THE REGENERATIVE FINANCE FORUM met on September 27th, 2024 to catalyze resourcing, share stories, and hear proposals for the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion. “Tkaronto" is the fashionable Indigenous name that is fast replacing the more banal term: Toronto.
Fans of the infamous shift from Game A to Game B will appreciate that the
Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is starting to envision itself as the
Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB). This shift toward bioregionalism is essential. And that's why Joe Brewer was there.
JB's work with the
Earth Regeneration Fund is focused on supporting and creating alliances between a handful of crucial bioregions in the Americas -- using that as a springboard toward a planetary shift in how social systems organize themselves. This shift is necessary for us to thrive meaningfully in a mutating world that has already exceeded several of the critical planetary boundaries.
The key, he thinks, is
a new story. Everyone at the conference seemed to agree. Using bioregions as the central piece of a new storytelling ethos precedes the group vibe, catalyzes community alliances, and allows the organization of funding and resourcing to begin.
We need new clarity about
the basic unit of social concern. Not the individual property. Not the nation. Not the city. Not the state or province -- but functional organic chunks of reality. Zones upon which diverse humans depend and around which we can gather, finance, and mobilize.
The definition used for
bioregion is explicitly geological, ecological AND cultural. Memes that emerge in tandem with these zones create the possibility for aligned social, material, and psychological action.
Our ancestors had long intergenerational time to slowly adapt their identities, symbols, means of production, and practices of
ownership stewardship to correspond with the complex and fluctuating needs of those natural regions in which multiple communities and plural constituencies operate. We do not have that luxury. We must move more quickly and intentionally into a mode that synthesizes ancient and emerging possibilities of indigeneity in our actual world.
The Toronto Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the
Legacy Project, 7-Generation GTB, and Earth Regeneration Fund hosted this event themed around
Stewarding Wealth for People and Planet (see this
book on Bioregional Financing).
Attendees to the event included representatives from other bioregions, wealthy benefactors, integral ecologists, scientists and politicians, the indigenous activist Dan Longboat, and experts on deliberately-development culture such as the
Transdisciplinary Leadership Review crew. Even that incorrigible reprobate Layman Pascal was there -- muttering about a new breed of shamans and philosophers necessary for bioregionalism.
Toronto Tkaronto is unique. The GTB
has stewards a vast quantity of the world's freshwater. This region has been building a regenerative framework for years (under the impetus of people like David Crombie) and has 13 special “Conservation Authorities" already dedicated toward scientific mapping, balanced ecological preservation, and social engagement. That's special. However, they are underfunded, insufficiently linked together, and require a shared mobilizing concept.
So the immediate goal is to catalyze the unique set of circumstances in this region. Connect the Conservation Authorities. Fund important projects. Integrate with indigenous legacy experts. Ally with international bioregional activists. Build the story and organize the funding.
If it cannot be here, with all the local advantages, where can it be done? Or maybe it cannot be done? That thought is a double-edged sword. We need positive inspiration to mobilize and change but we also need the tragic sobriety to realize that old strategies of problem-solving, naive optimism, and minimizing climate change may already be outdated.
Still, this could be the crucial project.
Many of our multidimensional problems on this planet are patterns of stagnation that may be sourced in a narcissistic loop of social realities mapping themselves -- at the expense of the living world.
Our weird AI chatbots are feeding us back an averaged version of what most people say online. Our geographical borders are based in history, war, and negotiation rather than objective structures. And most of the time our so-called News is just reporting about what people are saying about things they heard about on the News. We need to break this insular loop.
Our tools, our educational strategies, our personal thought processes, our financial markets, our legal zones, need to start reflecting the actual complex structures and processes of the world around us.
Shifting toward bioregion-based thinking may therefore be the precondition for new seeing, new stories, and those new social arrangments that can mobilize us toward constructive meaningful thriving in a world that is already changed.
