Since the fall of 2024, the Regenerate Northern Willamette Valley (RNWV) team has been meeting several times a month to begin to organize our ecoregion. We are collaborating with another fresh team, Regenerate Southern Willamette Valley (SoWillVall) to start bioregional work in our area, with the hopes of getting a Central Willamette Valley team off the ground in the near future.
As a group, we decided, using sociocratic governance, to focus first on creating a directory of regenerative projects centered around grassroots groups and cooperatives aligned with values of ecological harmony, food sovereignty, communal knowledge, mutual aid, thoughtful reuse, radical abundance, and restorative justice. While we are still prototyping our website, you can check out what we have so far here.
Sociocratic Circles
Right now, we have a general circle, an events circle (which just recently decided to join forces with the bioregional tour team from SoWillVall), and a website circle. There is some discussion about forming a grants circle in the near future.
We have about 10 people on our team who come in and out of these circles, and we rotate facilitation. We’re all learning how to lead and share decision-making responsibilities. Presently, none of us are getting paid for this work, but we hope to build capacity for that over time.
Collaboration with SoWillVall
We have a liaison who attends SoWillVall meetings so we can maintain coherence with them as we continue to plan. There are murmurs of holding an ecoregional organizers convergence at Lost Valley in June where we can continue to deepen these relationships.
Several people from RNWV also recently attended a social forestry camp at Lost Valley, which helped us share and deepen our skills for regenerating the forests here in the Willamette Valley.
We Have Officially Adopted a Section of Stephen’s Creek!
As of March 6th, we have a permit from ODOT in hand to take out invasive species, do native planting, and do trash cleanup underneath the Terwilliger Blvd on-ramp on I-5 (exit 297). This is an enormous area that is home to an active beaver, and we are thrilled to have our own land-based project to come back to tend. We’ve really found it so important to have our own way to get our hands in the soil as so much of this work is intangible as we weave relationships and organizations.
We plan to have work parties to tend the land and teach the neighbors in the area somatic forestry practices near the equinoxes and solstices. Our first land-tending party is on March 22nd from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Westside Watersheds has helped tremendously in helping us get started, and they are providing access to wholesale prices with native plant nurseries and co-ops. They are also allowing us to borrow tools. To help fund this work, we have applied to the Portland Native Plant Certificate, which would give us $500 for native plants, and we are looking into the Portland Parks Foundation grant ($2,000) and a Portland Clean Energy Fund mini grant ($5,000). Those deadlines are coming up fast, but we are feeling optimistic.
Coordination with Regenerate Cascadia
While we are still an autonomous, grassroots group, we look forward to future collaborations with Regenerate Cascadia, especially looking toward their Landscape Group and Landscape Hub cultivator process. We know that we are stronger together than alone and hope to strengthen and deepen trust over time so we can all do this 500-year work.
A few of our members and many people from SoWillVall will be joining the upcoming Learning Journey, “How to Organize Your Bioregion,” along with more than 90 Cascadians.
Start organizing your own landscape team today!