Bioregional Ecology and the Importance of Place

Posted 20 June 2011, by Taylor Watson, World Savvy, worldsavvy.org

I had the opportunity to attend a Bioregional Ecology workshop put on by the Planet Drum Foundation at the Heron’s Head Park EcoCenter in San Francisco.  Judy Goldhaft and Peter Berg, directors of the Planet Drum Foundation, have been active in the environmental movement in the Bay Area for decades.  They have seen a lot of change in the environmental movement in the Bay Area- much has changed since they were giving out free food and goods as the Diggers during the summer of love.  Peter described the changes in the movement as being positive.  He explained that initially the environmental movement was focused on conservation; a desire to maintain and save what already existed.  Out of the conservation movement came national parks—an attempt to save some of the wildness of our country.  Berg claims the environmental movement that we know now really took shape within the past 50 years, with a focus on industrialization’s effect on our society- specifically pollution, disease, and destruction.  The movement was categorized by protest, always pushing against forces—no to acid rain, no to killing whales, no to chopping down the rainforest.  However this attitude shifted, and by the 1980’s sustainability came into focus— which prompted people to ask what they could do, rather than what they should be pushing against.

The EcoCenter in Heron’s Head Park is a product of this new thinking, and grew out of a sustainability-minded collaboration.  It provided the perfect environment for the workshop.  The EcoCenter is the first environmental justice education facility in the Bay Area.  The building is 100% off the grid, featuring solar power, alternative wastewater technologies, a living roof, and an indoor wetland.   Every feature of the building is forward thinking and innovative- it is used to educate the public about renewable energy, pollution and greenhouse gas reduction, wastewater treatment, green building materials, and the green economy.

There is also important significance to the EcoCenter’s location in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.   Bayview Hunters Point is a predominantly low-income community of color that has been continuously used as a dumping ground for toxic industries in San Francisco.  Just five years ago, PG&E shut down a 48-year old power plant in the neighborhood, which was leaking toxic chemicals into the soil, air, and water.   The neighborhood continues to be the home to a sewage treatment plant that handles 80% of the city’s waste, as well as 100 Brownfield sites (a Brownfield is an abandoned, idled, or underused industrial or commercial facility where expansion or redevelopment is limited because of environmental contamination).   Residents of Bayview Hunters Point are suffering the effects of these environmental injustices- 20% of children living in the neighborhood have asthma, and the prevalence of chronic illness is four times the state average in California.  The EcoCenter serves as an important indicator of change to come in the neighborhood.  The community of Bayview is determined to continue to fight the environmental injustices that they have faced, and work together to rebuild their neighborhood into a sustainable community.

The workshop encouraged its participants to consider the importance of local place, or bioregion, a term that Peter Berg coined in the early 70’s.  He describes a bioregion as the “place that you live regardless of whether it is a city, park, or country.   Everything is part of a natural area.  We live in national parks, we just don’t realize it.”  Berg led us in a mapping activity that helped us see our homes in with a naturalistic lens.  Rather than identifying a home by the street, or industrial landmarks, we marked the waterways that passed underground, native plants, animals, and different types of soil.  I’d like to think that I’m somewhat knowledgeable about my local landscape, but this activity was very difficult for me.  I realized I had no idea which path water takes to get to my home, or if the plants I see on my street are native to San Francisco or not.  It was eye opening to re-imagine my environment this way.

This emphasis on the importance of knowing your local place resonated with me.  At World Savvy, we encourage youth and educators to make connections between their local lives within the larger global community that we are all a part of.  As a global citizen, it is important to understand your local place and experience in order to make connections to on a larger scale.

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