Community

Celebrating the launch of the Bioregional Learning Alliance

From conversations to formal learning opportunities... four years in the making, a small group of bioregional ambassadors gathered practitioners from around the world to co-create a bioregional learning programme.

Written by: Isabel Carlisle

April 7, 2025

The origin of 'Bioregioning 101'

Back in 2022 when three of us bioregional ambassadors (myself, Ben Roberts and Melina Angel) masterminded and hosted the Bioregional Regeneration Summit the energy in the online sessions felt like life gathering itself beneath the soil and pushing green shoots towards the surface. People got inspired, teamed up, and new bioregional projects took shape around the world. At the end of the Summit we opening a poll to see what would best next serve the bioregional movement to regenerate people and places. Top of the poll was a ‘Bioregioning 101’ course that would help new groups get started and supported in their bioregional journeys. So began a conversation between seven pioneering bioregional practitioners about what we could offer that would give people access to the practice, and not just the theory, of bioregioning.

Economically and politically, in the past two years our world has become more chaotic and fragmented. But at grassroots level I have seen thoughtful community and civil society action demonstrate a diversity of viable responses to the polycrisis. Amidst that, there is growing interest in working with whole landscapes and systems at bioregional scale for climate resilience, biodiversity gain and social good. And that poses the question ‘how do you do that, can you show us, what are the practices that work’?

'Bioregioning in Practice' goes live

Today we are filled with anticipation as Bioregioning in Practice goes live on 22 April with the first session in a new 10-session webinar series in partnership with Gaia Education.

With my stalwart and ever-cheerful colleagues Melina Angel, Stuart Cowan, John Thackara, Oscar Gussinyer, Udi Mandel and Eduard Muller, we made a first step with the Bioregional Conversations last year. Now we have formed the Bioregional Learning Alliance and added three new members to our team: Joel Glanzberg, Eileen Hutton and Daniel Christian Wahl. Together we have designed a learning programme with varied entry points for whatever level you wish to enter at. Through this spring we are offering an introductory online series of 10 webinars in which you can encounter the full spectrum of bioregional practice. You will be able to meet us, learn and gather resources, and move on into a residential, a learning lab, working with a mentor, a learning journey, group discussions and knowledge sharing, or further online learning.

The webinar series; speaking from experience

We foreground the practice rather than the theory of bioregioning and cover topics such as the origin story of bioregions; how to get started in your place; bioregional governance; case stories from around the world; design for a bioregion (including regenerative design); artists and culture in the bioregion; indigenous bioregions; and the qualities, skills and experiences needed to lead this work. There are many routes into bioregioning and no one way of working. Each of us will be speaking from our experience and emphasising that this is all work in progress. We would love to have you join us in what we aim to make a really useful, practical, light-hearted experience.

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The Bioregional Learning Alliance

We represent the:
Buckminster Fuller Institute (USA)
Burren College of Art (Ireland)
Bioregional Learning Centre (Devon, UK)
Pattern Mind (USA)
John Thackara (France)
Resilience.Earth (Catalonia, Spain)
Costa Rica Regenerativa and UCI (University for International Cooperation) (Costa Rica)
Enlivened Cooperative (Hawaii, USA)
Colombia Regenerativa (Colombia)
Tramuntana Regenera (Mallorca)

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