From Islands of Coherence to Archipelagos of Coherence

Discussion

Natasha Hulst:

"The islands ... They don’t need to become one organisation. Their autonomy and diversity matter. A regenerative farm doesn’t need to merge with an energy cooperative or a food hub.

But they can become economically connected.

A farmer gains a stable regional customer. An energy cooperative supplies local businesses. A shared facility lowers costs for several enterprises. A land commons gives initiatives long-term access to land. Local savings finance local productive assets.

One relationship makes another possible.

This is what I mean by moving from islands of coherence to archipelagos of coherence: distinct initiatives connected through relationships that allow resources, knowledge and value to circulate between them.

At some point a collection of alternatives begins to function more like an ecosystem. And perhaps that is also the beginning of a bioregional economy.

* A different way of seeing the economy

Underneath this sits a shift in worldview.

Our economy teaches us to see separate things: firms, assets, land parcels, consumers, investments and projects. Living systems thinking starts with relationships.

A farm exists through soil, water, biodiversity, knowledge, labour, infrastructure, farmers, eaters, neighbouring land and finance. The same is true of a region. Bioregionalism puts the actual place back into the picture: its landscape, water, ecology, productive capacity, history and communities.

Portfolio weaving can help us see the relationships. Commons can give some of them more durable institutional forms. Finance can support the forms of provisioning a place needs.

And stronger regional economies can allow more of the value created there to circulate locally rather than immediately leaving again.

* The dandelion strategy

None of this starts from zero.

It is already happening in Cilento, on the Veluwe, across the Living Delta, Colina and in thousands of other places.

Joe Brewer uses the image of the dandelion strategy: not one movement spreading from a centre, but many places taking root, adapting to their own circumstances, learning, connecting and sending out seeds.

The task isn’t to make them identical. It is to strengthen the relationships between them."

(https://natashahulst.substack.com/p/from-islands-of-coherence-to-archipelagos?)