Page 6 RAIN February/March 1983 created by travel, and is the necessity of sustaining or restoring these places a consideration? Tourism has a long history, started originally as pilgrimages to religious shrines. But today people are encouraged by things like hotel culture, television culture, MacDonald's culture. To see all places as the same, and therefore as no place at all, requires no sense of responsibility for restoring or sustaining those places. We are in danger of losing the value of local regions because of the practices of late industrial culture — not just capitalist societies, but Socialist as well, as evidenced by the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, or suppression of ethnic cultures in the southern region of the Soviet Union. The late industrial drive is for some universal goal. The problem is, diversity gives way to homogeneity, and without individual liberty and creativity, and a relation to nature, then you have losses at such a universal level that you get losses you can't cope with — poisoning of the biosphere, DDT in the water supply. The problems are universal, but the solutions have to be local. RAIN: As the breakdown of nations takes place what can we envision as methods of conflict resolution? DRUM: Suppose it were a right-winger asking that question, they would mean would you have less trouble with left wingers, or if it were a left winger, they would be asking whether or not you'd have more trouble with right-wingers. What we, at Planet Drum, went through in making a stand over this issue was that we were more inclined to suffer the consequences of local people struggling over differences, instead of having them thrown into the late industrial escalator that roughly goes "if Carter saves Alaska, Reagan gives it away." And that's the thrust of fate industrial politics, not just the personal politics of a Carter or a Reagan. Neither of them have a bioregional or biospheric perspective, the perspective we need now, and which is going to come from the grassroots, not from late industrial politicians. We have to recognize our connection to the bio-sphere. There can be no conflict resolution without that, and we need to have a deeper relation to the bioregion we live in, establishing a stronger local cultural identity. More demands are going to be made on bio-regions. People are going to see that more clearly in the coming years. We, at Planet Drum, relate to the Northern California bioregion and can see the critical issues of that region, especially water and soil. Our connection from here to the rest of the world starts with being a part of the North Pacific Rim, as our part of the continent, and in that way we are uniquely related to Asia. Our relationships to one another change as we build up our forms of governance and conflict resolution from watersheds and bioregions. DQ Bioregional Activities Last year, in recognition of the growth of the bioregional movement. Planet Drum brought onto its staff Sheila Rose Purcell, to respond to the increasing correspondence, and to provide some initial support for fledgling bioregional groups. Listening to Sheila describe the number and variety of groups, it is evident that the movement is underway, even if still somewhat scattered. Many of the groups have just started, met once or twice, or might be attempting to draw up some tvpe of bioregional platform or policy. In some cases, the groups are well-established grassroots organizations which have more recently taken on a bioregional perspective. A food cooperative group, for example, in Tucson, Arizona, which publishes a newsletter, has strayed away from food issues into water, energy, and environmental issues, and now subtitles their newsletter a Journal of the Southeast Desert. In New Mexico, the Mogollon Highlands Watershed Association sponsors monthly meetings, and recently participated in the development of a barter fair in their area. Reinhabiting New Jersey is a bioregional group whose attention is focused on educating state government decision makers about bioregional perspectives. The Wyoming Citizen's Alliance was founded over a year ago to bring together energy, environment, and other movement groups to initiate a plan of action for their region. The Pend' Oreille Center for Appropriate Technology in Newport, Washington, is an example of an appropriate technology/alternative energy group which has recently adopted a bioregional stance as a more effective way to resolve local resource management issues. The groups do not all share a common methodology for working toward a bio-regional-based culture. There is none. The movement is too young. In many cases, however, the formation of groups follows the track set out by one of the most well-established groups, the Ozark Community Congress. In a recent issue of Raise the Stakes, one of the Congress's founders, David Henki spells out a process for starting a bioregional group. The process is generic to most cases: locate" interested people, uncover the basic state of anv bioregional planning information, and announce a meeting for people to attend, making that meeting a work party to ratify some basic operahng goals for bioregional development in the chosen region. □ □
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