Speaker 1: Could it happen here? It maybe? I Robert Evans, host
Speaker 1: of this podcast, UM to introduce this today's episode, which
Speaker 1: is not my episode, it's it's Andrew's, uh episode. So
Speaker 1: how how are you doing? Andrew? How do you in
Speaker 1: that introduction? I'm good. I think it's um could use
Speaker 1: some work, but you know, well shop it. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: we never workshop anything. We just we just roll right ahead. UM,
Speaker 1: so abolish that. Abolish introductions. You know, start in the middle.
Speaker 1: Why don't we just do that now in media res podcast? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll make every podcast like Finnigan's Wake, where the opening
Speaker 1: of the podcast is like halfway through a paragraph that
Speaker 1: the end of the paragraphs or at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode starts every everything will be a circle. Let's
Speaker 1: just Sophie. I think that's the new plan. Okay, okay, Andrews,
Speaker 1: what do you guy for us today? Right? So, today
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about bioregions and bioregionalism. It's uh
Speaker 1: philosophy slash movement slash way of viewing things. There's a lot.
Speaker 1: So today we'll be exploring what it is, where it
Speaker 1: came from, and the role I see it playing in
Speaker 1: our strides towards anarchy. But first, of course we'll really
Speaker 1: gets some context bioregionalism. Have any of you heard of it?
Speaker 1: By the way, I have heard the tournament right right,
Speaker 1: So it's actually pretty recent, um, all things considered. UM.
Speaker 1: It was coined as a term by a guy named
Speaker 1: Alan Van Newkirk, found of the Institute for Bioregional Research,
Speaker 1: and as a movement it really gained a lot of
Speaker 1: popularity in the late seventy is in the Osaks, Appalachia,
Speaker 1: Hudson River, and San Francisco Bay Area regions. UM. They
Speaker 1: had a conference in a prairie, interestingly enough, their Kansas City,
Speaker 1: and they've also had conferences in the Squamish bioregion of
Speaker 1: British Columbia as well as the Gulf of main By
Speaker 1: region on the Atlantic. And of course with all these
Speaker 1: different people coming together sharing all their different ideas talking
Speaker 1: about cool nature stuff, they developed us sort of a
Speaker 1: platform which they outline in papers on subjects changing from
Speaker 1: agriculture to forestry, to arts, economics to community. So while
Speaker 1: it was a very North American focused movement and philosophy
Speaker 1: at first, it has also expanded to Europe and Australia
Speaker 1: and these groups, they are hundreds of them all over. Um.
Speaker 1: They get involved with local ecological work like preservation and restoration,
Speaker 1: cumic culture or that. And they also form networks so
Speaker 1: they would link on specific issues like water conservation or
Speaker 1: organic farming or cheap planting. And of course bioreginal groups
Speaker 1: also get involved in attempts to make communities more self
Speaker 1: sufficient by mapping and utilizing local assets and well, as
Speaker 1: you come to see, um, bioregionalism and maps kind of
Speaker 1: go hand in hand away, um, because it really is
Speaker 1: about that sort of big picture looking at the earth
Speaker 1: and the environment and outplace in it. So what is
Speaker 1: bioregionalism exactly? In essence, it's a philosophy based around the
Speaker 1: organization of political, cultural, and economic systems around naturally defined
Speaker 1: areas called bioregions sort of bioregions. There are areas defined
Speaker 1: through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries, soil and
Speaker 1: terrain characteristics, flora, fauna, and climate. Bioregionalism also stresses the
Speaker 1: determination of a bioregion is a cultural phenomenon and emphasizes
Speaker 1: local populations, local knowledge, and local solutions. Because humans are
Speaker 1: actually surprisingly part of nature, our cultures or settlements. They
Speaker 1: arise from nature, They arise from the characteristics of the
Speaker 1: bio regions that we inhabit. So I mean that to
Speaker 1: me is a clear duty and bioregionalism and landmack. And
Speaker 1: it also points to me, um, the fact that while
Speaker 1: bioregionalism maybe a fairly recent philosophy starsh movement, its roots
Speaker 1: and the ideas it presents are nothing new, you know, Um.
Speaker 1: I mean bioregionalism posits that, you know, human societies must
Speaker 1: learn to honor our bioregions and the connections between them
Speaker 1: if we have to be ecologically sound. And this was
Speaker 1: an active is really old news, you know, for the
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples who have maintained these lands and been stewards
Speaker 1: of these lands for thousands of years. I think that
Speaker 1: thinking in a bioregional scale allows us to establish regenerative
Speaker 1: and circular economies, effectively restore local ecosystems, restructure our systems
Speaker 1: using ecological design principles, and of course deepen our cultural
Speaker 1: connections to the land inhabit. So that to me really
Speaker 1: stresses the importance of bioregionalism in our approach to environmental issues.
Speaker 1: Before I continue, I just wanted to say that for
Speaker 1: those who want to like visualize, because I know this
Speaker 1: is a podcast, you can only hear my voice. Um
Speaker 1: One Earth has a pretty decent map of bio regions
Speaker 1: on their website, so you could just google bio regions
Speaker 1: and it should come up. They basically have like bio
Speaker 1: regions on their map, and well, according to that map,
Speaker 1: trend that is part of bio region anti NT standing
Speaker 1: for neotropic and E standing for the East, and tadas
Speaker 1: grouped with South America and particularly the Venezuela Guyana's region
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons being that the or no coup and
Speaker 1: other rivers that come from the Amazon flew out to
Speaker 1: you know, trend ads shows really so clunky segue Um.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different concepts that one might
Speaker 1: want to keep in mind when approaching or attempting to
Speaker 1: curate a bio regional understanding of the world. Of course,
Speaker 1: perspective and a bioregional perspective is important, and it's basically
Speaker 1: one that seeks to ensure that political boundaries match ecological boundaries,
Speaker 1: highlighting the unique ecology of the bio region, encouraging the
Speaker 1: consumption of local foods where possible, encouraging the use of
Speaker 1: local materials where possible, and encouraging the cultivation of natsive
Speaker 1: plans in the region. I will point out, like from now,
Speaker 1: that's from what I've read about bioregionalism and the talks
Speaker 1: that I've seen, there are definitely some you know, liberal sensibilities,
Speaker 1: some capitalist realism um in the way that some bioregionalists
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, things like organizing our politics and
Speaker 1: our states and stuff around bio regions. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: they are pushing things pretty far because they do talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, going and really orienting our economy around you know,
Speaker 1: bio regions and thinking in terms of that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, there's still like an almost passive acceptance
Speaker 1: in some of the readings that I've seen of capitalism.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that's pretty common in a lot
Speaker 1: of what I like to call almost radical um ideas
Speaker 1: and philosophies and stuff. Of Course, when I approached these
Speaker 1: ideas and these philosophies and stuff, I always try to,
Speaker 1: you know, keep that anarchist analytical freework in my head,
Speaker 1: understanding that you know, these ideas are still being filtered
Speaker 1: through an ultimately like Campitus society and capitalist world, and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna want to try to navigate that and
Speaker 1: sift that out and really get the nuggets of gold
Speaker 1: within these ideas. I don't see states, UM, and I
Speaker 1: think you would agree with me being the path out
Speaker 1: of you know, that's a climate catastrophe. UM. For those
Speaker 1: who have been reading like you know, Against the Green
Speaker 1: and you know Grieb's work, we know that states have
Speaker 1: been pretty equalsider from their very inception. So I think
Speaker 1: that if paroigionalism would be effective, I think it would
Speaker 1: be best if it stayed away from that sort of
Speaker 1: status um conception. They do emphasize localism UM as the
Speaker 1: political localism, but it's always in the context of was
Speaker 1: often within the context of like the relationship between the
Speaker 1: local and the state and that sort of thing almost
Speaker 1: like a kind of I don't know if I'm using
Speaker 1: this to him correctly, but like monarchism, does that makes
Speaker 1: sense some kind of was it some kind of like
Speaker 1: municipalist almost something like that. But yeah, yeah, we should
Speaker 1: probably talk a little bit about like what what manarchism
Speaker 1: and municipalism are um, just so people don't get kind
Speaker 1: of caught up on the terms UM, and particularly I
Speaker 1: think that like within a context of like the United States,
Speaker 1: UM municipalism is kind of an easier way to sell
Speaker 1: folks who may be more conservative on certain anarchists principles.
Speaker 1: It's basically the idea of yea strong community sort of
Speaker 1: control and autonomy UM, as opposed to uh, strong overarching
Speaker 1: kind of federal or state control over over uh you know,
Speaker 1: different communities. Yeah. Yeah, because menarchism is kind of like
Speaker 1: a weird grab bag thing that's like it's it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of like, Okay, so you want to be in
Speaker 1: anarcho capitalist, but you can't because you're just smart enough
Speaker 1: to realize that you can't have a proper right of
Speaker 1: the state. So either the America state is the only
Speaker 1: thing it does is enforced property rights. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's a slightly terrifying vision, but I think but
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's yeah, it's a more self away
Speaker 1: than the age. Yeah, but you know this is yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that is less of a focus specifically
Speaker 1: on property rights and more of more based out of
Speaker 1: an understanding that UM like strong hierarchical federal or even
Speaker 1: state level control UM generally winds up creating reach a
Speaker 1: lot of a significant amount of like regional um uh,
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for, um inequalities um and
Speaker 1: and is responsible for a lot of like ecological devastation
Speaker 1: and whatnot. This idea that you can have, like like
Speaker 1: one of the things that you would have with an
Speaker 1: actual municipalist system is you wouldn't be allowed to operate
Speaker 1: a company like Coke Industries that's abled who um you know,
Speaker 1: be based out of I think Kentucky, um, but operate
Speaker 1: a series of refineries in the Gulf Coast that render
Speaker 1: large sections of that area uninhabitable because you would leave
Speaker 1: kind of control over what can be actually done in
Speaker 1: that area to the people who live there, rather than
Speaker 1: being able to have um a corporation by land there
Speaker 1: and have its right to pollute enforced by the state. Right.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like one little example. UM there's a
Speaker 1: municipalists the system in northeast Syria and Rojava is is
Speaker 1: sort of a municipalist system and one of the specifically libertarian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's an distinction between like, well generally and yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're getting into the weeds a little bit here,
Speaker 1: but these are these are like that's kind of the
Speaker 1: basics of what those terms mean, just so that people
Speaker 1: don't get lost when you when you bring them up,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of folks, um, you know,
Speaker 1: don't have necessarily that kind of those definitions, don't just
Speaker 1: pop up in their head when you use that word. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: fair enough. UM. I also mentioned that states have been
Speaker 1: eco sidle from their inception, so I feel like I
Speaker 1: should probably trying to find that as well. UM equal
Speaker 1: side and ecosidal is um is basically UM this idea
Speaker 1: that came out to the environmentalist movement um menttive points
Speaker 1: to the survey harm to nature, the mass damage and
Speaker 1: destruction of ecosystems that's you know, caused over decades by
Speaker 1: you know these companies and really buy the system as
Speaker 1: a whole. So it's often viewed through like a legal lens,
Speaker 1: as in, you know, these UM companies should be tried
Speaker 1: for their crimes UM and as like for committing eco
Speaker 1: side and that kind of thing, because it's it's often
Speaker 1: viewed like as like a llegal like lawer should be
Speaker 1: put in place to classify ecoside as a crime and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. UM. Only a few countries have
Speaker 1: done that like actually quotified ecoside, but it is something
Speaker 1: that um, so environmentalists pushed, you know, really raise awareness
Speaker 1: as a crime against humanity and the planet. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it's also kind of important understand with Equal Side
Speaker 1: is that like there's a lot of focus I think
Speaker 1: in like left like in fronmoutal movements just purely incorporations
Speaker 1: and even if you go back to the companies memes
Speaker 1: just like Hunter companies destroying the planets like well yeah,
Speaker 1: like like half of the merse they don't. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so you know, yeah, this this is something like like
Speaker 1: with the Equal Side, it's like yeah, it's like it's
Speaker 1: not just corporations that do this. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's this the state as a structure. It's the state
Speaker 1: as an institution. Is the state as exactly, Yes, it's
Speaker 1: their agencies as they're sort of And that's that's what
Speaker 1: I try to like what I realized this is kind
Speaker 1: of important now and I guess it is kind of
Speaker 1: like slowly like shifting away from bi rationalism, but that's fine. Um.
Speaker 1: What I will say that I've tried to like consciously,
Speaker 1: um sort of put into practice is emphasizing that like
Speaker 1: capitalism is not the only issue, you know, um Like,
Speaker 1: I those people like try to separate capitalism on the state,
Speaker 1: as if they could ever truly be separated. Even people
Speaker 1: who understand that, you know, aca capitalists are misguided and
Speaker 1: that you know, the state is necessary to maintain capitalism,
Speaker 1: there's some sort of like disconnect where there's like a
Speaker 1: whole ton of you know, organization and meming and all
Speaker 1: that about capitalism, and you know, oftentimes these sort of
Speaker 1: efforts are like particularly with reformist types and unions and stuff,
Speaker 1: they try to mediate with capitalism through real the state,
Speaker 1: you know, through the government, look ree, local government or
Speaker 1: federal government, whever the case and be. And what I
Speaker 1: really tried to emphasize is that it's not enough to
Speaker 1: have like a theory of capitalism. I think it's even
Speaker 1: more important to have a theory of hierarchy because I
Speaker 1: think it avoids it helps to avoid getting into these
Speaker 1: sort of traps of like um well, class reductionism for one,
Speaker 1: but also like recreating certain structures within your organizations and
Speaker 1: in your efforts to change things, recreating the very you know,
Speaker 1: circumstances you're fighting against. You can't like condense everything into
Speaker 1: one problem, because try as we might, it's not that
Speaker 1: everything is one problem. It's an interconnected mesh that binds
Speaker 1: all of our problems together. And you can focus on,
Speaker 1: you know, really big extensions of that mesh, but it
Speaker 1: still is kind of just a mesh. And the mesh
Speaker 1: isn't the thing, but it connects to the edges of
Speaker 1: all of the things. And yeah, that type of ecology
Speaker 1: can be useful and even even relating to bioregions um
Speaker 1: in terms of how they also connect with other territories
Speaker 1: and entities. I think it also you know it this
Speaker 1: is one of the sort of problems that you have
Speaker 1: if you know, it's like, okay, so your plans it
Speaker 1: takes sort of sovereign state power. It's like, well, you
Speaker 1: do it, right, But I mean the thing is if
Speaker 1: if you if you you know, you seez control of
Speaker 1: power of a state, right, your borders are essentially just
Speaker 1: like where the state's war machine ran out of steam,
Speaker 1: and you know, and this this becomes a normal problem
Speaker 1: because like I mean, if if you look at the
Speaker 1: bioregional maps, right, it's like there's there's literally no way
Speaker 1: you could ever have states with these borders because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like this. It's it's it's impossible, like you
Speaker 1: you cannot do it. And you know what that means
Speaker 1: is that states are sort of necessarily going, well, they're
Speaker 1: either going to be like a small fraction of a
Speaker 1: bioregion or they have multiple in them. And that's another
Speaker 1: sort of that becomes a sort of logistical problem because
Speaker 1: you know, like if you want to look at like
Speaker 1: a lot of the worst sort of ecological sort of
Speaker 1: like human disasters, it's when you get states attempting to
Speaker 1: apply like states environmental issues. Yeah. Yeah, it's more certifically
Speaker 1: like it. It's it's you know, they have something that
Speaker 1: like sort of works in one test environment and then
Speaker 1: they broadly apply it across you know, an enormous sort
Speaker 1: of variety of areas and regions to have their own
Speaker 1: biospheres and have their own and that stuff. That's like
Speaker 1: that's like the fastest way to kill an enormous number
Speaker 1: of people. Yeah, just like it's like forcing a jigsaw
Speaker 1: piece that obviously doesn't fit into a spot where you
Speaker 1: want it to, but you're just breaking the pieces. I
Speaker 1: want to say as well, that like that sort of
Speaker 1: I mean, at least the states are testing it, right, Um,
Speaker 1: I remember I kind of remember the exact name of
Speaker 1: like the the sort of like ideology or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think it was like this Elie Soviet Union probably one
Speaker 1: of your name, This Elie Soviet Union practice related to
Speaker 1: like farming that they just applied over like a vast
Speaker 1: fast region end up with like a huge decrease in
Speaker 1: like food production. I can't remember the name of it.
Speaker 1: Like Senku Oh yeah, yeah, he just had this, he
Speaker 1: had this theory and it's just like puestionate and yeah,
Speaker 1: it led to some serious issues. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: you know, if we're gonna talk like what's important about
Speaker 1: sort of birationalism, it's you have to have if you're
Speaker 1: going to implement anything, right. You know. It's especially when
Speaker 1: you're trying to sort of manipulate biosphies, you're trying to
Speaker 1: preserve a biospheares, you have to have local knowledge from
Speaker 1: the people who have been living in these biospheres for
Speaker 1: you know, enormous amounts of time. And that's something that
Speaker 1: states are really bad at and you know, tend to
Speaker 1: actively suppress and it's something you know, and I will
Speaker 1: say this there there's there's there's a kind of like
Speaker 1: there's like a kind of neoliberal version of this stuff.
Speaker 1: First like oh, well do you know who local have
Speaker 1: like local knowledge blah blah blah. And then they're like, well,
Speaker 1: well we'll have local knowledge. But they that this will
Speaker 1: help them create market solutions to things. It's like that
Speaker 1: also doesn't work. And it's basically just like yeah, but
Speaker 1: because that I really like sits let doesn't sit well
Speaker 1: with me. You know, like these sort of like see that.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of liberals like doing it a
Speaker 1: lot these days where they'll be like doing the whole
Speaker 1: land acknowledge months thing and they'll be doing the that
Speaker 1: thing where they would just like say that, oh this
Speaker 1: is from so and sue culture and whatever, and then's
Speaker 1: just like boom and then carry yeah, carry on with
Speaker 1: business as usual. Yeah, which is I learned this technique
Speaker 1: from SO and so. Try no, let me because I
Speaker 1: can sultan for your company. Yeah yeah, yeah. It's it's
Speaker 1: commod it's commodifying the thing, and that that both produces
Speaker 1: a warped replication and then it also kind of makes
Speaker 1: the original thing seem like used in a weird way
Speaker 1: as well, like it wasn't designed. Yeah, yeah, I once
Speaker 1: reminded a bit of alienation and how we are just
Speaker 1: sort of separated from you know, aspects of our actual
Speaker 1: humanity because of the structures we live under. Right, So
Speaker 1: instead of relating with the environment, or relating with our culture,
Speaker 1: or relating to other people, we're just relating through like
Speaker 1: these commodities and these products and these you know, just
Speaker 1: bastardized versions of things. And I think that is also
Speaker 1: something that sort of pleagues like some environmentalists in terms.
Speaker 1: So there's there's there's almost like this subtle ill nation
Speaker 1: from the nature that um many of them seek to preserve,
Speaker 1: right where on the one hand, yes, you're trying to
Speaker 1: you know, preserve it and protect it and as commendable,
Speaker 1: and the other hand, the way you're going about it
Speaker 1: is basically like anti tactical to those schools, because you
Speaker 1: don't have that connection with the nature that you're trying
Speaker 1: to help. You know. What it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of people not recognizing is that you know, humans are
Speaker 1: of hearts nature, right, and this is not a bioregional concept, right,
Speaker 1: This thing called bioregional reinhabitation in it in being that
Speaker 1: um meaning that we must come home to the geographical
Speaker 1: and biophysicalter and reinhabit, understand its ecologically uniqueness, and familiarize
Speaker 1: ourselves with the stories woven into the fabric of said land.
Speaker 1: It's history, it's peoples, it's cultures, it's flora, it's fauna.
Speaker 1: You know. It's only once we come home to the
Speaker 1: our byo regions and to our ecosystems, to our places,
Speaker 1: that we can really work together to see its potential,
Speaker 1: to see how we fit into it, how we can
Speaker 1: facilitate its healing, you know, bio region by bioy region. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely mirrors stuff I've been working on relating to
Speaker 1: that type of like cognitive dissonance that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and that alienation not just from like human to human,
Speaker 1: but human to human to place, because yeah, we have
Speaker 1: like developed this like this commodified other version of nature
Speaker 1: that isn't actually what nature is, um It's it's it's
Speaker 1: we've arm this thing that is separate from us, which
Speaker 1: is not how we need to think about it, because
Speaker 1: it should be. We are all part of the same
Speaker 1: of of of that same system. We are not separate
Speaker 1: from it, and we're not isolated from it or its effects.
Speaker 1: We are just another part of it. So it's about
Speaker 1: getting in like getting a sense of ecology with both
Speaker 1: your bioregion and then the biosphere as as as a whole,
Speaker 1: and getting that ecology which kind of will break down
Speaker 1: this notion of nature being in other and and I
Speaker 1: think because of the idea of nature being another that
Speaker 1: really kind of fosters our extraction that's led to our
Speaker 1: our current problems because we don't use problems affecting us.
Speaker 1: We give you them as a practice as affecting the territory.
Speaker 1: And if we're if we're not the territory, then we
Speaker 1: can be safe. But that's not so I go on.
Speaker 1: I think, I think I may have talked about this
Speaker 1: on the show before, but you know that there's another
Speaker 1: aspect here, which is that viewing humans is sort of
Speaker 1: like separate from like this abstract nature is how you
Speaker 1: get a lot of really bad like racist environmentalism. Like
Speaker 1: if you haven't read The Trouble with Wilderness by yeah,
Speaker 1: crowning the Trouble with Wilderness is one of the things
Speaker 1: that like if you're study, yeah, if you do environmental
Speaker 1: studies at all, like this is one of the first
Speaker 1: things they hand you and the reason they hand it
Speaker 1: to you is because it you know, so the image
Speaker 1: of wilderness that we have is sort of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's this like completely untapped thing, and it's like, well, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So the reason the reason we have this image of
Speaker 1: like a wilderness with nothing in it is because there
Speaker 1: used to be people there and we killed them all
Speaker 1: or fortunately deported them. Yeah. Yeah, and it's especiically wilderness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was for us literally planted those forests were I
Speaker 1: think even more pointedly should it should be stated those
Speaker 1: forests were a work of engineering that's on par with
Speaker 1: the Pyramids at Giza, if not absolutely massively in excess
Speaker 1: of it there. They are a work of engineering that's
Speaker 1: every bit as impressive as any city ever built. Um,
Speaker 1: and every bit is like intense and required as much
Speaker 1: knowledge and scientific understanding. People just all we had, all
Speaker 1: of those people had died by the time white folks
Speaker 1: really because of the spread of disease or just because
Speaker 1: of act Like yeah, like I I think that's true.
Speaker 1: Definitely the East coast, Like with the West Coast, I
Speaker 1: think it's even grimmer because the West coast you and
Speaker 1: this this happened, you still see this where like a
Speaker 1: lot of like the American National Parks were literally like
Speaker 1: like people would go and ethnically cleanse the population that
Speaker 1: was there and then be like, oh hey look it's
Speaker 1: it's now wilderness. This is now and this this is
Speaker 1: like the origin of the environmental movement. It's all of
Speaker 1: these like just like the most racist people you've ever
Speaker 1: seen in your life, like people yeah, well and even
Speaker 1: even even before them, like in you know, like early hundreds,
Speaker 1: like not not just people like those guys hundreds. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like when when when when those guys are talking
Speaker 1: about like the purity of the wild like they're everything
Speaker 1: they think about the wilderness is also just about the
Speaker 1: purity of the white race. And it's it's yeah and
Speaker 1: if if if when you when when you start making
Speaker 1: that this like that's the separation between hemes of nature,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's how you get this, Like that's how
Speaker 1: that's how you get these you know, ethnic cleansing like
Speaker 1: genocide forests. I've been reading this very good book, just
Speaker 1: started last night, and I think we're gonna have the
Speaker 1: author on the show soon. Chris Begley. He's an underwater
Speaker 1: archaeologist and he wrote a book called The Next Apocalypse
Speaker 1: that's about collapses throughout history and how they actually differ
Speaker 1: from the popular conceptions of them. And he actually talks
Speaker 1: about a lot of the stuff we talk about in
Speaker 1: this show UM. And one of the points he makes
Speaker 1: is that this idea of like lost cities in dark
Speaker 1: jungles and whatnot UM is based entirely on misconceptions first
Speaker 1: of all about like what jungles are, and then second
Speaker 1: on like these these very Eurocentric ideas towards what lost means.
Speaker 1: Like he points out, every time there's been a lost
Speaker 1: city or civilization discovered, it's because archaeologists just like asked
Speaker 1: the people living there where the ruins were in there, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's like right over there, Like we we've
Speaker 1: known about this since forever. It was never lost, we
Speaker 1: just stopped living in that specific area. And the other
Speaker 1: thing he points out is that like this idea of
Speaker 1: a jungle as like a difficult and primeval place is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: If you had to pick anywhere to be stranded in
Speaker 1: the world of in terms of bioregions, you would pick
Speaker 1: a jungle like the Amazon, because it's pretty easy to
Speaker 1: survive there. That's why people live there for so long. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of the Amazon Amazon as you know,
Speaker 1: as we've discovered, you know, there were cities and stuff
Speaker 1: happening the Amazon. You know, it was like planted. There's
Speaker 1: food jungle like food forests and whatnot. Is the term
Speaker 1: people use it within the jungle like people set the
Speaker 1: people set the jungle in the Amazon up to provide
Speaker 1: them with food in a way that isn't exactly isn't
Speaker 1: the same as like what we consider to be agriculture,
Speaker 1: but it's absolutely a kind of agriculture. And because people
Speaker 1: don't see it as our just like oh, that's just
Speaker 1: you know, they were just running around the forest before
Speaker 1: we arrived, you know, it's like, yeah, no, they had
Speaker 1: they had essentially built themselves a big smart house in
Speaker 1: the middle of the woods that provided them with everything
Speaker 1: they needed. Um with upkeep that we would consider minimal
Speaker 1: based on like what a lot of our European ancestors
Speaker 1: that certainly like did in terms of labor to keep
Speaker 1: farms going. Like if you compare, I mean you could
Speaker 1: also talk about how like peasants in the medieval period
Speaker 1: probably worked less than a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: United States duties. Yeah, like everyone works less we do now,
Speaker 1: But it's a lot harder to keep like a mono
Speaker 1: culture farm going than it is to to keep a
Speaker 1: food forest going. Yeah, because I mean, once it's established,
Speaker 1: it literally maintains itself. Hm. But what was the name
Speaker 1: of the book that you were talking about? Just it's
Speaker 1: called The Next Apocalypse and it's it's very good so far.
Speaker 1: Chris Begley is the author. I think we're gonna have
Speaker 1: them on next week. But um, yeah, I've I've found
Speaker 1: it so far about a third of the way and
Speaker 1: very good. Or someone check that out. Okay, who wants
Speaker 1: to say we're back you just that's the intro. Now
Speaker 1: that's the exit at it. You're welcome here we are
Speaker 1: or so so Yeah, once we have like embraced our
Speaker 1: understanding that you know, we belong to the land and
Speaker 1: not vice and was therefore pattern ourselves and societies based
Speaker 1: and its needs. Um, you know, that's when we get
Speaker 1: to that place of bioregional regeneration, which is another key
Speaker 1: concept of bioregionalism. And lastly, there's the concept of bioregional sensibility,
Speaker 1: which was developed by Mitchell Thomas Shoe. It's about developing
Speaker 1: the observational skills to observe the bioregional history, to develop
Speaker 1: the concept or skills to juxtapose you know, the scale
Speaker 1: of you know, the community and the region and the
Speaker 1: bio ecosystem, the bioregion, all these different levels. Ability to
Speaker 1: like think in terms of all of them. To develop
Speaker 1: the imaginative faculties too. Really, I would say, play with
Speaker 1: multiple landscapes and develop the compassion. Two, empathize with and
Speaker 1: work with both local and global neighbors, not just local
Speaker 1: and global human neighbors, but also you know, the flora
Speaker 1: and fauna living next door. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: different bioregional practices happening all of the world. Um I
Speaker 1: didn't not that it started in North America, but I
Speaker 1: noticed a lot of the big projects happening in like
Speaker 1: South America. You know in Brazil, Sinaldo Ville, in Costa
Speaker 1: Rica Regenerativa, to think Colombia Regenerativa and the Pluriversity in
Speaker 1: the Himalayas as well, and many others. They're basically engaging
Speaker 1: in efforts involving applied education, alternative agriculture systems, mapping, green
Speaker 1: belt restoration. There's the you know, the green Belt project
Speaker 1: in Africa, as well. And these are all efforts to
Speaker 1: really understand and work with the bio regions that these
Speaker 1: people inhabit. So just a few tips that I wanted
Speaker 1: to end this off with you before we and things
Speaker 1: off UM. I was trying to link um the things
Speaker 1: that I talked about in some way to what people
Speaker 1: on the groups they are part of, the organizations, they're
Speaker 1: part of, the communities, they are part of can do
Speaker 1: you know, as an action to strengthen their resilience or
Speaker 1: to develop you know, autonomy. Right in this case, it
Speaker 1: is the strength and resilience and also to develop the
Speaker 1: vitality of the bio region you inhabit. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: I think it's important that we learn as much as
Speaker 1: we can about our areas and learn especially through action,
Speaker 1: whether it be through cleanups, you know, observing the space
Speaker 1: around you, whether it be through observing weather patterns, UM
Speaker 1: better be through looking at the we're on hikes and
Speaker 1: looking at the way that the temperature changes and the
Speaker 1: texture of the soil changes as you go up and
Speaker 1: down in um altitude. I think it's also important to
Speaker 1: try to get involved with actions too um restore natural
Speaker 1: features and to understand the police that those natural features
Speaker 1: have in the broader bio region. Of course, there are
Speaker 1: lots of sustainable projects happening all over the world. You know,
Speaker 1: if they aren't any in your area, UM be the
Speaker 1: change you want to see. Start one, make it happen,
Speaker 1: and really also, I would say, find ways to link
Speaker 1: projects for environmental sustainability and restoration with projects for human humancipation.
Speaker 1: Find ways to like support access to you know, basic
Speaker 1: human needs within your locality. To find ways to sort
Speaker 1: of because when we speak of bioregions and you know,
Speaker 1: living within our bioregions and so on and so forth,
Speaker 1: that's all well and good. But if, for example, your
Speaker 1: region has to import whole bunch of food all the
Speaker 1: time to support the population, I think there needs to
Speaker 1: be ways to um decrease that sort of import and
Speaker 1: to find ways to um live sustainably with in the area.
Speaker 1: Raise awareness of course as well, um about bioregional thinking, systems, thinking,
Speaker 1: social ecological thinking, and yeah, just get to work anti work,
Speaker 1: work for figuring these structures of more horizontal bi originally
Speaker 1: ethical and sustainable way of life. And of course disrupt
Speaker 1: the projects that getting away of those schools. And I
Speaker 1: see that as tentatively as I can to avoid legal trouble.
Speaker 1: That's it. Take care of everyone and be kind everything piece.
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