Bioregions
A bioregional perspective is a way of understanding your "life place." A bioregion is a concrete, real-world pathway (geography) into right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the living planet (a shift in consciousness). We ground in our life place while simultaneously learning with other life places.
Humanity has become disconnected from the reality of our ecological nature. We live as though there are no real-world limits or consequences. Developing a bioregional mind is vital to a whole-system approach.
The bioregion is the smallest actionable scale for real-world effectiveness, as supported by two bodies of significant research. Local bioregional action becomes more effective in the large-scale framework of Earth regeneration. We can create translocal robustness for global cascades of resiliency.
Find out more about the concept of a bioregion.
Tree of Life
We can find the Tree of Life metaphor across cultures, religions, and scientific disciplines. It represents the interconnectedness of all living entities on a living planet.
In the spirit of Two-Eyed Seeing (Western science and Indigenous knowledge), it's important to understand the difference between the metaphor and the reality. There is a living, relational materiality of trees – providing oxygen, wood for warmth and building materials, shade, soil stability and health, food and more. The narrowed Western conception of trees, their meanings, and their communities of life finds contrast in the holistic understanding of life anchoring Indigenous worldviews.
Navigating polycrisis is about growing a literal Tree of Life ecosystem that works with the interrelationships of a living planet. Check out this example from the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion.
Design Pathway
There is a clear, strategic path we need to forge through polycrisis toward Bioregional Earth. This isn't hubris but humility, following a North Star for ecopsychosocial wellbeing in an uncertain, unprecedented moment in human history where we are out of balance with life itself.
We can become Earth Regenerators – cultivating, stewarding, regenerating and connecting our "life places" (bioregions) around the planet. We can all play a role, whether it's planting a tree or a garden, helping children learn the life skills they'll need in a changing world, creating a Bioregional Learning Center, or rethinking how we organize the work we do in a more life-affirming way within a coherent whole-system approach.
As a starting point, read The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth by Joe Brewer. The book is a thought-provoking doorway into the Expedition Thru Polycrisis.
Living Flows
Philanthropists and funders need to put aside everything they think they know – because we're in a narrow window of opportunity and we must act both differently and wisely.
A message from one funder to others – view now.
To meet the global moment, we need to better organize work on the ground and more effectively flow funding into it. Living Flows is a powerful multiscale funding approach for building learning, action, and funding ecosystems with multicapital flows. This is whole-system work designed for robust local action within a strategic large-scale framework.
As the strategic underpinning for the Expedition Thru Polycrisis, find out more about Living Flows.
Legacy Project
The Legacy Project, a systems complexity research and education group led by Founder Susan V. Bosak and Executive Director Brian Puppa, was established in 2000 as the legacy project of our time.
As the Core Team in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (Canada), the Legacy Project leads convening, weaving, organizing, and strategy for both social and ecological regeneration.
With Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple from the Design School for Regenerating Earth, the Legacy Project hosted the Bioregional Regenerative Finance Forum in 2024. As part of Living Flows, the Legacy Project is leading the Ripple Strategy, as well as working with wealthholders and stewards to help them flow wealth in a way that matters. Susan Bosak and Brian Puppa are Guides on the Expedition Thru Polycrisis.
Find out more about creating a living legacy to shift ROI to ROL – Return of Legacy.
Design School
People around the world are living into the story of Bioregional Earth by learning how to play their role in regenerating their bioregion and building a planetary network of learning exchanges.
The Design School for Regenerating Earth, established in 2023, is informed by Earth System Science and prosocial principles (from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Elinor Ostrom). It enables relationality, reach, and community building across bioregions for Living Flows, in particular the Dandelion Strategy.
Find out more about the Design School for Regenerating Earth, co-founded by Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple. They are Guides on the Expedition Thru Polycrisis.
Two-Eyed Seeing
Two-Eyed Seeing is foundational to the story of Bioregional Earth – interaction between the best of Western science and Indigenous knowledge. One of the Guides in the Expedition Thru Polycrisis is Dr. Dan Longboat, Co-Founder of the Indigenous Environmental Institute at Trent University. He talks about taking care of each other and the River of Life. He and Joe Brewer, also a Guide and Co-Founder of the Design School for Regenerating Earth, lived out Two-Eyed Seeing in their conversation exploring a third way forward in polycrisis.
From this came a milestone gathering in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB) in February 2026, Working Together for the River of Life. It brought together First Nations, regeneration practitioners, and youth leaders to begin to forge a pathway forward – together. This event inspired the Living Flows approach.
Read the case study Bioregional Strategy and Knowledge Systems Interaction for the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB).
Dandelion Strategy
The Dandelion Strategy for 1,000 Bioregional Learning Centers (BLCs) is one strategy in Living Flows. It's inspired by nature, is practical, and groundwork has already been laid over the last several years in the Design School for Regenerating Earth. In other words, this isn't theory – it's already happening on the ground.
BLCs are Rapid Regenerative Responders (RRR), the whole-system anchor structures for humans to navigate through polycrisis and live into the story of Bioregional Earth to create translocal robustness.
The Co-Stewards of Bioregional Earth are already working on BLCs in the Northern Andes of Colombia and in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion in Canada (which is leading the Ripple Strategy for Living Flows). New seeds are being planted in different parts of the world.
Find out more about the Dandelion Strategy.
Wellbeing
We live in a reality where everything is connected to everything else. Working on isolated topics, issues, or themes is inadequate in polycrisis. We need whole-system work for ecopsychosocial wellbeing: me, we, all life across time. It's about moving from wrong story to right story. From an Indigenous perspective, right story can be expressed as being in right relationship (with self, others, the land) within Natural Law for a good life.
Yet, we continue to organize human activity and funding based on separated chunks – nature finance, social finance, women's issues, ending poverty, food security, equity, and so on. Our perception of the world becomes so blatantly wrong that we're blind to the harm we're doing. Our mental models get in the way of seeing how, for example, financial flows need to be completely transformed.
Read more about Ecopsychosocial Wellbeing as the heart of the story of Bioregional Earth.
Bioregional Earth
Bioregional Earth isn't a project, initiative, organization, or movement. It's a coherent story with a grounded strategy to navigate through polycrisis.
The new/old story of Bioregional Earth has many roots, including Indigenous Knowledge and Earth System Science. The goal is to move from wrong story to right story for ecopsychosocial wellbeing.
Reflecting the Earth Charter, the result of a decade-long global consultation, this is about a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of the whole human family, all other life on Earth, and future generations. The Earth Charter begins, "We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future…"
Bioregional Earth was born at the global 7-Generation Bioregional Earth Summit. The long history of humanity has been one of deep harmony with all other life on Earth. But now, we find ourselves out of balance with life itself. All generations alive in this moment have a choice: do we continue to destroy life or do we choose the continuation of life?
Bioregional Earth is Co-Stewarded by Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple (Design School for Regenerating Earth) with Susan Bosak and Brian Puppa (Legacy Project), in collaboration with others, including Dr. Dan Longboat (Indigenous Environmental Institute, Trent University).
Explore bioregionalearth.org.
Ripple Strategy
Ripple and Dandelion are the two complementary strategies of Living Flows. The groundwork for Ripple has been laid over the last several years by the Legacy Project. This isn't aspirational – it's real right now.
The Ripple Strategy is rippling out from the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB), recognized as one of the most advanced bioregions in the world, into the Great Lakes Basin and Turtle Island, and beyond. Signal by signal, we're flowing on-the-ground experience in social and ecological regeneration for whole-system ecopsychosocial wellbeing. The GTB is the sandbox for the Expedition Thru Polycrisis.
Who will pick up the signals and ripple out in synchronicity? Strategic ripples emerging from many places – signals coming from everywhere – mutually reinforce and amplify each other in a large-scale framework. Find out more about the Ripple Strategy.
#ChangeTheStory
For the first time in human history, we're in polycrisis that threatens the entire planet. We need to #ChangeTheStory at the level of Overstory – the meanings, values, and structures that guide us collectively.
Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta talks about wrong story and right story. Wrong story is a pervasive fiction of straight lines between problems and solutions, siloed issues, a clockwork universe, short-term thinking.
We need to understand how narratives work. We need a narrative strategy that helps us choose which stories we live into being and which ones no longer serve us. We need to guide right story of ecopsychosocial wellbeing into being with wisdom, conscience, and care.
We can embody and weave a tapestry of real-world, living stories around social and ecological regeneration to live into the new/old story of Bioregional Earth.
Real World Philanthropy
In a changing and uncertain world, it's not obvious how to flow money in a way that matters. Yet we have a narrow window of opportunity to do so. There’s both urgency – and potential. Why aren’t we seeing more courageous moves within philanthropy?
We spend a lot of time ensuring money is spent well. If you're a philanthropist or funder, how can you be part of a whole system in which it's inevitable that money will be spent well? The Expedition Thru Polycrisis answers that question. Beyond strategic and empowerment philanthropy, this is philanthropy that's integrative. One of the Expedition Guides is Andrew Chunilall, CEO of Community Foundations of Canada.
We need to better organize work on the ground and more effectively flow funding into it. Read the deep dive into Philanthropy for the Real World that lays the foundation for the Expedition Thru Polycrisis.
