I guess it’s more of a cautionary question than anything. I have some patches and stickers on stuff because I always felt cascadia had a “left” and inclusive vibe. If that’s the general consensus then all’s well, I just want to avoid any heavy right leaning meaning that I’m not aware of
Hi Cascadia,
I want to, respectfully, float the argument that the Northern California region is part of a North/Central California based bioregion (Pacifica?) as opposed to Cascadia's bioregion. I know this will immediately rub some people the wrong way :( but I'm hoping to hear your thoughts. There definitely is one bioregional interpretation, in particular, that has been used as a symbol of the movement, to the extent that the shape has become pretty iconic (merchandise, etc..), and the borders of this to many are fairly immutable. However, I wanted to look at what a neighboring bioregion for California might be like, and my own conculsion was that to form consistent criteria it raises the question of this part of Cascadia's claim (long read ahead, sorry!)
Cascadia Bioregion As shown above, the most popular Cascadia interpretation ends up stretching pretty far into California's current borders, especially to capture the rural coast redwood ranges and to stop right before the Bay Area. Taken from the picture the justification for this extent is that Cascadia should have a claim to all coastline where rivers run out to the Pacific through temperate rainforest. My first thought is that California might have a fair claim to coastal elements as well, so what would those be like?
- One thing to note is that bioregionalism does factor in political and cultural elements (by the Wikipedia definition). In that case why does the coastline drop off right at the Bay Area and (if you looked north) right before Anchorage, despite temperate rainforest existing further along Alaska and the San Francisco peninsula (esp pre development)? In effect it assumes the sort of influence from both of these areas has near zero impact. It seems like a pretty unilateral claim on the side of Cascadia. My hunch is that this fits too neatly into the existing desire for some Cascadians not to include these cities rather than purely bioregional reasons.
Something like culture is fairly subjective though, and even places that are close together can be quite different (districts in the same city sometimes even). A lot of times culture may start to veer too much into 'likeability'. But its too short term to have something like Detroit have a small bioregion just because other parts or Michigan might not get along with it... The social side of the def
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I took a road trip recently through southern Idaho on my way back to the west coast. I was struck by how dry and flat the place was. I've spent a lot of time recently learning the indigenous tree species west of the mountains, such that I can identify the most common ones speeding past on the freeway. I saw none of those trees. Indeed, I saw very few trees at all.
And yet, this place is considered to be in the same "bioregion" as wet landscapes dominated by moss-covered big leaf maples and Douglas firs, such as Vancouver Island and the Puget Sound area.
Now, I know they're in the same watershed--southern Idaho is drained by the Snake which flows into the Columbia, but that seems to be the only connection between these places derived from nature. They seem otherwise to be a completely different climates and ecosystems.
It's an honest question. I'm not trying to exclude anyone or put too much stock into lines someone drew on a map. I'm just trying to understand this bioregionalism concept. Is there something about all of the land we think of as "Cascadia" that ties it together? Why are rainforests and shrubland in the same bioregion when they are not the same biome?
I recently posted a poll here to see how many of you are familiar with bioregionalism and I must say that I'm very surprised at the results. A movement like this could only hope for long-term success were it implemented with a bioregionalist methodology. So, I am going to attempt to explain why.
First, an explanation of the concept. Here's a good summary:
>The theory is that a bioregion’s environmental components (geography, climate, plant life, animal life, etc.) directly influence ways for human communities to act and interact with each other which are, in turn, optimal for those communities to thrive in their environment. As such, those ways to thrive in their totality - be they economic, cultural, spiritual, or political - will be distinctive in some capacity as being a product of their bioregional environment. This creates a distinct ethos for the society, or societies, that inhabit a given bioregion. Therefore, there will be some level of fundamental coherence in ethos between communities within a given bioregion and, simultaneously, some level of fundamental differentiation between the essential and natural identities of societies in different bioregional environments.
>
>That’s a fancy way of saying a society in one distinguishable place will be different from a society in another distinguishable place in some elemental fashion, and it will be due to the environmental components of those places themselves. Place shapes identity.
In a sense, a bioregion is an ecoregion which also includes the human element. A bioregion's boundaries are determined by how the human occupants interact with their environment. It is a holistic approach which acknowledges that humans are not separate from nature but rather closely interconnected with and reliant upon it.
Perhaps you are beginning to see how bioregionalism is relevant to the PanAmerican movement. The bioregionalist approach to geopolitical and economic boundaries informs us that we must consider how the residents of a particular area use the natural resources of that area. If we draw dividing lines between a people and their resources then we inevitably build oppression and conflict into that system because they will then have to negotiate those boundaries in order to access the resources they need. On the other han
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