Bioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State) is a set of electoral reforms designed to force the political process in a democracy to better represent concerns about the economy, the body, and environmental concerns (e.g., water quality), toward developmental paths that are locally prioritized and tailored to different areas for their own specific interests of sustainability and durability. This movement is variously called bioregional democracy, watershed cooperation, or bioregional representation, or one of various other similar names—all of which denote democratic control of a natural commons and local jurisdictional dominance in any economic developmental path decisions—while not removing more generalized civil rights protections of a larger national state. Electoral reform projects seek to change the way that public desires are reflected in elections through electoral systems. ... To most people not professionally involved in water quality issues, water is either drinkable (technically potable) or contains potentially harmful or toxic substances. ...

The best known examples are the Great Lakes Commission of ten American states and the Canadian province of Ontario, which governs the largest fresh watershed in the world, and the cooperation by nations with Arctic Ocean boundaries. These are democratic entities cooperating in a international body, giving up some sovereignty by definition. This is the simplest form of bioregional democracy—cooperation to defend a single watershed. Great Lakes. ... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Official languages English, French (in some areas) Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Parliamentary representation  - House seat  - Senate seats 106 24 Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 4th 1... For the village on the Isle of Wight, see Freshwater, Isle of Wight. ... A watershed is a region of land where water drains downhill into a specified body of water, such as a river, lake, sea, ocean or wetland. ... The word Boundary has a variety of meanings. ... Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme authority over a geographic region, group of people or oneself. ...

But there are more profound forms that challenge many political assumptions.

Ecoregions and indigenous peoples

Ecoregions, as defined by the science of ecology, are the borders of ecologically-sensitive districts, and may often converge with the borders of indigenous lands and lifeways. Indigenous languages tend to include terms or distinctions applicable to one ecoregion, where that language has originated. An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ... (Ecology is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for the natural environment. ...

Supporters claim that ecoregional democracy can better preserve what remains of indigenous culture and indigenous language and lifeways, and permit new tribalists to live in better harmony with the land. Some even claim that this would in effect create new indigenous peoples. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality. ... New tribalists are radical adherents of Neo-Tribalism. ... The term indigenous peoples has no universal, standard or fixed definition. ...

Ecoregional consensus

Scientists claim that ecoregions are observed in nature rather than imposed by man. A natural border or keystone species or soil type or watershed or micro-climate reflects local natural capital constraints in that region leading to a homeorhetic statis. An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ... Natural Borders are country borders which are composed of natural objects such as rivers, mountain ranges, or deserts. ... A keystone species is a species that exerts great influence on an ecosystem relative to its abundance. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... A watershed is a region of land where water drains downhill into a specified body of water, such as a river, lake, sea, ocean or wetland. ... Categories: Stub | Ecology ... Homeorhesis, derived from the Greek for similar flow, is a concept encompassing dynamical systems which return to a trajectory, as opposed to systems which return to a particular state, which is termed homeostasis. ...

When a region is inhabited by man, indigenous or otherwise, this stasis can be extended by consensus, argue supporters of the Four Pillars, two of which are ecological wisdom and grassroots democracy. The worldwide green parties are committed to the following Four Pillars: Ecology (sometimes Ecological Wisdom) Social Justice Grassroots Democracy Non-Violence In German, it is known as Die Grünen: ökologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei. ... All expressions of values by Green Parties list ecological wisdom as a key value - it was one of the original Four Pillars of the Green Party and is often considered the most basic value of these parties. ... Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as is practical to the organizations lowest geographic level of organization. ...

The term "grassroots" itself invokes the metaphor of terrestrial ecoregions and implies that beings belong in a certain place in nature. Ecoregions are defined by the World Wildlife Fund as relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities and species, with boundaries that approximate the original extent of natural communities prior to major land-use change. Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater...

Two other Pillars, social justice and non-violence, are optimized by ecoregional borders because of the way that ecology itself imposes a certain type of natural equality and harms reduction between living species. Social Justice is a concept that has fascinated philosophers ever since Plato rebuked the young Sophist, Thrasymachus, for asserting that justice was whatever the strongest decided it would be. ... Nonviolence (or non-violence) is a set of assumptions about morality, power and conflict that leads its proponents to reject the use of violence in efforts to attain social or political goals. ...

Ecoregions as habitats

The theory of Natural Capitalism, which developed in the mid to late 1990s, holds that the functioning natural ecology of a region is a form of living capital. Natural habitat performs services for all species including recirculation of air, water, replenishment of soil, prevention of erosion, and absorption of chemical, genetic, viral and bacterial threats. Natural capitalism is a set of trends and economic reforms to reward energy and material efficiency - and remove professional standards and accounting conventions that prevent such efficiencies. ... The 1990s refers to the years 1990 to 1999; the last decade of the 20th Century, but in an economical sense The Nineties is often considered to span from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 to the September 11 attacks in 2001. ...

In effect, any living being in an ecoregion has access to a commons from which it breathes, drinks, eats, and to which its wastes are disposed. Harms are reduced by the functioning ecology—as long as it is politically protected and is not required to provide more than its sustainable yield of resources. Ecoregional democracy proposes to protect that habitat by giving more political power to those living within it, less to outsiders. An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ... The sustainable yield of natural capital is the ecological yield that can be extracted without reducing the base of capital itself, i. ...

Ecoregions as trade barriers

While tax, tariff and trade barriers have generally been reduced worldwide, advocates of ecoregional democracy seek trading bloc biosafety rules regarding ecologically-alien imports (such as genetically modified seeds or entirely new proteins or molecules) with ecoregions. This reduces the probability of spreading a major virus, prion, bacteria, genetically defective seed, or dangerous chemical agent across a bioregional border, if political borders (where imports are inspected and tariffs are applied) are perfectly aligned with them. Critics argue that this is an excuse for yet more regulations, and panic-mongering. The tax, tariff and trade laws of a political region, state or trade bloc determine which forms of consumption and production tend to be encouraged or discouraged. ... Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ... An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ... The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) A virus is a microscopic parasite that infects cells in biological organisms. ... Prions — short for proteinaceous infectious particle — are infectious protein structures that replicate through conversion of other host proteins. ... Phyla/Divisions Actinobacteria Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Deinococcus-Thermus Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria Firmicutes Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Omnibacteria Planctomycetes Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermomicrobia Thermotogae Bacteria (singular, bacterium) are a major group of living organisms. ... SEED is a block cipher developed by the Korean Information Security Agency. ... Border has several different, but related meanings: // Generic borders A border can consist of a margin around the edge of something, such as a lawn, garden, photograph, or sheet of paper. ...

For example, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) area roughly corresponds to the Nearctic ecological zone. A proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would add the Neotropic ecological zone. Many groups in the anti-globalization movement demand more direct democratic control over the ecological, social, and trade rules in effect in such large trading blocs, fearing that ecology or society will be compromised. Critics argue that this is protectionism in disguise, and intended to protect an inefficient local agriculture from producers who grow the same foods abroad. The North American Free Trade Agreement, known usually as NAFTA, is a comprehensive trade agreement linking Canada, the United States, and Mexico in a free trade sphere. ... The Nearctic is one of the eight terrestrial ecozones dividing the Earths land surface. ... The Free Trade Area of the Americas or FTAA (in Spanish: Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas, ALCA; in French: Zone de libre-échange des Amériques, ZLEA; in Portuguese: Área de Livre Comércio das Américas, ALCA) is a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce trade... The Neotropic ecozone is a terrestrial ecoregion which includes South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. ... Anti-WEF grafiti in Lausanne. ... Protectionism is the economic policy of protecting a nations manufacturing base from the effects of foreign competition by means of very high tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, or other means of reducing importation. ...

Ecoregions contain biological dangers to citizens

In addition to their convergence with indigenous people's lands and languages, and their natural reduction of threats to natural capital, ecoregional borders also naturally support biosecurity—by definition, water, soil and gene flows within terrestrial ecoregions do not endanger the natural capital of those regions as they are part of it. Natural capital refers to the mineral, plant, and animal formations of the Earths biosphere when viewed as a means of production of oxygen, water filter, erosion preventer, or provider of other natural services. ... A biosecurity guarantee attempts to ensure that ecologies sustaining either people or animals are maintained. ... Ecoregions are defined by World Wildlife Fund as relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities and species, with boundaries that approximate the original extent of natural communities prior to major land-use change. Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater ecoregions... Natural capital refers to the mineral, plant, and animal formations of the Earths biosphere when viewed as a means of production of oxygen, water filter, erosion preventer, or provider of other natural services. ...

However, culturally-imposed industrial age borders tend to bisect rather than follow ecoregions—proponents argue that this leads to conflict as ecological threats to a cut-off corner of an ecoregion do not threaten lives in the main body of the constituency. Whereas upstream and downstream citizens are dealing with the same leaders and legislatures by definition in an ecoregional constituency, and these conflicts remain contained locally.

Some argue that to permit political borders to bisect ecoregions is much like requiring a citizen to live in one place while requiring only his left arm to answer to the government of another. If ecologies reliably maintain homeorhic balance in themselves, this is a valid way to view the problem—and a major opportunity to cut conflicts by better aligning political to ecological borders, taking "body parts" out of politically defined conflict. This topic is addressed at some length and elaboration with examples in Toward a Bioregional State.

If biological warfare or ecological pathways for biohazards become a major concern in national governance, even national electoral reform seems likely to adhere to these ecoregional borders to minimize costs of implementing a robust, fair and defensive biosecurity protocol. Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Electoral reform projects seek to change the way that public desires are reflected in elections through electoral systems. ... Biosecurity protocol refers to several politically-controversial attempts to unify global biosecurity measures and responses, in a similar manner to a biosafety protocol. ...

Ecoregions as Political Feedback Against Unsustainable Developmentalism

Particularly within the frameworks of proposals in the Bioregional State, ecoregions or watersheds aid in faciliation of the innate "ecological self-interest" of people to avoid externalities in human health, ecology, or economic relations that are impressed upon people living in a particular ecological area by informal politics guided from larger state frameworks. One way to bring this type of ecological self-interest in sync with developmental policies would be to make watersheds/ecoregions as the mandated form for electoral dictricting, providing ecological based checks and balances in politics. This brings ecological self-interest in sync with state politics instead of out of sync with it. A watershed based electoral districting provides feedback against unsustainable developmentalism policies in particular areas; provides for a more competitive informal party framework that removes the gerrymandered and uncompetitive districting that is key to how informal gatekeeping is involved in maintaining unsustainable development; as well provides an ongoing formal mechanism for particular areas to participate in deliberations of developmental decisions within larger state levels for their own ecologically specific sustainable paths. The wider argument of the Bioregional State is that much of unsustainable developmentalism comes from how exclusionary and undemocratic political gatekeeping is organized and maintained in ostensibly "formal democracies." The wider argument of the Bioregional State is that its frameworks are an improvement on democracy in general, that removes many different levels of elitist, exclusionary political gatekeeping which promotes unsustainable abuses. Watersheds as electoral districts are only one of the more "charismatic" examples in the Bioregional State for how to operationalize an ecological check and balance solution on the level of districting.

Language and biodiversity

A compelling but controversial argument for more bioregional democracy is the alignment of natural language and ecological stewardship illustrated by anthropological linguistics. The term natural language is used to distinguish languages spoken and signed (by hand signals and facial expressions) by humans for general-purpose communication from constructs such as writing, computer-programming languages or the languages used in the study of formal logic, especially mathematical logic. ... Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human genetics and human development. ...

David Nettle, in "Linguistic Diversity," 1998, notes "the amazing fact that the map of language density in the world is the same as the map of species diversity: i.e., where there are more species per unit of area, there will be more languages too." According to the proponents of this theory, Grassroots Democracy organized by ecoregions seems to be one way to preserve biodiversity. Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as is practical to the organizations lowest geographic level of organization. ... Biodiversity or biological diversity is the diversity of and in living nature. ...

This prompts support from indigenous peoples, ecologists, new tribalists and Green Parties and Gaians, who tend to believe that indigenous customs, constraints, language or even local jargon reflects the natural ecology, and so local cultural sovereignty is critical to maintaining biodiversity. This is a common topic of study amongst academic linguists, e.g., Mark Fettes, who in "Steps Towards an Ecology of Language," 1996, seeks "a theory of language ecology which can integrate naturalist and critical traditions" and "An Ecological Approach to Language Renewal," 1997. Critics argue that languages tied to ecology or specific lifeways are irrelevant in an age of global communications—some claim that everyone should learn English to avoid disadvantage in the global economy. Indigenous peoples are: Peoples living in an area prior to colonization by a state Peoples living in an area within a nation-state, prior to the formation of a nation-state, but who do not identify with the dominant nation. ... Ecology is the branch of science that studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment. ... New tribalists believe that human tribes fulfil an important role in governing and supporting human social behavior. ... This article is about the green parties around the world. ... A Gaian is a radical Green who views the ecology of the Earths biosphere not only as the basis of human moral examples, but of all cognition and even sentience. ... ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The Bioregional Revolutionary Movement

The Bioregional Revolution movement is a new organization (circa 2004) promoting bioregionalism, permaculture, local currencies, and nonviolence in response to "peak oil" and other converging problems they claim we are likely to see in the 21st century. Bioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State) is a set of environment concerns, e. ... Permaculture Mandala illustration by Graham Burnett, summarising the ethics and principles of permaculture design. ... In economics, a local currency is a currency not backed by a national government, and intended to trade only in a small area. ... Nonviolence (or non-violence) is a set of assumptions about morality, power and conflict that leads its proponents to reject the use of violence in efforts to attain social or political goals. ... The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil production and depletion. ...

Associated with this movement is RANS (Revolutionary Army for Nonviolence and Sustainability) which advocates the organization of autonomous individuals committed to the principles of nurturing the earth and humanity in order to create a sustainable and nonviolent future.

See also

• Democracy (varieties)
• List of politics-related topics
• The Bioregional Revolution

Here is a partial list of varieties of democracy. ... The Elections and Parties Series Democracy Liberal democracy History of democracy Referenda Representative democracy Representation Voting Voting systems Elections Elections by country Elections by calender Electoral systems Politics Politics by country Political campaigns Political science Political philosophy Related topics Political parties Parties by country Parties by name Parties by ideology... The Bioregional Revolutionary Movement, associated with the Revolutionary Army for Nonviolence and Sustainability or RANS, is an organization promoting ecovillages,bioregionalism, permaculture, natural capitalism, and local currencies as solutions to a world of coverging problems. ...

External links

• The Bioregional Revolutionary Movement
• Toward a Bioregional State
• Activist movement cultivating bioregions/ecoregions
• The North American Bioregional Congress
• Bioregional: A British charity undertaking large projects, using similar ideology