Living bioregionally, now
Given the climate and other environmental stresses being experienced by ecosystems all over the world, a major rethink is taking place regarding alternative forms of governance, more adept at both preventing and mitigating these crises. One compelling idea being put forward is that of bioregional forms of governance, which start from the biophysical realities of ecosystems, which are particular and even unique to places. Such places may be as large as the Himalayan mountain chain (currently occupied and/or contested by several nation-states, including the mega-states of India and China), or as small as an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean such as Easter Island. Ashish Kothari, Juan Manuel Crespo and Shrishtee Bajpai discussed the idea in an article for Open Democracy * earlier this year, stating that “Bioregionalism is based on the understanding that the geographic, climatic, hydrological and ecological attributes of nature support all life, and their flows need to be respected.”
Bioregionalism includes all biophysical forms, and the human cultures that evolve out of specific localities. Extremely specific localities, right down (or up) to the local microbes used for fermenting and preserving unique foodstuffs, as described by Dan Saladino in his 2021 book Eating to Extinction. This includes rare and endangered beverages and cheeses made with these microbes. These can only be sampled by visiting their places of origin, where heroic efforts are being made to continue traditions of creating food from the locality. Such foodstuffs and the traditions of producing them have been in existence for thousands of years, but in the past century they have been driven almost to extinction by the globalization of the current industrial, fossil-fuel dependent food production and consumption system…
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