Bioregionalism
[Den følgende tekst dannede grundlag for workshop'en "Bioregionalism", som Permakultur Danmark (repræsenteret af Poul Erik Pedersen og Henning Hervik) afholdt på Klimaforum09 d. 18. december 2009]
Bioregions – The future of sustainable local societies?
By Henning Hervik and
Permaculture
as context
Permaculture is a practical and holistic strategy for
environmental analysis and project design. It is based on ethics (Earth Care,
People Care, Fair Shares). And it combines modern science with traditional and
proven techniques, and “observing how Nature works”, to create a very decent, rich,
decentralised, down-to-earth approach to society building, and sustainable
self-supply.
Permaculture is a grass-roots network with no central
governing body, but orders itself through mutual books & references, course
curriculums, and international conferences for recurrent updates. It started in
Australia in the early ‘70ies, and has now proved itself by nearly 40 years
through a wide range of activities, including ecovillages, transition
initiatives, and other groups and projects in all parts of the world.
The bioregional strategy was formally included in
Permaculture’s “toolkit” at the international conference in
In 1996, the Danish permaculture association developed
a report, in response to a competition launched by the
What is a
bioregion?
A bioregion may be described as: “A geographically
well defined area, from and within which the domestic population may provide
for all their basic needs”. – And in the context of a permacultural approach,
one would add: “… within the boundaries and on the basis of a sustainable
administration of all resources”. Basic needs would comprise e.g. drinking
water, food, feed, fertilizer, fibre (textiles), fuels, and building materials.
A typical bioregion would be the size of a county,
often defined by the watersheds in the landscape. But it could also be much
larger – it depends what categories of ‘basic needs’ we are looking at, as well
as cultural contexts, etc. In the above example from the ‘Frederiksberg-report’,
the resource supply was to be covered by the whole region of Eastern Zealand
(DK) and
In a classic permaculture analysis, one would start
with laying out a 5-zone mapping system, with enhanced focus on zones 0-3 (see
the table below). Zones 4 and 5 will most often reach out into the bioregion,
but they are still defined against the singular household, rather than – as in
the bioregional approach – looking at the whole region’s resource flows as an
integrated network between a multitude of households.
|
§
Zone 0: The House. |
|
Example: |
|
§
Zone 1: Used every day. |
|
Chicken yard. Compost. |
|
§
Zone 2: Used regularly. |
Culture- |
Herb- and vegetable garden. |
|
§
Zone 3: Seldom used. |
expression. |
Orchard. Grain field. Timber forest. |
|
§
Zone 4: Seldom used. |
Nature- |
’Natural forest’. Meadows. |
|
§
Zone 5: Never used. |
expression. |
Rainforest. Wilderness. |
There are a number of necessities that would rarely be
provided by a single household, but may in stead be provided by the bioregion,
such as: Car repairs, Bricks for house building, Furniture, Plumbing, etc. In
addition, there are a number of resources that could be provided by the single household, but would be more
practically supplied from within the bioregion, such as: Forging, Sawmilling,
Dairy products, etc. And then there is also the whole array of ‘social
necessities’, such as sports facilities, education facilities, theatres, dance
halls and whatnot!
Why
bioregions?
The financial crisis has reemphasised the fragility of
our modern society. The English have an expression, that “We are nine meals
from anarchy”. – If all overseas transports were stopped tomorrow, the supermarkets
would run out of foods & goods within three days, due to the limited English
oil stocks. And after that – anarchy would break out! It sounds, perhaps, a
little exaggerated. But perhaps not so unrealistic for those of us who have
already experienced the impacts of a temporary resource shortfall, and how quickly
‘public decency’ may degenerate into warlike manoeuvrings, once the modern
middle class person understands his or her wealth and comfortability to be
threatened.
The first motif for applying bioregionalism is
therefore as a strategy for regional self-supply, in case our modern
oil-addicted transportation services might collapse. There are, however, a
number of other motivations that also make it relevant to work with this
strategy, regardless of any possible threats against the national
transportation of goods:
|
|
Examples: |
|
1.
Survival |
”Nine meals from Anarchy”. |
|
2.
Resilience. |
Easier adjustment to and absorption of change,
coming from external sources. (E.g. rising oil prices). |
|
3.
Health. |
Locally produced apples, freshly harvested, are better
for your health than those flown halfway across the world, and then cool
stored for a year, before selling … |
|
4.
(Cultural) values. |
Local cider, beer, cheese, fruit varieties. Local art,
music, song and dancing. Local money systems? |
|
5.
Sustainability |
Reducing the ‘ecological footprint’ of goods, in
terms of a.o. “Embodied Energy” (“Emergy”), and “Foodmiles”. |
One of the salient arguments of the Transition Movement
is exactly, that a bioregional approach to developing local societies will
bring a strengthening of the societies’ resilience, health, sustainability and (cultural)
richness of values.
Two Examples
From our local situation here in
One is the current attempts at the
Henning Hervik, experienced agricultural advisor and
permaculturist, is currently engaged in establishing such a network. And it is
interesting how many advantages and gains may be created for the local
producers (and consumers), that they
couldn’t create on their own, if only someone with the sufficient overview
puzzles the pieces right together, and makes the right kind of sustainable
proposals. – Because no farmer will invest in new experimental production, if
he or she can’t make a return for the extra produce. (As said by the renowned
permaculturist Max Lindegger: If your project is not making a profit, it will
be making a loss!).
Another example is the prosperity of several Danish
‘box schemes’, where local organic vegetable growers have arranged with a number
of subscribers, so that the farmer is guaranteed a certain amount of selling,
even before seeding the fields. This involves a degree of extra transportation,
driving the goods to the consumers, but nevertheless makes a robust basis for
long-term, eco-friendly food production.
In some cases, the subscribers are even involved in
the farming work themselves. This system has proved itself profitable and durable
in several cases, which is quite remarkable considering the Danish food
infrastructure, which is dominated by supermarkets selling industrial foods at
discount prices. And it can be seen as salient parts of a future bioregional
strategy.
Some of the aspects that would bring such initiatives
further, involve the enhancement of local plant propagation, decentralised
renewable energy production, localised money systems (LETS, etc.), and so on.
The Global
Perspective
This whole article has been about localised or
regionalised self-supply, seen from a primarily western context. So how can we
argue, that this represents a strategy with a global perspective? – We can and
we do, from those central permaculture principles that circle around themes
like Diversity, Multiplicity, Mosaic Structures, and “Small is Beautiful”. One
of the vital understandings within permaculture is that sustainable solutions
must stem out of and from the local conditions and surroundings of a given place,
country or culture. – Conditions, that vary from one region to another, the
approach still being based on the same fundamental principles of true
sustainability.
In this way, the bioregional strategy becomes a way of
describing how all local and regional
societies in the world may establish a sustainable self-supply system,
supplemented by sustainable exchange of goods beyond the regions’ borders –
from
One of the great challenges now facing the
permaculture movement is how to develop strategies for a future global trading
system that may still be sustainable from the classic understandings of
environmental resource management. If, as an example, in 50 years all sea
transport would be driven by wind, it is not entirely impossible to envisage
that such a transportation system might be sustainably established… So here’s a
whole unopened area of developing research available for future permaculturists
and environmentalists to develop together…
Some good
questions
This year (in September 2009) the three Scandinavian
Permaculture associations arranged a small workshop on bioregionalism at their
yearly ‘Nordic Meeting’. The workshop involved three questions about how to
further this promising environmental strategy. The questions are reproduced here
below, together with some of the answers. Perhaps you and your friends might
find pleasure in spending an evening in good company and a bottle of wine,
taking up the challenge of deliberating these questions a little further? (Oops
– wherefrom, in our bioregional strategy, shall we produce the wine? … J).
1.
What goods, that we won’t accept to be without, can only be supplied from
outside the local bioregion? (And how may we supply them sustainably?).
Coffee. Tea.
Rice. Bananas. Cinnamon. Computers. Medicine. (Electric?) cars. Tarmac. Rubber
for bicycle wheels. Plastic. …
2.
What kind of changes in society are necessary for bioregions to be a viable
development in a modern industrialised society?
Decentralised
capacity of political decision making. Decentralised tax collection.
Legalisation of LETS-systems. Converting the energy sector towards
decentralised power plants and sustainable energy sources (sun, wind, water,
waves, biofuels). Converting the national economy to more part-time jobs (e.g.
in agriculture), and fewer jobs in the industrialised export-industries. Repopulation
of the countryside.
3.
What incitements do you see, that may promote a development of society towards
bioregionalism?
Taxing
goods, the larger and heavier, the longer the distance of transport.
Information about peak oil. Public demand for better (healthier) products.
Unemployment. Civil unrest (?). Localising the focus of middle class citizen
values, as demonstrated in the Transition Initiatives.
Contacts
& references
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www.permakultur-danmark.dk
(website of the Danish permaculture association).
§
www.permaculture.co.uk (website
of the English permaculture association).
§
www.permacultureactivist.net
(website of the north American permaculture magazine ‘Permaculture Acivist’).
§
www.netvibes.com/TTiDK (website of
transition initiatives in
§
Search ‘bioregionalism’ on the
www.
§
Permaculture - A Designer’s
Manual. Bill Mollison. Tagari, 1988.
§
Introduction to Permaculture. Bill
Mollison. Tagari, 1994.
§
The Earth Care Manual. Patrick
Whitefield. Permanent
Publications, 2004.
