Organizing a Bioregional Congress

by David Haenke

This piece was originally published in Home! A Bioregional Reader, edited by Van Andruss, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor Wright, New Society Publishers, copyright 1990.

Step One: DEFINE THE BIOREGION

In defining the region there are two main questions that you’ll need to ask:

1. What is your effective organizing area?

Bioregional boundaries are never “hard.” There is no bioregional map of North America or the world, but the closest thing available is the World Biogeographical Provinces Map by Miklos Udvardy and Ted Oberlander (available from Coevolution Quarterly). These provinces are huge, containing a number of bioregions which are not delineated. Many people use watersheds as ultimate definers, and if your group identifies strongly with a particular watershed, hydrologic survey maps may help you determine borders. Others feel that landforms, vegetation or other factors are the more significant determinants. Sit down with your core group, consult available hydrological, topographical, relief maps, etc., and discuss your feelings about the area you identify with.

Some natural bioregions are enormous, like the Great Plains or the Great Lakes drainage basin which covers much of seven states and part of Canada. A Great Lakes Bioregional Congress can bring together the essential energies of the vast area, then generate watershed organizing within the boundaries. The KAW (Kansas Area Watershed) Council organized a large watershed lying within the Great Plains bioregion. A smaller area offers the advantage of easier communications, familiarity with what is there, probability of a tighter organization, and a smaller number of participants. Organizing the entire Great Lakes Basin, however, can bring together more people, greater diversity, and can seed organizing in sub-bioregions for those who feel a need for more decentralization or a more local approach.

2. What and where are your resources and potential participants?

The concentration of potential congress attendees located in a particular area, sub-bioregion or watershed may be a natural factor of definition. Checking out the individuals and organizations representing sustainability may create an outline of the region you want to organize—bioregion, watershed, or even state. In the case of New York State, for example, the New York Congress on Sustainability was organized.

Step Two: FORM A CONGRESS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Ten people can organize and coordinate a congress. More may or may not be helpful. It is possible with fewer. To minimize concerns about concentrations of power in the organizing group, it can be stated in the invitation that the self-appointed authority of the convening group ends when the congress first assembles unless the congress chooses to affirm it.

Step Three: IDENTIFY THE REPRESENTATIVES YOU ARE GOING TO INVITE FROM WITHIN THE REGION

A congress needs some a priori level of consciousness and knowledge to exist among its participants, since it is a working body of fully participating equals, so common sense concerning invitations to appropriate individuals and organizations with fundamental roots in ecological awareness should be exercised. Ecological consciousness brings the same amazing, self-organizing quality to political gatherings as it does to ecosystems in nature. Suggested areas of sustainability from which to invite representatives include: feminists and green politics organizations, renewable resources, cooperative economics, safe energy, appropriate technology, permaculture/organic agriculture, sustainable forestry, agro-ecology, environmental/ecological groups, land trusts, conservation groups, environmentally-aware holistic health, education, media, arts, peace and social justice groups, ecologically-aware clergy and religious people, recycling groups, ecodefense, native people and people of color, environmentally-aware land-based people.

Step Four: INVITATION/PRE-REGISTRATIONS

Clearly set out the nature, philosophy, intent, logistics and purpose of the congress. List the organizations you are inviting, and highlight confirmations if you can get them in time. Even better, list sponsoring organizations if you are able. Make it plain this is a congress not a conference—a congress being a fully participatory event, not a conference where one sits and listens to speakers, workshop leaders and other entertainers. An effective attendance number is around 150 to 200. To get that many, approximately 1,500 to 2,000 forms should be sent at least three months before the event for 10% attendance.

Step Five: CONVENE THE CONGRESS

Suggestions on the nature of the event, which should be included in the invitation:

1. For a first congress, a four-day event (starting on Friday, ending on a holiday Monday afternoon is good, minimizing time off work). Two-day weekends are not long enough. Ideally, seven days should be allotted, but it is unlikely people will commit to that for a first congress.
2. Keep the costs low. Outdoor sites in beautiful places can be free or inexpensive. Church groups often rent retreat facilities. Serve simple nourishing foods from big pots, prepared on site by participants. As much as possible, use locally grown/processed organic foods. Try to charge a bit more than the expense to give a starting fund for the next congress.
3. At the first plenary of the Congress, agree on consensus procedures and whether or how to step out of consensus. Beforehand, invite an experienced consensus facilitator to the congress, and if consensus procedures are (hopefully) adopted, have her/him available to serve.
4. Plenary or full-group meeting time is important, as is committee or small group time. Plenary sessions are for making important announcements and presentations to the full group, with presentation time limited to 15 or 20 minutes maximum, and for the group to make decisions and condense, modify or reject proposals and resolutions brought by committees and individuals. In plenary a congress empowers itself, decides its future, adopts its founding principles and intentions. In committee, the productive heart of a congress, interested and informed smaller groups hammer out the nuts and bolts of issues for a swifter, clarified presentation to the larger whole. Suggestions for titles of committees can start with the categories used as bases for sending out invitations. Participants can suggest others, committees can merge, split or evaporate according to the energy and interest present. One things is certain: committees are the productive heart of the congress!
5. Don’t over-schedule. Leave time for fun, walks, conversations and lightness. Emphasize participation among equals over events like workshops where a presenter/audience relationship exits. Workshops are important, but must not use up prime time priority.
6. Entertain yourselves; talent among your participants is more fun and less expensive than imported luminaries. The congress as a whole should include only full participants—equals. This pertains to media as well.

Step Six: CONTINUE THE CONGRESS AS AN ON-GOING BODY

If the event has been strong and inspiring, the plenary is most likely to come to basic agreements and will wish to continue to build on them. This will entail further convening, and decisions about frequency and dates and interim work must be made. One way to select a coordinating committee is to have each working committee choose a contact person and general focalizer who helps to maintain communication on activities the committee has chosen (if any) and agrees to come to, say, three planning meetings during the interim period before the next congress. Another is to allow a steering council with no numerical limit to self-select if they will commit to attend interim meetings and carry out the directives of the plenary. Emphasize sustained effort at comfortable levels to avoid burnout. The work is deep and vital, but it must be fun and non-stressful to be sustained.

(From North American Bioregional Congress II Proceedings, 1986.)

David Haenke (b. 1945) is a forester and author who was a leader in the early development of bioregionalism. He conceptualized the Ozark Area Community Congress in 1977 at New Life Farm, started the Bioregional Project in 1982, and coordinated the first North American Bioregional Congress in 1984. He’s studied and worked in ecological forestry since the mid-1980s. Currently, he is the Forest Manager of the Alford Forest in northern Ozark County, Missouri.