humancipation. Find ways to like support access to you know, basic human needs within your locality. To find ways to sort of because when we speak of bioregions and you know, living within our bioregions and so on and so forth,

that's all well and good. But if, for example, your region has to import whole bunch of food all the time to support the population, I think there needs to be ways to um decrease that sort of import and to find ways to um live sustainably with in the area. Raise awareness of course as well, um about bioregional thinking, systems, thinking, social ecological thinking, and yeah, just get to work anti work, work for figuring these structures of more horizontal bi originally

ethical and sustainable way of life. And of course disrupt the projects that getting away of those schools. And I see that as tentatively as I can to avoid legal trouble. That's it. Take care of everyone and be kind everything piece. It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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