Read on for a summary of this Update-watch the video for all the details and nuance!!!
Cascadia Cohort for the Learning Journey with The Design School for Regenerating Earth!
Starts March 18th-join us!
Andra Vltavín has joined Regenerate Cascadia Cohort Coordinator for the Cascadia Cohort of the Learning Journey! Andra is here to connect with Cascadia Learning Journey participants and to help our cohort coalesce, connect, and learn together through the 6-month Learning Journey.
The Learning Journey called How to Organize your Bioregion starts March 18th. For details and to register for the Learning Journey go here.
Regenerate Cascadia is offering scholarships for this purpose, so it is as accessible as possible. If you are interested in a scholarship, go to regeneratecascadia.org/2025/Cascadia cohort and see the registration options. The cost is $50/year to fund the cost of the Learning Journey and for those who can, $150/year who want to fund the cost of the Learning Journey and contribute to the cost of having a cohort coordinator. There is an option for $0/year and an option for $300/year to help support scholarships.
Check out the recording-Andra shares data, learning and challenges from the last Learning Journey (March 2024-September 2024) and about the folks signed up for the Learning Journey starting March 18th.
Currently 48 people in Cascadia are signed up! Of those who answered the survey, 73% are already working in their landscape and actively organizing!
In addition to the calls for the Learning Journey, we are planning to have a regional Cascadia cohort call once every 2 weeks. And, if you’re part of Regenerate Cascadia and just want to be part of the regional calls (and not join the Learning Journey), reach out to Andra at learningjourney@regeneratecascadia.org.
Lastly (for today)! we recognize that there is value and interest in gathering around topics, such as territorial governance, communal governance strategies or sociocracies as examples. For topic focused connections and learning we will form Guilds. Stay tuned for more information on Guilds.
The Barichara Immersion!
Clare Attwell attended the landscape immersion in Barichara with Joe Brewer, Penny Heiple and their community! Clare says
“It was such a rich experience to go to Colombia, where Joe and Penny are based, meet not only the people that I’ve heard about for years Margarita, Tanya and Ceci, and a bunch of the other local Colombians that have been part of really helping to make things happen on the ground there and then to join with almost 40 other people from around the world to come and learn, it’s been an inspiration about what is possible. “
Regenerate Cascadia Cross-border Infrastructure.
Regenerate Cascadia exists in Canada and the United States-and of course, there are different laws for each country for establishing non-profits! And, of course, our land is a whole system, and national boundaries just don’t consider that.
We’ve had to set up a Canadian 501c.3 Department of Bioregion. This means there will be two back-end, separate organizations with a common front-end organization. We are figuring out processes and ways of being to be a unified organization with coherence at the front end. We will have a shared Board and meetings while meeting the legal requirements of both countries.
We have hired a Canadian Administrative Officer, Polly Orr, and a team of people in Canada has come together to support the setup.
Upcoming Regenerate Cascadia Programs
Clare and Brandon have spent a lot of time focusing on a coherent strategy to support the work of Regenerate Cascadia and the work in the landscapes. For a detailed overview of the current strategy (final details still in process) please see the video at minute mark 17:00.
Here Clare shares her screen with the visual and describes the current state.
In summary, Regenerate Cascadia has 3 main focus areas for 2025:
- The Learning Journey, How to Organize Your Bioregion, with a strong focus on the Cascadia cohort, in partnership with The Design School for Regenerating Earth
- Connected with the Learning Journey, the Landscape Hub Cultivator starts in June 2025 with a vision (as described by Clare in the video) to grow seed and landscape groups, and then to learn together how to flow funding into these communities.
- Cascadia Biofi Conference (see more below)
Cascadia Biofi Conference
One of the big events for Regenerate Cascadia is a Cascadia Biofi Conference, Biofi being short for bioregional finance. It is happening May 16th through 18th hosted at the Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle. You can stay connected to information here.
The focus of this event is key to our work and as important, the location deeply supports the values for which we are working. Per Brandon:
“We chose this location because it’s a powerful statement for looking at what urban regeneration and bioregional watershed regeneration can look like. Quite often this gets lumped into a rural kind of idealistic land-backed process, and the Georgetown Steam Plant is located in the Duwamish River Valley in South Seattle, which we actually feel is a very powerful place to address some of the core issues regarding regeneration.
This includes the fact that the Duwamish River Valley is the home of the Duwamish people who Seattle’s named for, but are still not federally recognized. In addition, their home is a superfund site. The Duwamish River was straightened, the soil is toxic, and there’s a history of redlining that has led to heavy industry being located there. It’s the home of a heavy industry in Seattle, including a cement factory, Boeing field as well as the port. Because of that, there’s an intersection between city, county and Federal governments and funding that’s flowing in that we want to use to showcase work that’s happening and then open it up to a broader conversation around bioregional finance.”
We are inviting leaders at the edges of finance, circular economy, land regeneration, Indigenous rematriation, community art, technology and participatory governance to join us for these conversations. And it’s going to be our 1st publicly facing event around bioregional finance and we are working with a coalition of more than 30 organizations, presenters and people for the event!
What to do for the recent inauguration (you know the one)?
Have a Sticker Party!
We held a Sticker Party at our offices at the 9Zero Climate Innovation Hub in downtown Seattle. We celebrated the inauguration by giving out free Cascadia sticker bundles. In less than 10 hours, more than 2,000 people signed up for Cascadia stickers! We had a great crew of people stuffing envelopes and getting them ready to be mailed out. Lots of the bioregional maps and spokes and field guides and more were given out! It was a really fun public community event.
We are mailing out more than 24,000 stickers. And that’s really cool.
Brandon invited to the Tikal Convergence in Guatemala
Brandon was invited by Douglas Tolchin, who runs Sanctuary Earth, to the Tikal Convergence in Guatemala, invited by Douglas Tolchin. Sanctuary Earth is doing a lot of bioregional mapping with different First Nations and bioregions around the world. They see the idea of bioregions as a way to get people active around restoring biodiversity and biomass back to pre-contact levels as soon as possible. This gathering brought together representatives and Wisdom Keepers from Central North and South America, Japan, Bali from the North Sea Bio-region, and other places. It brought people together for a week of ceremony, but also exploring the convergence between bioregions and Indigenous Nations and exploring how we’re aligning and building global alliances.
It was hosted by a Maya Bioregion organizing team in cooperation with Kakao Earth to proclaim the launch of a Maya bioregion!
Brandon made great connections, including some local Salish Sea connections from the Lummi Nation and direct descendants of Chief Seattle.
Brandon offers a lot more interesting detail in the video recording-check it out!
Stay connected!
- Check out our main blog at regeneratecascadia.org
- Find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X using Regenerate Cascadia.
- You can join our Hylo Regenerate Cascadia or on YouTube as the Department of Bioregion.
