The concept of "Bioregion" was formulated in the 1970s as part of a research aimed at identifying a sustainable approach to natural resources, led by Peter Berg, an exponent of North American cultural avant-gardes, and by the US ecologist Raymond Dasmann. The work produced by these two singular personalities was published in December 1977 in an article in the American magazine The Ecologist in which for the first time the terms Bioregion and Bioregionalism were used.
In the same years, Peter Berg founded the movement known as Planet Drum, to spread the bioregion concept as a starting point for sustainability, as well as the cultural, ideological and daily life implications of it They are derived.
Since then, bioregional theory has attracted the interest of scientists, ecologists, agronomists and economists from all over the world, has been criticized and overturned, mainly because of "the difficulty of identifying unique criteria for delimiting bioregions". He got favorable opinions and opinions and, in all cases, has collected countless pages in specialized literature all over the world.
To date, it is possible to draw on many definitions of "Bioregion" and "Bioregionalism", provided by the most diverse personalities of the world and on the basis of heterogeneous approaches. Overall, it can be said that everyone agrees that "bioregion" is defined as "a territory not bordered by political or administrative boundaries but by objective boundaries (natural ecosystems) and" subjective "(social identities); hence a geographical area bounded by physical limits (river basin, mountain range) and ecosystems' homogeneity (climate, soil, flora, fauna) and the social characteristics of local communities (customs, traditions, collective identity, sense of belonging to the territory) ".
As far as the "bioregional practice" is concerned, the issue is more complex: in the intentions of its founders, bioregionalism is a choice of life that involves, first of all, the experience of deep ecology, self-sustaining and self-sufficiency, it involves the ability of the inhabitants of a bioregion to organize themselves and find all the resources they need within the boundaries of their own region, by avoiding as possible the practice of transferring resources into space and time and thus extending the concept of sustainability the whole ecosystem and not only in terms of the natural environment and its resources.
Such a approach appears, in some ways, extremely utopistic and unmanageable in a globalized world, which led some practitioners to reformulate the definition of "bioregional practrice" through a more pragmatic and less radical approach that sees "the global sustainability of the planetary system as a sum of the sustainable management of the natural resources of a territory by local communities.". Within a similar idea of sustainability, bioregional choice does not deny the prospect of development, provided that it is ecologically sustainable, and that it stems from the choices of local populations, nor precludes the possibility of interaction with economic and cultural operators outside the bioregion, provided that is in accord with the criteria of "ecological sense" set by the local populations.
In both cases, bioregionalism, however, has a choice of life that avoids pollution and promotes conservation and recycling, which enhances the typical products of the region, adapting production systems to the environmental characteristics of the site and which, above all, implies a downsizing at the local level of natural resource management as an indispensable starting point for any attempt at environmental sustainability.
In Italy, the "bioregional movement" has been affirming in the early 1980s, coordinated by a group of activists referring to the AAM Terra Nuova newspaper. After about 10 years, thanks to the dissemination work carried out by two magazine, particularly devoted to the bioregionalism philosophy, "Wild Side" and "Borders", in 1996, the Italian Bioregional Network was born, a set of groups, associations, communities and individuals who share the bioregional idea and in person, in their own place, are doing to do it.
Consistent with the purely local character of bioregional practice the internal organizational structure of the network seeks to decentralize "management", merely constituting a Council of Topics, formed by subjects with different qualifications, each of which, according to their own competences, advances the specific implementation of bioregionalism.
Paolo D'Arpini
Referent for Public Relations of the Italian Bioregional Network - Via Mazzini, 27 - 62010 Treia (Mc) - Italy bioregionalismo.treia@gmail.com
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