🔘 Governance Bodies
Activities
Community-Led Governance
To counter government contracts for commercial fishing that risked overuse, habitat harm, and displacement, TBS helped communities create the River Arvari Sansad (River Arvari Parliament) in 1998. The body drew gram sabhas from 72 villages along the river. With more than 140 members, the Parliament challenged those contracts through public-interest litigation until the Supreme Court canceled them—asserting community rights to water and land over company concessions. It sets rules for the river, banks, and catchment; for crops, fishing, grazing, borewells, and thirsty crops such as sugarcane—embodying local stewardship of shared resources. The twin villages of Bhaonta–Koylala, leaders in Arvari’s revival, received the first Down to Earth Joseph C. John award for an environmental community from President K.R. Narayanan on 28 March 2000. Similar models are spreading along rivers such as Chambal and Dholpur.
Sustainable Southeast Partnership
The Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP)—a Spruce Root and Sealaska program—works as a regional collective-impact network. It supports collaborative, community-led responses to linked social, ecological, and economic challenges, guided by Indigenous values. Individuals, Tribal governments, Native corporations, nonprofits, agencies, businesses, and others can take part. Village-level hosts appoint community catalysts who assess energy, food, natural resources, and economic sustainability, then surface projects—from food security and energy to habitat restoration—and pair with regional catalysts on design, implementation, and tracking. Regional catalysts also shape policy, help build cooperatives and mutual support, and run workshops to grow capacity. In practice, SSP is bioregional governance: place-rooted, accountable to communities, and woven from village to region.
Local Government Incubator (INCAT)
Last year they opened an incubator for local governments—after many incubators for co-ops and nonprofits. Seven municipalities joined, all led by women—some in government, some in opposition—united in wanting a paradigm shift. Seven of twenty-one is a notable push; INCAT projects were striking in scope.
Beuda Democratic Innovation Project
They began seven years ago in Beuda, one of the smallest towns in La Garrotxa. Oscar says starting from the edge made sense: “It would be really difficult for us to start in the center because you know ruralities can be quite resistant to change behaviors sometimes.” Several municipalities were shifting away from long-serving “constructing mayors”—older men, often from construction—who had grown towns through housing for decades; some residents decided there were enough houses and voted differently. In Beuda they built relationships with residents pushing for change. Results have been striking: early terms brought sociocratic town elections that lasted six years and matured into circles for culture, environment, and more; government grew more open. In the latest term, the governing team stepped back; council members formed a new group and ran for office. Representatives now sit at council tables themselves—government and council partly fused. The town has inspired others. Since then, 14 of La Garrotxa’s 21 municipalities have experimented—some heavier on education, most on government, each in its own way.
Hubs and Guilds Development Program
This is a structured capacity system—nested support from local landscapes to the full bioregion. It sets up landscape hubs that convene diverse actors—land trusts, solar installers, housing developers—to shape shared landscape visions with real budgets. Hubs cover defined areas and help administer bioregional regeneration funds. Guilds—communities of practice on topics landscape leaders need—produce classes, resources, and directories. An ambassador network orients newcomers to Cascadia, bioregionalism, mapping, and why those frames matter.
ReGenerOsa Women's Governance Circle
ReGenerOsa is guided by what it calls the Council of Eight—a circle of eight long-serving local women leaders, including Indigenous, campesina, and Afro–Costa Rican elders—who set direction and keep activities accountable to place-based wisdom. Hazel, who works with the Seto Territorial Council, sits on the Council of Eight. The circle decides project priorities, how funds are allocated, and partnership terms. The collective comprises the women’s council, community weavers, donors, and ambassadors. Strengthening the structure calls for facilitation training, administrative support, and stipends for participation. The model is also meant as a prototype for other communities, showing how regenerative finance and land stewardship can be held collectively and ethically outside top-down NGO patterns.
Nila Vena Sustainability Forum
For roughly three years, representatives of all six tribes have met through the Nila Vena Sustainability Forum, using a council format akin to their regional health board—one appointed delegate per tribe. That familiar structure has supported dialogue on cultural revitalisation, clean energy, and regenerative economy.
River Guardians
That differentiated engagement helped turn a loose stakeholder map into a network of River Guardians—people and organisations willing to act as bioregional stewards. Cross-pollination sessions convene varied actors to compare stories, test shared identity, and build the relationships that precede joint projects.
Multi-Stakeholder Forest Governance
In Jembrana, KEM supported Sabha Wana Kerthi, a multi-stakeholder forest forum chaired from the regional planning agency and joined by forestry and environment offices, the forest management unit (KPH), farmer groups (KTH), and firms such as Palapa (nutmeg) and Conservana Spices (vanilla, coffee, cacao). The body coordinates stewardship, benefit-sharing, and on-the-ground practice with policy.
Guild System Development
Through the BioFi Cultivator programme, HERE began convening guilds: networks of connectors and practitioners who name priority issues, commission studies, and steer funding. Four guilds are forming, each targeting at least about $1 million in community-directed capital—decisions kept close to the problem. Food tackles food-system priorities; Shelter addresses housing affordability and its overlap with climate vulnerability; Ecology coordinates forest health, invasives, deer, and rising fire risk in the Northeast; Culture holds a regenerative cultural thread so food, shelter, and ecology do not drift into silos.
DAO Design
Design work mapped stakeholders, translated customary decision-making into written protocols, tested tools (WhatsApp polls for low-friction votes; DAODAO training for on-chain transparency), and iterated charters for how proposals are built, voted, and executed. The first two tiers of a nested structure are live: - Stakeholder DAOs (organised groups such as ASOMEG and the Water Board) submit proposals and vote - Community DAO (Guayabillas DAO) allocates funds with representatives from each stakeholder group. - Upper tiers are scoped but not launched. Off-chain practice uses WhatsApp, assemblies, and paper or oral records where needed. On-chain, a DAODAO instance logs proposals, votes, and treasury moves; Carolina Davalos acts as a human oracle, posting community decisions so participants are not required to run wallets themselves. A Notion wiki holds governance records, training material, charters, planning tools, and spatial/MRV documentation.
Participatory Governance Development
Governance is described as a living braid of sociocratic practice and Indigenous decision-making—listening from many directions, elders and local communities in the weave, sociocratic circles with shared representation, and decentralized, transparent mechanisms for deciding and acting. The baseline is "recognition and reciprocity first." When council decisions land, communities need capacity to move; the aim is governance patient enough for real listening yet able to act quickly once alignment appears. Pasted image 20260218174155.png From Diamante-Barú Bioregional Consortium: Activating bioregional finance facilities rooted in Indigenous reciprocity, ecological stewardship, and self-governance.
Participatory Strategy Development
To move past only fighting emergencies, the community began a participatory strategy in 2021—spanning community, commune, region, and beyond, with an eye on water that reaches the sea: regeneration imagined from community to ocean. The aim is a ten-year-plus plan that aligns community priorities with regional institutions; maps who lives there and where to act; keeps students connected to territory; weaves internal networks for new leadership; resonates with other bioregions; and uses ecosystem thinking as its backbone. Beyond productivity-focused census categories, they built tools for household economy and composition, health, ecological knowledge, resource practices, culture and sport, and intent to stay in Mapuche territory. With Ministry of Science support and three ecological funds, they advance land-use mapping, endemic forest restoration, family finance renewal, and community-led implementation.
Multi-Stakeholder Governance
CEDPO’s governance is nested and statutory: a national rural-development mandate, university research capacity, an NGO fiscal backbone, and a territorial council (SETO) that mixes elected municipal and community seats—including Indigenous representation—so decisions stay accountable to place. Partners such as Regenerative Earth, INDER, PIOSA, and SETO each play a role, but the design point is co-stewardship under Law 9306: SETO meets monthly, steers the 2024–2030 territorial plan, and has moved roughly $4 million into regional priorities in recent years—including electricity for Indigenous communities that lacked grid access.
Cross-Border Indigenous Alliance Building
The alliance is a long-horizon effort to weave together Indigenous nations on both sides of the Ecuador–Peru border—more than 30 peoples and nationalities in a region where colonial borders have often split communities and territories. The point is not a one-off summit but sustained relationship-building: recurring Indigenous-led assemblies where people bring decisions home to their own authorities; ceremonies and protocols that set the tone before policy debate; and working sessions that can host technical and political questions—land, extraction, climate—without displacing local norms with outside timetables. Over time, that rhythm of meeting has helped groups with fraught histories see themselves as a single political and cultural force. Participants describe the shift as a “marriage between peoples,” drawing on traditional approaches to conflict resolution to move from rivalry toward shared strategy.
The Common Ground Forum
When the Association of Deer Management Groups first approached the Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest a few years ago, they saw potential for collaboration—something they called "the common ground." But decades of conflict between environmental groups and deer management interests had created a deep-seated lack of trust that made even conversation feel like a distant dream. They brought in the Centre for Good Relations, specialists in civic mediation. Through careful facilitation, people from all sides of upland deer management—environmental charities, government agencies, gamekeepers, private estate managers—began meeting and building relationships of trust. As the mediation process was ending, the people involved insisted they wanted to keep going, to continue the work they'd started together. In Autumn 2023, the Common Ground Forum was born. Today, the Forum has brought together more than 500 people across Scotland's upland deer management sector. They work together through respectful, constructive conversations to make better, more informed decisions about upland deer management. Last November, their work was recognized with the Innovation Award at the Nature of Scotland Awards—the first time such a diverse group of people had received this kind of recognition together. NatureScot has also recruited two new deer management roles in the rainforest.
Governance and Values
Acción Serrana operates through a four-tiered governance model that reflects the bioregion's nested social and ecological systems: 1. At the most local level, community-led watershed councils organize activities across more than five basins, representing different communities and landscapes. 2. These councils feed into an intergenerational advisory board composed of local organizations, ensuring that wisdom from elders and innovation from youth both inform decision-making. 3. This local structure is articulated through the national Foundation of Biospheric Activities, which provides administrative and legal infrastructure. 4. Finally, international sponsors including the Triangle Foundation, Global Forest Generation, and others provide financial and technical support. The governance model embodies Acción Serrana's core values: ecological integrity, cultural resilience, youth inclusion, and reciprocity with nature. As one leader explains, these values are "very basic but really guiding the heterogeneity and diversity of our groups in the different basins."
Circles of Activity
Work is organized around seven broad themes—Circles of Activity—treated as interconnected parts of one system. Each circle convenes cohorts with distinct roles: Conservation Authorities (the 13 authorities in the GTB, plus a municipal cohort) to advance a Portfolio of Projects for large-landscape regeneration, including food and water security; Business and Funding Leaders to help build the Bioregional Funding Ecosystem; Educators to help shape the Schools Community Network; and Healthcare Practitioners for the Wellbeing Path. Indigenous worldviews and knowledge are woven into each circle.