Wellbeing
We live in a reality where everything is connected to everything else. So, this is whole-system work for ecopsychosocial wellbeing: "I" can't be okay unless "we" (family, community) are okay, and we can't be okay unless all living systems around us are healthy. It's about moving from wrong story to right story.
From an Indigenous perspective, this can be expressed as being in right relationship (with self, others, the land) within Natural Law for a good life.
Yet, we 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 financial flows need to be completely transformed, and that we actually already have a model of a regenerative economy.
Read more about Ecopsychosocial Wellbeing as the heart of the story of Bioregional Earth.
Two-Eyed Seeing
Two-Eyed Seeing is foundational to the story of Bioregional Earth – interaction between the best of Western science and Indigenous knowledge.
Dr. Dan Longboat, Co-Founder of the Indigenous Environmental Institute at Trent University, talks about taking care of each other and the River of Life. He and Joe Brewer, 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 the 8 First Nations in the GTB with restoration staff from the 13 Conservation Authorities, along with local 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).
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, 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, or creating a Bioregional Learning Center.
As a starting point, read The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth by Joe Brewer.
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 the Living Flows Fund.
Find out more about the Design School for Regenerating Earth, co-founded by Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple (who also lead regeneration work in the Northern Andes of Colombia).
Ripple Strategy
The Dandelion Strategy for 1,000 Bioregional Learning Centers (BLCs) is a key stream in the Living Flows Fund. 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 anchor structures for humans to live into the story of Bioregional Earth and create translocal resilience.
The Co-Stewards of Bioregional Earth have already created two leading BLCs – in the Northern Andes of Colombia and in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion in Canada. We're planting new seeds in different parts of the world throughout 2026.
Find out more about the Dandelion Strategy.
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. It takes a whole-system, intergenerational approach, helping all generations find their way – together – through this global moment.
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 the Living Flows Fund, the Legacy Project is working with wealth holders and stewards to help them flow their wealth in a way that matters.
Find out more about creating a living legacy that shifts ROI to ROL – Return of Legacy.
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 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 ecosystem with multicapital flows. This is whole-system work designed for grounded local action within a strategic large-scale framework for translocal resilience.
Find out more about Living Flows.
Tree of Life
The Tree of Life metaphor is found across cultures, religions, and scientific disciplines. It represents the interconnectedness of all living entities.
In the spirit of Two-Eyed Seeing, it's important to understand the difference between the metaphor and the reality. A narrow Western conception of trees often overlooks our relationship with the land that gives us life and the living, relational materiality of trees – providing oxygen, wood for warmth and building materials, shade, soil stability and health, food and more.
We talk about growing a Tree of Life to emphasize the interconnected real-world work. Check out this example from the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion.
Bioregions
A bioregional perspective is a way of understanding your "life place" in a larger context of Earth regeneration. The bioregion is a concrete, real-world pathway (geography) toward right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the living planet (a shift in consciousness). The story of Bioregional Earth is about grounding in life place while simultaneously being in a learning network with other life places.
The bioregion is the smallest actionable scale for real-world effectiveness, as supported by two bodies of significant research. We need to think beyond regenerating just local areas to Earth regeneration. We can create translocal resilience for global cascades of resiliency.
Find out more about the concept of a bioregion.
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.
Our blind spot is that we continue to look at our current predicament as a "human problem" to which we can find a "human solution." Drawing on Indigenous worldviews, we need to ground ourselves in something bigger.
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?
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.
Dandelion Strategy
The Dandelion Strategy for 1,000 Bioregional Learning Centers (BLCs) is a key stream in the Living Flows Fund. 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 anchor structures for humans to live into the story of Bioregional Earth and create translocal resilience.
The Co-Stewards of Bioregional Earth have already created two leading BLCs – in the Northern Andes of Colombia and in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion in Canada. We're planting new seeds in different parts of the world throughout 2026.
Find out more about the Dandelion Strategy.
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 emerged from 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.
