thumb|One scheme of potential North American bioregions based on watersheds.
Bioregionalism is a philosophy that suggests that political, cultural, and economic systems are more sustainable and just if they are organized around naturally defined areas called bioregions (similar to ecoregions). Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions.
Bioregionalism is a concept that goes beyond national boundaries—an example is the concept of Cascadia, a region that is sometimes considered to consist of most of Oregon and Washington, the Alaska Panhandle, the far north of California and the West Coast of Canada, sometimes also including some or all of Idaho and western Montana. Another example of a bioregion, which does not cross national boundaries, but does overlap state lines, is the Ozarks, a bioregion also referred to as the Ozarks Plateau, which consists of southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas, the northeast corner of Oklahoma, southeast corner of Kansas.
Bioregions are not synonymous with ecoregions as defined by organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, One Earth, or the Commission for Environmental Cooperation; the latter are scientifically based and focused on ecology. Bioregions, by contrast, are watershed focused, factoring in humans and informed by ecology, geology, and biology. In this way, bioregionalism is effectively kincentric ecology with a focus on bioregions.
Overview
The term was coined by Allen Van Newkirk, founder of the Institute for Bioregional Research, in 1975, given currency by Peter Berg and Raymond F. Dasmann in the early 1970s, and has been advocated by writers such as David Haenke and Kirkpatrick Sale.
The bioregionalist perspective opposes a homogeneous economy and consumer culture with its lack of stewardship towards the environment. This perspective seeks to:
- Highlight the unique ecology of the bioregion.
- Encourage consumption of local foods where possible.
- Encourage the use of local materials where possible.
- Encourage the cultivation of native plants of the region.
- Encourage sustainability in harmony with the bioregion.
Bioregions
Bioregions are a foundational concept within the philosophical system called Bioregionalism. A bioregion is defined along watershed and hydrological boundaries, and uses a combination of bioregional layers, beginning with the oldest "hard" lines; geology, topography, tectonics, wind, fracture zones and continental divides, working its way through the "soft" lines: living systems such as soil, ecosystems, climate, marine life, and the flora and fauna, and lastly the "human" lines: human geography, energy, transportation, agriculture, food, music, language, history, indigenous cultures, and ways of living within the context set into a place, and its limits to determine the final edges and boundaries.
Peter Berg and Judy Goldhaft who founded the Planet Drum foundation in 1973 and helped to popularize the concept of bioregions and bioregionalism, located in San Francisco and which just celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023 defines a bioregion as the following::