Practices

Practices for bioregional design

An artist's studio practice is defined by the processes, research and experimentation that take place there. Similarly, for BLC, we regard what we do as an ongoing process, encompassing not only the physical act of doing or making, but also the ideas, research, experimentation, skill development, and reflection that contribute to the design process. We have three main practices, all closely related, or nested. Bioregioning is a form of action learning, and neither would be effective without relevant communication.

Inspiration: Making data relatable, a sign in Oslo airport.

Bioregional Learning Centre South Devon Screen

Bioregional Learning Centre South Devon Marsh

Bioregioning connects people and place

Bioregioning is about understanding the interconnected ecosystems and human systems within a place. It’s a practice of developing relational skills to find pathways for action at a systems scale. By working at the bioregional level, we can address challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss and economic contraction in ways that are tailored to our unique context.

Learn more about bioregioning

Bioregional Learning Centre South Devon Town

Action learning helps us see what's happening

Action learning is about learning by doing: asking a question, beginning an enquiry, taking action, seeing what works, evaluating that and re-designing for the next action. It’s not an academic discipline, but a way for us to tackle real issues, consider consequences, seek answers from lived experience and develop competence.

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Bioregional Learning Centre South Devon Emilio

Communicating is essential to interconnectedness

The word 'communication’ is derived from the Latin root 'communis', which means ‘common, public, shared by all or many'. Like blood in a body, sap in a plant or water in a river, communication keeps things moving, and holds the potential to share messages and meanings in new and relevant ways. The mission-led experiences, print and digital resources produced by BLC call attention to relationships, interactions and collective learning—towards a media commons that more authentically serves the public, and planetary, interest.

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Step into the Lab

The Lab is where we experiment with new ideas, develop innovative practices and explore creative ways to build resilience. It’s a space for collaboration and discovery that drives our work forward.

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Art + ecology

12.19.24

Ecology + Music

Where the River Meets the Sea II - Christian de Sousa

Art + ecology

12.19.24

Where the River Meets the Sea II - Christian de Sousa

Art + ecology

2.19.25

The bioregion... not a new twist on a story, something we are in, living with, have been with for a long time

Mark Leahy Quote

- Mark Leahy, artist

Art + ecology

2.19.25

- Mark Leahy, artist

Art + ecology

2.21.25

VLC Snap

Into the unknown with AI

Art + ecology

2.21.25

Into the unknown with AI

Storytelling

12.19.24

Dartmoor mist

Take strength from the granite

Storytelling

12.19.24

Take strength from the granite

12.19.24

Tuscany film projector

Imagining a Fellini film... 8 1/2?

12.19.24

Imagining a Fellini film... 8 1/2?

Bioregional banquet

2.17.25

Tuscan olive oil

Polyphenols (mg/kg) 429

Bioregional banquet

2.17.25

Polyphenols (mg/kg) 429

From the BLC notebook

At BLC we have created our own definition of what a bioregion is: A bioregion invites us to inhabit a place in a way that is full of relationship. Seeing where the natural boundaries of our bioregion are, we can then see the many ecosystems and human systems alive within it. All of these systems like fresh water and biodiversity or transport and health are connected. There is also a connecting story that starts in deep geological time, shows up in the landscape and soil and then in human culture. Bioregioning is the collective practice of bringing vitality to these connections, angling the systems towards regeneration, and taking actions for a climate resilient and biodiverse future.

In the year 2000 the EU Water Framework directive brought the holistic management of rivers from source to sea onto the statute books. DEFRA [the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] duly divided up all of England and the Welsh borders into catchments (now numbering 106) and instructed all the agencies in each catchment to form collaborations or catchment partnerships. Catchments (or watersheds) define the area into which all the rainfall in a river basin falls and then runs into the river, bounded by surrounding ridges. Using this framework, we mapped the South Devon bioregion onto the geographical spread of the South Devon Catchments Partnership but extended our western boundary to the Tamar, the big river that has divided Devon from Cornwall since the decree of King Aethelstan, the first King of England in 936, and our eastern boundary to the River Teign. Our northern boundary is where the five main rivers of South Devon (from west to east the Yealm, the Erme, the Avon, the Dart and the Teign) rise on Dartmoor. The southern boundary is the sea. If you look at our South Devon bioregion map you will see the edges of the bioregion on land are blurry and that is deliberate. We frequently find ourselves shifting scales depending on which ‘shed’ or ‘system’ we are working with.

“A bio-region is a land and water territory whose limits are defined not by political boundaries, but by the geographical limits of human communities and ecological systems. Such an area must be large enough to maintain the integrity of the region’s biological communities, habitats, and ecosystems; to support important ecological processes, such as nutrient and waste cycling, migration, and stream flow; to meet the habitat requirements of keystone and indicator species; and to include the human communities involved in the management, use, and understanding of biological resources. It must be small enough for local residents to consider it home. A bioregion would typically embrace thousands to hundreds of thousands of hectares. It may be no bigger than a small watershed or as large as a small state or province. In special cases, a bioregion might span the borders of two or more countries. A bioregion is also defined by its people. It must have a unique cultural identity and be a place in which local residents have the primary right to determine their own development. This primary right does not, however, imply an absolute right. Rather, it means that the livelihoods, claims, and interests of local communities should be both the starting point and the criteria for regional development and conservation. Within that framework many other state, investor, and other economic interests must be accommodated. Within a bioregion lies a mosaic of land or aquatic uses. Each patch provides habitats in which different species survive and flourish, and each has its own particular relationship to the region’s human population. All the elements of the mosaic are interactive; the management of a watershed affects riverine habitats, farms, estuaries, fisheries, and coral reefs. The components are also dynamic; each changes over time as rivers change course, fallow fields regenerate, storms batter coasts, and fires ravage forests. This dynamism gives a well-managed bioregion the resilience and flexibility to adapt to natural evolution and human-induced activity—be it changing climate or changing markets.

Within this ecological and social framework, governmental, community, corporate, and other private interests share responsibility for coordinating land-use planning for both public and private land and for defining and implementing development options that will ensure that human needs are met in a sustainable way. Innovative forms of institutional integration and social cooperation are needed to meet these needs. Dialogue among all interests, participatory planning, and great institutional flexibility are essential. A wide range of conservation tools and technologies must also be brought to bear—among them, protected-areas management, ex situ technologies, landscape restoration, and sustainable management of such resources as forests, fisheries, and croplands.”

– World Resources Institute

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