by Robert L. Thayer, Jr., University of California Press, 2003

reviewed by Larry Caswell

An important piece of the puzzle concerning how we can live sustainably in this world is the growing body of thought and practice of bioregionalism. Robert L. Thayer, Jr. is one of the leading proponents of bioregionalism. Thayer is Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Environmental Design at the University of California at Davis.

As humankind rushes into the twenty first century and its attendant growing trends of globalism, high energy prices, environmental degradation, and regional conflicts, we find ourselves increasingly in the situation of the homeless. We have a general understanding that we are citizens of the world, but at the same time this realization has not allowed us to develop a satisfactory means of living in the world. We consume food grown thousands of miles from our homes, buy products produced on the opposite sides of the earth, obtain internet information which comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We are increasingly mobile, frequently relocating our homes to take advantage of the latest job offer. Our sense of place is very superficial-our homes and workplaces are temporary resting spots in man-made environments that have little grounding to the natural regions in which they have been located. And therein lies the problem. This way of living has left us largely unaware of what it takes to live responsibly in this world. We are unaware of the costs of our consumption patterns to other regions and peoples and disconnected from the negative effects of the global economy on the regions in which we live.

In response to this situation, Robert Thayer documents and explains the growing movement towards what he calls "relocalization" which is occurring in our country. Bioregion literally means "life place," and bioregionalism involves people living deeply in unique regions defined by natural rather than political boundaries, "boundaries with a geographic, climatic, hydrological, and ecological character capable of supporting unique human and nonhuman living communities." A bioregion can be defined by the geography of watersheds, specific plant and animal ecosystems, landforms such as mountains or prairies, by unique human cultures which grow naturally from a given region, and most commonly from a combination of the above factors. Thayer contends that the bioregion provides a logical place of humanly understandable scale for the development of sustainable and regenerative communities. He uses the Putah-Cache Creek watersheds in California's Sacramento Valley, the bioregion in which he resides, as the case study to illustrate the principles of bioregionalism explained in this book.

There are many aspects to living actively in one's bioregion. Thayer devotes detailed attention to each of them in his book. One very important requirement is that we must pay close attention to the nature of the landscape: its watercourses, forested areas, wildlife corridors, wild areas, and valuable agricultural lands. On page 185, Thayer states that "---our human network must be more delicately interwoven with the network of water and habitat upon which our companion species ultimately depend." The integrity of these special places, including agricultural lands, must be preserved, and in doing so the economic sustainability as well as quality of life in the bioregion will be enhanced.

A second aspect is grassroots planning and democracy. It is of utmost importance to include all stakeholders in the process of working out viable living patterns within the bioregion. Conflict-based special interest politics must give way to cooperative consensus building. Thayer gives inspiring examples of how residents of his bioregion have worked out solutions to problems, solutions that produce no losers, and only winners.

A third important aspect is cultural. Each bioregion will have its own natural and human history. The residents of a bioregion must celebrate the uniqueness of their history through celebrations, art, education, architecture, and endemic approaches to the problems of community life.

A fourth aspect of bioregionalism is economics. A bioregion should strive towards as much self-sufficiency as possible in food production, energy production, and other goods and services when practicable. This economic pattern will help us understand the relationship between our life style and the ability of the natural environment to support it over the long term, while reducing our dependence on increasingly scarce oil.

Robert Thayer covers these aspects of bioregional thought and others in his book. An aspect of particular value to those interested in developing sustainable ways of living is his chapter, "Building: Making Bioregions Work". In this chapter he offers 24 prescriptions or patterns to use as guidelines for building a sustainable life in his Sacramento Valley bioregion. These patterns could be easily borrowed and adapted to fit any bioregion. He mentions eight patterns that will promote biodiversity within a region. Here are two examples: "Protect what remains of natural river, stream, and slough corridors, and enhance their capacity to provide habitat for biodiversity, species mobility, water quality, erosion control, flood control, and amenity values for both private landowners and the public." And also: "Restore the representative ecosystems endemic to the Sacramento Valley life place, and give the public access to a portion of each restored ecosystem."

Eight patterns prescribe ways to preserve and enhance the agricultural lands of a bioregion. Three examples follow: "Identify and preserve in perpetuity the best farmlands in the valley, and mitigate the loss of agricultural land by preserving a great deal more of it than is developed."

Second: "Consider the life-place as a foodshed, and support local consumption of locally produced foods." And a third pattern: "Find ways to pay farmers for the ecological, cultural, and stewardship services they provide."

Thayer also presents eight patterns or prescriptions for developing regenerative communities and infrastructure within a bioregion. One example: "Grow cities and towns inward and upward, not outward." Another pattern: "Redesign aging shopping centers as dense, vertically integrated, mixed-land-use centers containing commercial shops, offices, recreation, civic amenities, residential apartments, and townhouses." A pattern for developing infrastructure: "Provide multimodal bus-bicycle-rail transit, using fees extracted from the 'real' costs of automobile sprawl." One of his patterns for water use: "Reuse water in as many different ways, in as many different land uses, and at as many different scales as possible." In the area of regional energy self-sufficiency: "Generate a significant portion of the region's power needs by capturing and converting sunlight via photovoltaic arrays integrated with structures and built surfaces."

Robert Thayer contends that humans are already accustomed and fairly adept at working in a bioregional context, even though they may not be aware of the fact. As a result, "the process of life-place realization is one of relatively minute adjustments in the organized ways we intervene on the land to restore our bioregions and make them work, coupled with a gradual, evolutionary adjustment in mind-set totally within the possible range of cultural adaptation."

I highly recommend this book. It is full of valuable information concerning sustainable and quality living by becoming grounded within one's life-place or bioregion.