Waterlogged boundaries, the case for bioregionalism, and its unfortunate demise

A bad idea, Grouse mountain, British Columbia, Summer 2021

If you’ve ever been in the Pacific Northwest, you've seen the local “uniform.” Amongst the water-resistant (nothing is water proof!) carhartt pants, flat-billed trucker hats, and the colourful spectrum of flannels, there is a waterproof jacket in the armoury. This jacket must have a hood so that you do not need an umbrella, a sin that only a tourist could make.

A worse idea, Squamish mountain, British Columbia, Spring 2022

The jacket is necessary, as in the wet winter months, any person caught on the scenic trails of Squamish would think that Noah’s flood was upon him, that the sun would never reappear, and that rain has so consumed reality that the conception of the world can only be found within a cloudy mist covering a canopy of pine trees. The water cycle of the PNW calls for the jacket.

In contrast, in a place like the Central Valley, any clothes would require taking into account the overhead sun and the dust. Therein lies the sans irony donning of cowboy hats and boots respectively (Read more about western apparel here). Continue further east on the Interstate 70 through the plains, and you will find the habit of tucking long sleeve shirts into pants, which are then tucked into socks, a necessity in the tick laden bushes of Appalachia. (A study from Nebraska Medicine about increased tick populations).

These outfits make sense where they are located, as culture reflects the ecosystem, hydrological and biological, of the region where people live. This understanding is one key tenet of bioregionalism. Bioregionalism (defined by one non-profit here) is a philosophy that political systems should reflect naturally definable, localistic regions rather than artificial political boundaries. (Read more about this philosophy as taught by a Bay area theatre here). These areas, known as bioregions, can instead be drawn by the natural lines drawn by watershed boundaries, topography, as well as the socio-cultural human histories of the area.

10% water capacity, Lake Hensley, California, 2025

Bioregionalists seek several core goals; including matching political boundaries with the aforementioned bioregions, prioritizing the usage of local resources and materials, and building regional sustainability and supply chains rather than globally. This local focus benefits the making of policy that is suited to local ecological needs, rather than the difficulty of federal or state systems that cannot consider all local conditions and ecosystems. (Read more about federal funding to rural water systems here)

Current political divisions force rural and urban communities into statewide policy frameworks that, through competing interests and compromise, can poorly fit either. Agricultural water use in arid basins is legislated alongside, and often in, coastal zones where the flow of rivers can power 98% of electrical grids (read more about BC Hydro here). Or consider the current issue of the banning or restriction of gasoline vehicles being impractical in rural regions that remain dependent on generators and offgrid vehicles (read more here).

Currently, the rural-urban divide is often framed within a structural power antagonism, where the cosmopolitan elites intrude on the traditional rural communities with their vastly greater urban resources. Geography sharpens these perceived differences. These urban elites live elsewhere from rural denizens, often in ecosystems vastly different. Consider the common epithet, “coastal elite.” (Read more about water disagreements between the rural and the urban here and here).

As the reasoning goes, how could someone in the the Bay understand the water struggles of the central valley? A bioregionalist approach would instead link governance between metropolitan and rural communities wherever and whenever they are linked by watersheds and water cycles requiring literal downstream cooperation.

Of course, bioregionalism is not without flaws. Even on this brief inventory of bioregions, readers will see issues with assuming histories and shared interests in fluid boundaries that are anachronistic, ambiguous, and would be contentious and complex to draw. Land-based identity idealizes lives that are pre-urbanization, occasionally even pre-industrialization, and is often isolationist and exclusionary of change as a result.

In a globalized economy, high technology requires supply chains that cannot be localized efficiently, or at all. Anything that would require national coordination (national defense, macroeconomic policy, large scale infrastructure projects) would be difficult if not impossible under bioregional governance. Of course, there is also the potential of extreme inequality between natural resource-rich and resource-poor regions. Without national redistribution and the needs of national and global economy, spatial inequality would be but guaranteed.

I finish with a point about Cascadia, the former bioregionalist movement stronghold within the PNW that spanned between Juneau, Alaska to San Francisco. Prior to the 47th American president, most money spent within Cascadia, (defined here, as in my heart, as Oregon, Washington, British Columbia), remained within Cascadia. Now with rising tensions between the United States and Canada, this seemingly unbreakable cross-border relationship is strained by the general boycott of American goods by Canadians (read more). Alas, the Cascadian identity, nascent if it ever truly existed, has yielded to national lines for now.

Superbloom, California, 2017