Join us for this intensive two-week study programme with Schumacher College and Synergia Institute. This course offers participants a practical guide on how we can shift our economy to put people and planet first This programme brings together international scholars and experts who will explore all key areas of society; food, democracy, housing, social care, the commons and social finance. This course is useful for people involved in developing social enterprises and co-operative organisations, students, activists and academics.

An intensive two-week study programme with Schumacher College and the Synergia Institute

What is the ethical economy and how does it work?

• Comprehensive exploration of economic democracy and sustainability as viable bases for system change at local, regional and international scales.
• Unique combination of history, theory, and practice.
• Strong focus on personal & professional experience & participation as key elements of the course.

The Synergia Programme will include

The Problematic with John Restakis
How might we frame the historic moment in which we find ourselves from a political economy perspective? This session presents both a historic retrospective on the movement for economic democracy and how the current configuration of global capitalism demands new perspectives, models, and action strategies for change makers world-wide.

The Partner State with John Restakis
The current crisis of the welfare state is the culmination of a process of de legitimation that has been in the making for more than a generation. For many, the very notion of the state as a force for the good is untenable. But is there a way to reclaim and re conceptualize the state as an institution in service to the common good? This session introduces the concept of the Partner State as an extension of the principles that characterize co-operative economic democracy as a political, economic, and social ideal.

Labour and the Precariat with Cilla Ross
With the emergence of revolutionary digital and informatics technologies, traditional forms of labour are rapidly being replaced with the rise of a new class of precarious and atomised work that threatens not only the livelihoods millions but also the very meaning of work itself. This session examines the implications of this revolutionary shift in the forms of labour, what this entails for the well-being of workers, local communities, and society, and how co-operative and human-centred models of work can challenge the dominant paradigm.

The Commons with Michel Bauwens
Over the last decade, the idea of the commons has emerged as a powerful antidote to the prevailing private property and free market notion of how economies, markets, and social relations might be organized. In particular, the rise of digital platforms and the restructuring of online work through the operation of peer-to-peer networks has offered a revolutionary re think of how co-operative and commons-based principles are redefining both economic and societal relations in service to the common good. This session examines what the idea of the commons means for re visioning models of political economy as alternatives to the status quo.

For more information and registration, visit the Shumacher College site

The post The Synergia Programme – Transition To Co-operative Commonwealth appeared first on P2P Foundation.

“What is 120 times the size of London? The answer: the land or ecological footprint required to supply London’s needs.” — Herbert Giradet

Our ecological footprint exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate. A number of useful indicators and frameworks have been developed to measure the ecological impact that humanity and its dominant economic system with its patterns of production, consumption and waste-disposal are having on the planet and its ecosystems. The measure and methodology for ecological footprinting translates the resource use and the generation of waste of a given population (eg: community, city, or nation) into the common denominator of bio-productive land per person, measured in Global Hectares (Gha), that are needed to provide these resources and absorb those wastes.

Much of the educational power of this tool is its capacity to compare between how much bio-productive land exists on the planet with how much bio-productive land would be needed to sustain current levels of consumption. In addition it also helps us to highlight the stark inequalities in ecological impact that exists between different countries.

Source: Global Footprint Network

Ecological Footprinting is basically an accounting tool that compares how much nature we have and how much nature we use. He are currently using about 50% more ecological resources than nature is regenerating naturally every year.

Source: Global Footprint Network

This point of spending more than is coming in every year — or living of the capital rather than the interest — was reached by humanity in the late-1960s. It is called Ecological Overshoot and every year since Earth Overshoot Day — the day when humanity as a whole has already used up the bio-productivity of Earth in that year — is a little earlier. Here is a little video (3:30 min.) to explain the concepts of ecological overshoot and footprint.

Source: Global Footprint Network

The first Earth Overshoot Day (also referred to as Ecological Debt Day) fell on December 31st of 1968 and by the mid-1970s it was already reached at the end of November. Rapidly rising population numbers and rates of material and energy consumption, along with the accelerating erosion of ecosystems everywhere have resulted in the decline of the planet’s annual ‘bioproductivity’ and a reduction in ecosystems services each year since. Thus, the day on which we overstep the limits of Earth’s annual productivity is occurring earlier and earlier. By 1995 it was on October 10th, in 2005 we reached overshoot by September 3rd, in 2013 on August 20th, and in 2015 on August 13th, and by 2017 on August 2nd!

While agricultural inputs (fossil fuel based fertilizers), irrigation and technological advances have artificially raised the bioproductivity of agricultural land, the continued degradation of ecosystems everywhere leads to a drop in planetary bioproductivity every year. At the same time — the number of humans keeps rising, the average — or fair share — of bioproductive global hectares (gha) available per person has dropped from 3.2 to 1.7 gha from the early 1960s to today.

Source: Living Planet Report 2014

The global average ecological footprint per person is 2.7gha and therefore almost 50% more than would be sustainable (WWF, 2014). Averages are deceiving, as you can see in the graphic above, the five countries with the highest demand on the world’s bioproductivity and resources are consuming nearly half, leaving the other half to be shared among the remaining 190+ nations. We live in a world with extreme economic and ecological inequality!

Source: WWF 2016 Living Planet Report

Metaphorically speaking, if we think of global ecosystems as an apple tree, we can say that globally, until the late 1960s, we limited ourselves to harvesting the apple crop. Since 1968, we have started to eat into the wood of the tree, diminishing the crop that the tree is able to yield. In this way, we are eroding the habitats of other species as well as the bequest that we leave to future generations.

Finding an answer to this challenge through a shift away from fossil fuel and materials sources — a strategy that is moving towards the top of the agenda for today’s political and economic elites — will hardly address the core problem. Our numbers and the levels at which we are consuming are eating into the planet’s natural capital.

WWF’s Living Planet Index, that tracks populations of 3,038 vertebrate species — fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals — from all around the world, has found that the Index has dropped by 52% between 1970 and 2010 (WWF, 2014, p.16). During only 40 years of unbridled consumption and exploitative economics the planet has lost natural capital, bio-diversity and resilience at a catastrophic rate.

Meanwhile, regular reports on fish stocks, the health of soils, rivers and lakes, depletion of aquifers, and rates of deforestation leave us in no doubt that the ecosystems on which we are dependent are under serious stress (see Brown 2008). Lester Brown’s Earth Policy Institute has a data centre that publishes up-to-date research on these developments.

Staying within ‘Planetary Boundaries’

Another way of looking at the ecological impact of our current industrial growth society is the planetary boundaries framework that as first developed by Johann Rockström (video, 4 min.), director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and an international group of researchers in 2009 (download paper). It has been revised in 2015 and the graphic above the heading illustrates the levels to which we are already outside ‘humanity’s safe operating space’ on planet Earth.

There are nine planetary boundaries:

1. Climate change
2. Change in biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and species extinction)
3. Stratospheric ozone depletion
4. Ocean acidification
5. Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles)
6. Land-system change (for example deforestation)
7. Freshwater use
8. Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
9. Introduction of novel entities (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics).

Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre (Steffen et al. 2015)

We — as humanity — have already crossed four of these nine boundaries (climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land systems change, and altered biogeochemical cycles). This transgression is directly linked to the cumulative effects of human activity on the planetary system and many of the processes that lead us to crossing these boundaries are linked to our systems of resource exploitation, production and consumption. To address this issue we need a fundamental redesign of how we think about and do economics on a finite and increasingly fragile planet.

NOTE: this is an (edited) excerpt from the Economic Design Dimension of Gaia Education’s online course in Design for Sustainability. The first version of this dimension was written in 2008 by my friend Jonathan Dawson, now Head of Economics of Transition at Schumacher College. In 2015–2016, I revised the Design for Sustainability course substantially and rewrote this dimension with more up-to-date information and the research that I had done for my book Designing Regenerative Cultures.

The next installment of the Economic Design Dimension starts on March 19th, 2018 and runs for 8 weeks online. You can join the Design for Sustainability course at any point during the year.

Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre on Planetary Boundaries

The post Our Economy is a Degenerative System appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Thursday, 21 June, 2018 – 18:00 to Saturday, 23 June, 2018 – 13:00

The 4th International Transition Design Symposium
6.00pm Thursday 21st June – 1:00pm, Saturday 23rd June 2018
Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon

The 2018 Transition Design Symposium will, for the first time, bring together representatives from major movements and initiatives to discuss the urgent need for sustainable societal transitions and systems-level change, and initiate the connections that will make rapid transition possible.

Speakers: Rob Hopkins, co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and the Transition Network, Professor Terry Irwin, Head of the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, Michel Bauwens, P2P Network and Commons Transitions; John Thackara, author of How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today; noted futurist Stuart Candy and Cameron Tonkinwise, Professor of Design at University of New South Wales, Australia.

Panelists: Laura Winn, Head of the School for System Change, Forum for the Future, Sarah McAdam, Delivery Director, Transition Network, Andrew Simms, Co-founder, The New Weather Institute (Transition Economics), Professor Terry Irwin, Head of the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University (Transition Design), Peter Newell, STEPS Centre, Sussex University, Cheryl Dahle, Flip Labs and Future of Fish (Transition Design), Jules Peck, The Next Systems Project, Damian White, Just Transitions and Rhode Island School of Design, Michel Bauwens, P2P Network and Commons Transitions, and Idil Gaziulusoy Socio Technical Research Network and Aalto University

About the symposium

Held on the Dartington Estate, home to pioneering experiments in education, the arts and crafts and rural development and now entering an exciting new phase where it is reviving its position as a laboratory for social change, the Symposium will bring together leading figures in global sustainability transition and system-change movements with designers, educators and activists to explore the potential for greater collaboration and the possibility of more widespread rapid transition.

Invited panelists, each representing a different area of transition related activity or system change, will present their perspective on societal transformation which will inform and guide the two panel discussions on day one. Participants will be invited to take part in these discussions and join a growing worldwide network of people engaged in transition-related projects, initiatives and research. On the second day of the Symposium a visioning session, led by the renowned futurist Stuart Candy, will introduce panelists and participants to the role future visions play in societal transitions and the value of the foresighting process in catalysing systems-level change.

The Symposium will begin on Thursday evening, with a welcome reception and dinner on the beautiful Dartington Estate that will provide panelists and attendees with the opportunity to meet one another and begin conversations. Friday will be comprised of panel discussions that explore the similarities, differences, and common goals among the different approaches to societal transition and systems change and discuss the potential for greater collaboration. On Friday evening participants will have further time for relaxed conversation over the collective evening meal. On Saturday, Stuart Candy will facilitate a foresighting workshop comprised of working groups and panelists. Cameron Tonkinwise offer closing remarks and reflections just before lunchtime.

Papers and proceedings from the Symposium will be published by Carnegie Mellon University and Schumacher College in the months following the event.

Fee:

£250 residential. This covers single accommodation for Thursday and Friday night, opening reception, all meals (but not Saturday lunch) and participation in the Symposium. BOOK FULL RESIDENTIAL HERE
£200 non-residential. This covers the opening reception, all meals (but not lunch on Saturday) and participation in the Symposium. BOOK NON-RESDIENTIAL HERE

You can also book by Telephone: 01803 847070

The Symposium is hosted by Schumacher College and Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design and the Dartington Hall Trust.

Organisers are Professor Terry Irwin, Head of School and Dr. Gideon Kossoff, Coordinator for Doctoral Studies at the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University and Ruth Potts, Schumacher College.

Photo by Hollywood North

The post Transition Together: An International Symposium on the need for societal transitions and systems level change appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The world is undergoing a radical social, ecological, and economic crisis. This radical crisis demands radical solutions.

What are the dominant worldviews and stories that underpin the field of economics? Where are the most effective places to intervene in order to address the suffering and harm caused by global economies that put profit before the well-being of people and the planet? How can we build economies that reflect, as writer Charles Eisenstein says, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?” In this evening talk, we will journey together upstream from the political, economic, and social crises of our time to understand the root causes and their possible systemic interventions.

Della Z Duncan is interested in returning the field of economics to the realm of moral philosophy. She co-produces the Upstream Podcast, which tells stories about the economic challenges of our time through diverse voices and a rich soundscape. Della also facilitates and convenes courses on Economics for Transition, Buddhist Economics, and Gross National Happiness at Schumacher College in Devon, England. Outside of the classroom, she serves as a 21st-century economics mentor and consultant for individuals, local governments, and organizations working to untangle themselves from the stranglehold of capitalism and work to co-create more beautiful, sustainable, and just alternatives.

£5 Suggested Donation (get your tickets here)

• Friday, Nov 10th
• 7pm
• 42 Acres Shoreditch, London
• 66 Leonard St, London EC2A 4LW

All are welcome!

More about the Social Change series at 42 acres:

“At 42 Acres we believe we can change the world, from the inside out and through our work to change the system. We are constantly being shaped by our environment and influencing reality with our thoughts. We are in the midst of a crisis in consciousness, whereby the economic crisis is a moral and ethical crisis more than a physical crisis — we have more than enough resources to feed everyone, and not just that, but to distribute evenly  – and through this we could create more social cohesion and stability.   Our new range of programs, Social Change from the Inside Out, explores that conjunction between science and spirituality, between contemplation and innovation. From grassroots activist to leading thinkers we want to spark conversation and be a space to prototype the beautiful alternatives. Why don’t you join us?”

Made possible with support by the Bertha Foundation.

The post EVENT: Reclaiming our Economy with Della Z Duncan in London, 11/20 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

1. Why we need a new story

We are cognitively impaired by a metabolic rift between our culture and the earth. Paved surfaces, and pervasive media, shield us from direct experience of the damage our actions inflict on soils, oceans, air, and forests. A unique epoch of energy and resource abundance added zest to a story of growth, and progress and development, that put the interests of ‘the economy’ above all other concerns

The comforting narrative of perpetual growth has now hit biophysical and financial constraints – and we all feel it. Only 15% of the global population feel that the system is working and ecoanxiety—the feeling of impending environmental doom—afflicts populations on a global scale.

This is why post-truth’ politics should be described as pre-truth politics. In this time between stories, populists have picked up on our justified anxiety – but divert our attention from the root but invisible causes of our predicament. It’s easier to blame a Muslim, than entropy.

But a new picture is now emerging in myriad projects around the world. Their core value is stewardship, not extraction. Growth, in this story, means soils, biodiversity and watersheds getting healthier, and communities more resilient.  Care for place – not money, and not GDP – is the ultimate measure of value.

In Ojai, California
In California, Terry Irwin and Gideon Kossoff are engaging with a water crisis that will not have a single solution. They use Transition Design (above) to coordinate multiple interventions over short and long horizons of time. by different actors and stakeholders: new technologies, institutional and legislative reforms, new financial mechanisms, platforms for long-term environmental stewardship.

These seedlings are inspiring to behold – but something more is needed to effect the system change we yearn for: a shared purpose, that diverse groups people can relate to, and support, whatever their other differences.

2   Bioregion: a story that reconnects

A strong candidate for that connective idea is the bioregion. A bioregion re-connects us with living systems, and each other, through the places where we live. It acknowledges that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, fibersheds, and food systems – not just in cities, towns, or ‘the countryside’.

In the Altiplano of Spain (above) John Liu  is leading the first in a series called Ecological Restoration Camp to restore a severely damaged ecosystem in a damaged dry landscape. A diverse community of researchers, landscape designers, farmers, gardeners, engineers and other professionals are restoring the landscape in ways that regain environmental, social and economic value.


Bioregions are not just geographical places; they also embody the inter-connection of our minds, and and nature’s, at a molecular, atomic and hormonal level. A bioregion repairs the unity of mind and world, that has been fractured by modernity.

A bioregion, in this sense, is literally and etymologically a ‘life-place’, in Robert Thayer’s words, that is definable by natural rather than political or economic boundaries. Its geographic, climatic, hydrological, and ecological qualities – its metabolism – can be the basis for meaning and identity because they are unique.

Growth, in a bioregion, is redefined as improvements to the health and carrying capacity of the land, and the resilience of communities. And because its core value is stewardship, not extraction, a bioregion frames the next economy, not the dying one we have now.

3. Scope of a bioregion

A bioregion is shaped by characteristics of the natural environment rather than by man-made divisions: Its geology; topography; climate; soils; hydrology and watersheds; agriculture; biodiversity, flora and fauna, vegetation.

Ecological systems are unique to each place, and the same goes for the social assets of a bioregion – individuals, groups, networks, and cultures.

A  bioregion is not a generic template. It meaning deepens during the discovery and mapping of its social and cultural assets.  Bioregional knowledge is socially created,  local,  experienced directly,  and embodied.
The embodied nature of land-based knowledge has shaped recent trends in agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS) and agricultural innovation system (AIS).

LUMA-Arles is a new contemporary art center and campus founded by Maja Hoffman in the Camargue region in southern France. In Atelier-Luma (above) designers and researchers, curated by Jan Boelen, working with local stakeholders, are exploring new opportunities for Arles and its bioregion. Projects range from the development of algae-based polymers to the use of biodiversity telematics in citizen science and ecological restoration.

With a focus on systems change towards sustainability,  agricultural ‘extension’ gives priority to participatory discovery, and experiential learning. Social network analysis is also being used to identify key players who can act as critical injection points in the system.

A lot of information about a bioregion’s social, cultural and ecological assets can be discovered  in overlooked archives and databases. This information is often dry, de-contextualised lists; wonders can appear when artists or actors are allowed access to these resources.

4. Cities, too

Cities are part of the bioregional story, too. They do not exist separately from the land they are built on, and the resources that feed them.

A growing number of blogs and platforms encourage a city’s citizens, and its managers, to re-connect in practical ways with the soils, trees, animals, landscapes, energy systems, water and energy systems on which all life, including ours, depends.

Seen in the context of its bioregion, a city is about more than architecture and hard (or electronically networked) infrastructure. In cities, it turns out, a wide variety of emergent ecosystems are developing before our eyes.

Some of these can be tiny. Biotopes – the smallest unit to be studied in a landscape, including urban ones – include hedges, roadside verges, drainage ditches, small brooks, bogs, marl pits, natural ponds, thickets, prehistoric barrows and other small uncultivated areas.

A new priority in the urban landscape itself is to connect these patches together. Green-blue corridors can transform a mosaic of discrete parts into a place-wide ecology. Attention is also turning to metabolic cycles and the ‘capillarity’ of the metropolis wherein rivers and biocorridors are given pride of place.

In New York, researchers are mapping its microbiomes.

Inspired by the power of the small to enrich the big, 45,000 vacant lots in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, are being brought back to life, one by one. In that same don’t-knock-patches spirit, @ioby enlivens neighbourhoods block by block.

One likes to think that these and other cities have been stirred into action by by Wendell Berry: “The cities have forgot the earth and will rot at heart till they remember it again”

5  Food

The bioregional approach enriches economic relocalisation efforts that measure where resources come from; identify ‘leakages’ in the local economy; and explore how these leaks could be plugged by locally available resources.

One such ‘leak’ is food.  Up to 25 percent of the ecological impact of a rich city can be attributed to its food systems. Similar constraints apply to flows of textiles and clothing.

The relocalisation of regional food and fibre systems entails transition from a linear to an holistic, social and ecological approach to agriculture.

A farmer, in this story, is far more than a producer of agricultural commodities for the city.  She is also the steward of an agro-ecological system in which water, soil, landscape, energy, biodiversity, are a interdependent.

With ‘social farming‘ and ‘care farming’  the direct participation of citizens in farm-based activities needs also to be enabled by service platforms.

Ecological agriculture begins with an analysis of the carrying capacity of the land, and then growing crops, and rearing animals, in ways that regenerate the soils and biodiversity. In the transition to High Nature Value Farming, each location has to be understood and designed as an ecosystem within a bioregional web of natural systems.

This approach is more knowledge-intensive than the industrial model it’s replacing – and the scale and complexity of biodiversity data can be formidable.  An ecology metrics list on Github lists more than three thousand terms – from molecular phylogenetics to microrefugia, from myrmecology to ecophisiology.

A collaborative approach, and multiple skills in new combinations, are needed to cope with that complexity.  Open information information channels for the sharing of resources are a challenging design priority.

At a bioregional scale, ecological agriculture also includes the development of new forms of land tenure, new distribution models, processing facilities, financing, and training.

In England, the Ecological Land Co-operative  is creating smallholding clusters. The ELC buys agricultural land and seeks planning permission for new residential smallholdings as well as providing shared infrastructure. These ‘starter farms’ (above) are then leased to smallholders – at well below market rates – on a long and secure leasehold.

5   Time

All this takes time.

Industrial or ‘production’ approaches to the land treat agriculture as an engineering challenge. But nature is calibrated to a multitude of different time scales – in cycles that are shaped by the unique qualities of infintely diverse locations.

The tempo of bioregional work needs to be guided by eigenzeiten – the embedded times specific to an organism or system.

6.   Technology

Ecological restoration in a bioregion, and ecological agriculture, are of course supported, to a degree, by technology.

The Climate Tech Wiki, for example, lists hundreds of mitigation and adaptation technologies – from advanced paper recycling, to urban forestry.

Stewarding a bioregion involves measuring the carrying capacity of the land and watersheds; putting systems in place to monitor progress; and feeding back results.  Diverse arrays of networked microprocessors are being developed to this end.

In the Camargue bioregion of France Olivier Rovellotti , a biodiversity telematics designer, develops platforms such as Ecobalade (above) that equip citizens with the means to understand and monitor biodiversity assets on the spot and in real-time.

Under the umbrella of ‘precision agriculture‘,  developers hope that sensor applications might be also useful for farmers; applications range from thermal imagery and current soil moisture content, to soil surface porosity and water absorption capacity.

Some optimists also believe that regenerative agriculture and-robotics can benefit each other.

At @IAAC in Barcelona, their Smart Citizen platform (see photo above) enables citizens to monitor levels of air or noise pollution around their home or business. The system connects data, people and knowledge based on their location; the device’s low power consumption allows it to be placed on balconies and windowsills where power is provided by a solar panel or battery.

We can also measure oil contamination in our local river with a smartphone. Thousands of people are monitoring the air they breathe using Air Quality Eggs.

Monitoring – with or without tech – is most meaningful when it enables practical steps to be taken in ecological restoration at a bioregional scale. In Bangalore, the revival of  Jakkur lake began with a mapping platform developed by Aajwanti (an ex- Quicksand intern) working with @ZenRainman.

7.  Skills

Developing the agenda for a bioregion involves a wide range of skills and capabilities: The geographer’s knowledge of mapping; the conservation biologist’s expertise in biodiversity and habitats; the ecologist’s literacy in ecosystems; the economist’s ability to measure flows and leakage of money and resources; the service designer’s capacity to create platforms that enables regional actors to share and collaborate; the artist’s capacity to represent real-world phenomena in ways that change our perceptions.

How will these skills be learned, or accessed?

If the health of people, and the places where we live, are connected, what kinds of business can help them thrive together? With its own unique assets, North West Wales has the potential to lead the world as a living laboratory for innovation where adventure sport, tourism, and wellness meet. To realise this potential, and turn ideas into new livelihoods and enterprise, the region’s assets need to be combined and connected in new ways. Pontio Innovation is leading on this work.

Universities across the north-western United States have developed a Curriculum for the Bioregion that transforms the ways in which tomorrow’s professionals will approach place-based development.

The curriculum, which is taught across the Puget Sound and Cascadia bioregions, covers  such topics as Ecosystem Health; Water and Watersheds; Sense of Place; Biodiversity; Food Systems and Agriculture; Ethics and Values; Cultures and Religions; Cycles and Systems; Civic Engagement.

A impressive archive of completed projects is evidence that these are not just academic activities.

Multidisciplinary teams have evaluated water quality data as indicators of the health of an ecosystem; mapped stream channels in a local watershed; learned about the geology, hydrology, soils, and slope stability of a local town; analysed the environmental costs of metal mining; studied how indigenous peoples used to inhabit their region – and discussed how best to integrate this legacy into today’s new models of development.

At the University of Idaho, a Masters in Bioregional Planning and Community Design draws on the expertise  of ten departments; there’s the option of a joint degree from the College of Law. The Priest River Bioregional Atlas, created by the university, is one of the more compete documents of its kind out there.

in Europe, an online course on Land Stewardship:was produced by the LandLife EU programme. During the course, students presented case studies of land stewardship; designed a stewardship agreement; analysed collaboration methods and communication experiences; and explored funding opportunities for land stewardship.

A Soil Academy is being developed by a group called Common Soil. A Common Soil Campus is proposed as a learning centre for regenerative agriculture, land restoration, regional food systems, and land stewardship; the idea is equip the next generations of farmers and citizens the skills to become stewards of living soil.

If ecological restoration is indeed the “great work” of our time’ – then we need training centres in every bioregion. For this writer, the Nordic system of Folk High Schools has tremendous potential.

8.  Mapping

Maps –  in whatever medium they are made, or experienced – need to represent the ways a bioregion’s  social and ecological systems interact with each other.

 In the past, nature conservation was preooccupied by  the impact of habitat destruction on individual species. Today, there is increasing recognition that species interactions may be even more important.

As Jane Memmott explains, all organisms are linked to at least one other species in a variety of critical ways – for example, as predators or prey, or as pollinators or seed dispersers – with the result that each species is embedded in a complex network of interactions (see below).

In a bioregion, trophic interactions among humans and bacteria are a single story

Mapping exercises can reveal gaps. When researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre studied a wetland management network crossing all 26 municipalities of the city, it was found (see below) to be fragmented not just ecologically, but administratively, too.

9.  Local Knowledge

Role models and case studies are always important. ‘Mapping’ therefore includes multiple ways to collect and tell stories from other places – and other times – in ways that are easy to find, and share.

In this ongoing search for new and better ways of knowing – and being – we have huge amounts to learn from non-literate and indigenous cultures whose experience of the world is more direct than our own.

10.  Art

Bringing a bioregion to life means connecting with living systems emotionally, and not just rationally.
This is where art comes in.

Art can make us curious about “what we’re inside of”  (Nora Bateson) and tweak our interest in “the pattern which connects” (Gregory Bateson).

Art can allow us to understand complex interdependences, and enhance our capacity to understand processes and system conditions.

The ancient metaphorical power inherent in path walking, and path making, frame a project in Scotland called Cateran’s Common Wealth. Clare Cooper curates arts and cultural activities that connect together cultural, social and ecological assets of ‘Big Tree Countrry’;. Deirdre Nelson for example (above) makes handheld stories that weave words and wool, that value knitting and narration as ways of living.

Art can provoke encounter, engagement and conversation.

Art can trigger attentiveness to living systems, and foster a sense of obligation towards future generations.

Art can make us aware of the power of small actions to transform the bigger picture.

A growing biocultural education movement links nature and culture as a way of promoting learning about and respect for both, as well as the intimate linkages between them.

11. Making 



Makerspaces are not the factories of the future, but they can nonetheless be part of a bioregion’s infrastructure as a hub for community-based production that supports a sustainable local economy and create a local market for local products

Many human and technical resources – skills, workshops, machines – are scattered around – but not known about. MakeWorks, in Scotland, are changing that. They describe themselves (see below) as ‘factory finders’.

Farm Hack, in the United States are a community for open source farm innovation. Members of the network share tips on adapting machinery via hackathons and open-hacking camps.

A purely transactional maker economy, based only on selling things, is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term. If it’s just about the thing, someone will soon find a way to source a similar thing, but cheaper.  The French cooperative L’Atelier Paysan therefore trains farmers to design their own machines and buildings adapted to the unique needs of each small farm ecology.

12. Governance

Social practices, more than technical platforms on their own, are the cornerstone of bioregional governance. Paying attention to the process by which groups work together is just as important as deciding what needs to be done — perhaps more.

It’s not enough to simply to proclaim the moral superiority of sharing, for example, and expect everyone to fall in line. Tough questions must be confronted, and not brushed under the carpet. Among these: How to define, map and name the resources to be shared; determining who is entitled to what; designing rules and sanctions; designing how to make the rules.

Dealing with difference involves a lot of consensus building, collective participation, and transparent decision making. New ways of ‘doing’ politics are needed that are shaped by the ways people live now – not the other way round.

A wide variety of collaborative services, policies and infrastructures is emerging in support of food co-ops, collective kitchens and dining rooms, community gardens, cooperative distribution platforms, seed banks, hothouses, nurseries, and other enhancements of community food systems.

Nurturing these kinds of social practice is a ‘soft’ activity – but no less demanding for that. It involves politics, governance, communications, training, empowerment – and, in particular, the ability to help people with different agendas, from different backgrounds. work together.

Thus stated, it lies well outside the comfort zone of most design professionals. But it’s not a matter or either social or technical innovation – we need both.

Besides, examples of such new approaches already exist in other domains. The free software movement, for example, has evolved a flexible and effective culture of cooperation.

In France, Colbris et l’Université du Nous have launched a Governance MOOC in partnership with 
360Learning

13. Policy

Bioregionalism is appearing with growing frequency in public discourse in European policy and among professional networks (if not always under the same name).

A tolerance for acronyms and buzzwords is demanded of the bioregional explorer, but with a bit of digging she too will discover such gems as: IALE (European Association for Landscape Ecology); the “Cork 2 Declaration” (on diversification in rural development); RISE (a European plan for more biodiversity friendly agriculture and food systems); ICLEI  (Local Governments for Sustainability); SURFNATURE (a regional development funding for biodiversity); EFRD (a big regionb al development fund);  NATURA 2000 (a big programme about biodiversity in cities); GI (all things Green Infrastructure); URBAN-RURAL LINKAGES  (to do with rural cohesion); LAND-LIFE (land stewardship principles and tools);  BiodivERsA ERA-NET (research on biodiversity and ecosystem services);  
EKLIPSE  (upport mechanism for biodiversity); IPBES  (“Science and Policy for People and Nature” ); GIAHS (Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems)’ ARC2020 (Seeding the Future of Rural Areas); or PEGASUS (“unlocking public ecosystem goods and servces from land management”).

There are surely many more – and do tell me if I have missed any – but you get the picture.

In any case, the plethora of blogs and platforms has emerged in recent times includes:Smart Garden Cities
The Nature of Cities Urban Ecology Lab Cornell Civic Ecology Lab Biourbanism Biophilic Cities  Cities Biodiversity Center and Biohabitats .  La Ciudad Verde seems to be the biggest with 93,000 Twitter followers.

13   BackToTheLand2.0



Reconnecting with our bioregion is not about leaving home to live in a yurt. For most of us, it it means re-connecting with the land and biodiversity  in the places where we live now – but in new ways.  These can involve social farming, place-based development, and learning journeys.

In a series of xskool workshops called #BackToTheLand2.0 we brought local actors together to ask: What are the key social-ecological systems in this place? What are the opportunities for  this city-region? How night one design in them?

We discovered that a rich diversity of city-rural connections is emerging. These include: Maker networks; grain and fiber ecosystems; outdoor and land-based learning; adventure tourism, sport science, mixed-reality gaming; ecological restoration; civic ecology; farmer-city connections; learning journeys: and the reinhabitation of abandoned  of rural communities.

We learned that myriad new ways for urban people to re-connect with the land are emerging: Ways that are part-time, but long-term; ways that involve an exchange of value, not just paying money; ways to share knowledge, land, and equipment in new ways; ways based on historical links between town and country – but reinvented in an age of networks and social innovation.

Designers and artists, we saw, can contribute to bioregional development in various ways. Maps of the bioregion’s ecological and social assets are needed: its geology and topography; its soils and watersheds; its agriculture and biodiversity. The collaborative monitoring of living systems needs to be designed – together with feedback channels. New service platforms are needed to help people to share resources of all kinds – from land, to time.  Novel forms of governance must also be designed to enable collaboration among diverse groups of people.

Another large topic, simply stated: What would a bioregion look like, and feel like, to its citizens, and visitors?

None of these actions means designers acting alone; their role is as much connective, as creative. But in creating objects of shared value – such as an atlas, a plan, or a meeting – the design process can be a powerful way to foster collaboration among geographers, ecologists, economists, planners, social historians, writers, artists and other citizens.

One way to begin the journey could be a Doors of Perception Xskool.  The outcomes of an xskool, typically, include a shared perception of new opportunities; new connections between motivated and effective people; and the determination to make something happen.

Thank you to these great friends who have been partners in many of the experiences that have informed this text: @helloQS  @andygoodman @SchumacherCol @regenesisgrp @bossestwit ‏ @abadiracademy  @relationaldes@CasaNetural  @StirToAction 
@Choraconnection ‏ 
@CateransCommon
@CACollegeofArts  
@ALBA_Lebanon
@zenrainman
@CMUdesign 
@zenrainman
 @iaac @stefi_idlab
 @GaiaEducation 
@mbauwens 
@davidbollier
 @alastairmci

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 – A Design Agenda For Bioregions appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The Transition Design Symposium at Dartington Hall was a resounding success. A wonderfully diverse group of practitioners, academics and cultural creatives gathered at Dartington, from June 17th to 19th, to explore the role of design in the societal transition towards sustainability and beyond.

Terry Irwin, herself a graduate of the MSc. in Holistic Science in 2003-04 and now the head of Carnegie Mellon’s prestigious School of Design, and Gideon Kossoff, who administered the Holistic Science Masters during its first 10 years, clearly sounded a note that attracted cultural change agents from all over the world to come together in exploration of change within and through design.

Over one hundred people gathered from as far away as Australia, Japan, India, Taiwan and Brazil to be part of what promises to turn into an impulse that will both transform design academia from within, and perhaps more importantly, help to inspire a new generation of design practitioners in service to the great transition humanity is called to make.

In the face of the converging crises of climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, and unacceptable economic inequality and suffering – particularly in the global South – designers everywhere are called to assume a deeper responsibility for the impacts of their work. Designers are finally stepping up to the challenge that David Orr so aptly described in The Nature of Design (link is external). We are challenged to “redesign the human presence on Earth.”

This task falls not just upon design professionals and academics, but asks all of us to become more aware of our co-creative agency and the way our actions and inactions contribute to bringing forth a word in conversation and by design. Ecological design pioneers John Todd (link is external) and Nancy Jack-Todd have told us for decades that “we are all designers”, called upon to co-create “elegant solutions carefully adapted to the uniqueness of place”.

With the outstanding leadership of Terry Irwin (link is external) at the internationally recognized Carnegie Mellon School of Design (link is external) taking these messages to the heart of the design profession, necessary changes within design academia will be greatly accelerated. Finally, designers are beginning to be educated to become active catalysts of transition. The transformative agency of design is beginning to transform design institutions, design as a discipline, and the way design impacts society at large.

Following Transition Design Up-stream

Together with the team from CMU, Schumacher College acted as a co-convener of the Transition Design Symposium – expertly co-organized by Ruth Potts and her colleagues of the MA in Ecological Design Thinking.

Yet Schumacher College had a much deeper influence on the genesis of Transition Design. The scientific and philosophical underpinnings that give Transition Design (link is external) its strength as a (r)evolutionary impulse are informed by many of the brilliant minds and hearts that have taught at Schumacher College over the last 25 years.

My personal epiphany of understanding the power and transformative agency of design occurred in 2002 when I was on the Masters in Holistic Science. Deeply inspired by Brian Goodwin, Stephan Harding, Henri Bortoft and Fritjof Capra, I was keen to see the coherent participatory worldview described by the holistic sciences put into action in society. During a short course with David Orr and John Todd and Nancy Jack-Todd I came to realize that ecological design was in fact the practice-end of holistic science.

In that moment I joined the large group of people who gained insights at Schumacher College that not only transformed their lives forever, but also enabled them to become more effective global-local agents of change. The effective alchemical cauldron that is Schumacher College has transformed so many people who have gone on to play their role in the great transition that is already unfolding within and through the more than 10,000 people fortunate enough to have had the privilege to be educated and transformed at this remarkable place.

I wrote my masters thesis, entitled ‘Exploring Participation (link is external)’, on holistic science and ecological design. It lead to Professor Seaton Baxter at the Centre for the Study of Natural Design (University of Dundee) finding me a scholarship and offering his deeply supportive mentorship to complete a PhD in ‘Design for Human and Planetary Health (link is external)’ in 2006.

In subsequent years, both Terry Irwin and Gideon Kossoff undertook their PhD research with Seaton Baxter. Terry worked on developing the content for a Masters in Holistic Design Ecology, which was never implemented because she took up her post at CMU. Gideon’s 2011 doctoral thesis (link is external) can be regarded as the founding document of Transition Design.

The insights and scientific frameworks so expertly curated into the Masters in Holistic Science by Brian Goodwin and Stephan Harding, have deeply informed the roots of Transition Design and of my own work over the last 15 years. I hope that my recently published book, Designing Regenerative Cultures (link is external), will serve the growing Transition Design movement as a useful resource.

Sustainability is no longer enough. We have degenerated our planetary life support system for so long and at such a scale that to be only sustainable – what William McDonough calls “100% less bad” – does not suffice. We urgently need to transition towards a diversity of regenerative cultures elegantly adapted to the bio-cultural diversity of the places they inhabit.

The transition ahead challenges us to transform the human impact on Earth from our current degenerative practices to the widespread regeneration of healthy ecosystems, vibrant regional economies, and thriving local communities everywhere. This 90 second video (link is external) explains the transition from business as usual, to “green”, sustainable, restorative, reconciliatory and regenerative design.

The new masters and doctoral programmes (link is external) in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon School of Design and Schumacher College’s MA in Ecological Design Thinking (link is external), headed by Seaton Baxter, are offering transition designers an opportunity to deepen in their thinking and their practice so they can be effective catalysts of transformative innovation. Holistic Science provides a theoretical framework that all  these programmes and my own work as an educator and consultant have in common. One could say that Transition Design is Holistic Science in action.

Living the Future Today – a historical gathering of global-local agents of change

I arrived at the Transition Design Symposium after two intensive days of work with the Dubai Futures Foundation working on the possible content for next year’s Museum of the Future exhibition.  During these days we explored shifting the proposed theme of the exhibition from floating cities and space stations to large-scale ecosystems regeneration, biomimetic design and technology, and green chemistry.

So it was surprisingly synchronistic for me that Andrew Simms opened the Transition Design Symposium by reminding us of the urgency of responding to the immanent dangers of run-away climate change and the fact that the closest Earth-like planet – Wolf 106 1C – is so distant to our fragile home planet that it would take us roughly 206,192 years to travel there. We best sort out our own behaviour on this planet rather than setting our eyes on new planets – turning into the locust of the known universe.

Terry Irwin’s opening remarks highlighted the importance of moving designers from “the design of posters and toasters to design as a driver of societal change.” This was echoed  by her colleague Cameron Tonkinwise, who called upon the academics present to “change design, so design becomes an agent of change.”

Ingrid Mulder’s, who works on participatory city making, offered an important reminder that in order to be successful in this project designers need to leave behind the hubris of being the shapers of the world that everyone else only inhabits. Designers have to shift into the role of facilitators of social transformation by enabling transdisciplinary dialogue and widespread citizens participation in the co-visioning and co-design of our collective future.

Tony Greenham – director of economy, enterprise and manufacturing at the RSA – warned everyone to accept the current economic system as an inevitable given and highlighted that “the economy is designed.” He argued that we need “more design thinking in economics” and have to regard the redesign of our economic and monetary systems “as a design challenge.”

Schumacher College’s wise elder Julie Richardson offered a deeply insightful reflection on her own life as a committed agent of positive change in economics and design.  In her personal explorations of the inner and outer dimensions of economics, she came to realize that we can “live in the future today” and affect transformative change by starting with the inner or personal transformation of reconnecting to ourselves, to our communities and to nature as a source of insight and strength.

The effervescence of writer and artist Lucy Neal´s infectious optimism as a (r)evolutionary design activist reminded us that “joy is a radical force” and that art, theater and collective non-violent direct action offer ways to stimulate the imagination of what we can do together in community. “Between what is possible and what is not, there is a field rich in possibilities.” Through theater and play we can enact the future we want in the presence and plant seeds of transformational change.

Tom Crompton of the Common Cause Foundation stressed the critical importance of both extrinsic and intrinsic values in driving the transition ahead and invited designers to make the values that inform their practice more explicit. Robin Murray of the Young Foundation cautioned the audience not to blindly follow the economists call for “scaling up” and rather replicate effective transition design by diffusion – spreading rather than scaling.

The final panel of the symposium, hosted by Terry Irwin, had a number of leading design academics reflect upon the limitations that the current economic system imposes on design schools.  The dialogue highlighted the importance of reaching out beyond established and respected institutions like CMU, the Royal College of Art, the Open University, or the RSA to create effective transdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder partnerships that transform these institutions, design education and society at large.

For design to unfold its transformative potential, design academics are called to aid their own institutions to transition to a new way of doing things. This will have to be achieved by driving change from within, as well as, through building bridges to N.G.O.s and civil society. Design academics are invited to step out of their institutions to bring the power of transition design thinking into business schools and to visionary leaders in industry, politics and civil society.

All of the well-chosen panelist brought important contributions to the nourishing dialogue of the Transition Design Symposium, and maybe – as is so often the case at such events – the most transformative conversation with lasting impacts happened in the coffee breaks and during the Open Space Technology sessions of the second day when 100 transition designers were given the opportunity to network and learn from each other, co-creating a whole that was more than the sum of its parts.

As the global community of transition designers continues to grow, the design brief for all of us is clear. It was succinctly stated by the holistic design science pioneer Buckminster Fuller when he challenged us:

“to make the World work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”

Book: Designing Regenerative Cultures (link is external) is published by Triarchy Press, 2016.

Article originally published in the Schumacher College Website.

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