Joe Brewer

I want to talk to all of you today about the humans that survived the current planetary predicament. How did they organize their lives? What was the key to their success?

We need to organize our societies (and all of their material flows) around bioregions. Only then might we learn how to function as regenerative economies that restore ecosystems and heal the Earth. This is what my colleagues and I are supporting at the Regenerative Communities Network. We are mobilizing a growing number of existing efforts to create bioregional economies into a peer-to-peer learning network that shares tools and knowledge to speed up all our efforts.

My question for you is this: Do YOU believe it is possible to regenerate the Earth? If so, what are you willing to do to transform your life to become a healer of ecosystems and steward of community health? If not, what would it take to convince you to change your mind?

Human activities have degraded ecosystems globally to the point that Earth is now in overshoot-and-collapse. We need to restore ecosystem functions in the coming decades in order to safeguard our collective future.

Bioregions are geographic areas defined by the intersection of ecosystem boundaries — typically things like watersheds, mountain ranges, and so forth — with human systems that have a coherent cultural identity

Last week, I gave a five day workshop on “Managing Planetary Collapse” at a retreat center in northern Costa Rica. The participants came together to earnestly grapple with the converging crises that define these times — while learning how to be more hopeful and impactful with insights about how the current predicament came into being.