Stewards

OF THE EMERGING STORY OF BIOREGIONAL EARTH
About
Stewards

The Bioregional Earth website helps you follow the design pathway to create translocal resilience by regenerating our planet and human cultural, learning, and financial systems.

Joe Brewer, Penny Heiple, Susan V. Bosak, and Brian Puppa are the Co-Stewards.

Steward: caretaker and caregiver. Stewardship is about embracing diligence and messiness as we work toward regeneration and coherence. It's the greatest lesson we might ever learn in life: it's not about you. Care for all of Earth's life is the most ancient, worthy, and meaningful responsibility of humanity as the consciousness of the planet. Stewardship is the essence of legacy, knowing that whatever you do ripples through time. A steward knows that when you tug on any one thing, you find it attached to everything else.

Joe Brewer
Joe Brewer

Joe Brewer is a transdisciplinary systems thinker and Earth regeneration designer. Raised in the Ozarks of Missouri, his background is in Earth System Science, cultural evolution, cognitive science, and complexity. Starting in 2019, he has worked on a bioregional regeneration effort in the Northern Andes of Colombia. This includes ecosystem restoration, regenerative education, alternative approaches to regenerative finance, and collaboration at the landscape scale. He started a Waldorf Forest School (Sueños del Bosque) in Barichara, which is now evolving into a Northern Andes Bioregional Learning Center. He was Founder of the Earth Regenerators study group, is Co-Founder of the Design School for Regenerating Earth, and is the author of The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth. A compelling speaker, he travels extensively to activate bioregions and create a planetary network of bioregions.

Penny Heiple
Penny Heiple

Penny Heiple has a passion for serving life and our beautiful planet Earth. A native of Boulder, Colorado, Penny now lives in Barichara, Colombia, where she is living out her dream of regenerating the Earth beside her life partner, Joe Brewer. She and Joe co-founded the Design School for Regenerating Earth where she leads operations, strategic planning, and community development. She also hosts the Inner Space where members of the school are cultivating the "inner" capacities needed to do the "outer" Earth regeneration work with integrity and sovereignty. In addition to stewarding the online activities of the school, Penny and Joe travel to bioregions around the world helping to support and activate organizing on-the-ground at the bioregional scale. They are also creating a Bioregional Learning Center in the Northern Andes of Colombia that centers children in intergenerational, land-based learning.

Susan V.  Bosak
Susan V. Bosak

Susan Bosak is a researcher and systems complexity thinker, and pioneered the community role of 7-Generation Strategist. She grew up along the Red River in southern Manitoba, Canada. She has a background in the social sciences and intergenerational education, with her "classroom" stretching across the continent. As an author, she uses storytelling and the picture book format to share complex ideas with all ages; her bestsellers include Something to Remember Me By and Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes, along with Science Is… used in hundreds of schools and universities. She founded the Legacy Project in 2000 as a response to the challenges of the new millennium, knowing this would be her life's work as well as the vital work of our time. With her partner Brian Puppa, she's working on social and ecological regeneration in the GTB (Greater Tkaronto Bioregion), 3 million hectares on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario in the Great Lakes Basin.

Brian Puppa
Brian Puppa

Brian Puppa is a systems design engineer by training with an interest in arboriculture, hydrology, and geology. Working as an energy engineer with several companies, he quickly realized that the "problems" we're facing can't be "solved," and go far beyond tech fixes. Drawing on childhood experiences with his grandparents, who built their own house on an isolated lake in Northern Ontario, Canada, he shifted focus to ecological design. He has traveled extensively, serving on the Program Committee of Generations United in Washington, DC and presenting at renewable energy and regeneration conferences. He is Executive Director of the Legacy Project, handling daily management, along with research and implementation as part of the Core Team in the GTB (Greater Tkaronto Bioregion). He also oversees the Legacy Project's site, The Cedars – 100 acres at the headwaters of the Beaver River on the Oak Ridges Moraine northeast of the city of Toronto.

We are committed to knowledge system interaction between Western science and Indigenous worldviews/knowledge as foundational to the story of Bioregional Earth. This takes many forms, including a key collaboration with Dr. Dan Longboat, Co-Founder of the Indigenous Environmental Institute (IEI) at Trent University in Canada. It also involves building on-the-ground relationships with Indigenous Peoples in bioregions following the protocol of Respect, Connect, Reflect, and only then Direct together for wisdom-in-action to steward the land.

Do you feel you're living as a steward of the emerging story of Bioregional Earth? Then join us! Fill out the form below to stay connected through the Bioregional Earth Bulletin, and become part of the Design School for Regenerating Earth learning and support community connecting bioregions around the planet.

Earth is our home.

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CREATED BY LEGACY PROJECT
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