📐 Participatory Strategies
Activities
Strategic Planning
In 2022, they finalized and took part in implementing a five-year strategic plan for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and began facilitating an update of the comprehensive community plan for Yakutat in partnership with the local government. These are practical tools for communities to articulate their own visions and chart their own paths forward.
Vision for 2100
The working group is drafting a long-range biocultural vision: what South Asia might become by 2100. In that speculative picture, borders grow permeable; visas fade. Wildlife, nomadic pastoralists, and others move more freely. Older trade corridors such as the Silk Road reappear in new form. Border zones, once flashpoints, become peace sanctuaries run locally through strong direct democracy. Today’s hyper-nationalism gives way, in the vision, to civilizational and Indigenous identities; direct democracy is rooted in villages and neighborhoods and scales up across landscapes into bioregional governance. Traders and nomadic communities act as connectors—carrying news and goods across the bioregion.
La Garrotxa 2030 Strategic Planning Initiative
In late 2019, participatory governance was spreading across La Garrotxa; several rural municipalities had piloted citizen participation, often co-designed and facilitated by Resilience Earth. Seeing a chance to lift municipal learning to regional scale, they proposed co-producing a Strategic Plan for Territorial Resilience with the regional government. The president backed it politically and financially—with one condition: the plan must transform how governance is practiced region-wide. A core group of 12 people, chosen for sectoral, geographic, and cultural diversity, became the “critical yeast” tasked with keeping the process participatory and transparent enough to catalyze broader change. Months into the pandemic, they ran 17 online thematic round tables aligned with the SDGs. Over 600 people joined during COVID—“that was nuts,” Oscar recalls. To reach youth and diverse communities, they produced materials for 57 schools and held sessions in community centers and places of worship with minority groups. A wide survey drew more than 2,200 responses. In all, 40-plus participatory sessions fed a ten-year regional plan. Direct participation reached 7,000–7,500 people—over 11% of the population. They adapted the SDGs into 21 local targets (“Garrotxa SDGs”) that different actors could own, paired with an observatory of 400-plus indicators to track the plan. A tension surfaced: once strategy, indicators, and distributed governance are in place, traditional electoral politics can feel redundant. Oscar asks what remains for a party platform when “everything is been decided”—whether officials become “public service servers” carrying out what communities already decide in everyday hubs. Some elected leaders resisted, sensing the process could sideline them. They used an iceberg model to push strategies to real depth—and that resistance is still in play.
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.
Cascadia Bioregion Program
BioRegen (the Cascadia Bioregion Program) tackles the “readiness” question: preparing local landscapes to absorb regenerative investment through community-led capacity. The program guides 10+ landscapes through a 12-month arc—ecological mapping, regenerative portfolios, budgeting, and success measures grounded in local priorities rather than outside corporate or government defaults. Communities self-organize into hubs that can receive and steward capital while deepening planning and governance. Work is anchored in a shared bioregional identity, living-systems principles, and long-term, trust-based investment readiness. Cohorts map assets, build portfolios, set budgets and strategies, and seed projects for funding. The BioRegen pilot (including what was called the Landscape Hub Cultivator) is underway as of 2026. It supports up to 10 Regenerate Cascadia landscape groups in an online community of practice to define what a landscape hub is and lay its foundations—interrupting entrenched patterns, treating relationship networks as essential for trust, practicing participatory governance across nested scales, and building bioregional infrastructure so funding can flow where Cascadia needs it. The first half-year emphasizes place-based regeneration strategies—bioregional mapping, nested scales of place, layers of stewardship—and a portfolio of regenerative projects per landscape with budget and story materials for communities and funders. The second half focuses on core teams, fundraising, governance, consent, carrying capacity, context-based indicators, and local funding ecosystems. Each landscape group receives $8,000 in direct support through the pilot (about $5,000 for planning and mapping and $3,000 for a flow-funding sandbox).
Regenerative Action in Thematic Areas
A middle layer focuses on thematic work across the Sydney bioregion and metro—food systems, river restoration, and related themes. Specialists have labored in these areas for decades but are not always woven into one strategy. Regen Sydney aims to convene unlikely alliances, align intentions, and apply upward pressure on existing government layers. They are beginning with the Cooks River Alliance in a southwest catchment and are watching where that collaboration leads.
Waverley Community of Practice
In Waverley they are midway through a three-phase program. Phase one—community of practice. They invited groups already active locally—Transition Bondi, Bondi Innovation, beach cleanups, and others—and asked what regeneration in this neighborhood could mean. Over four months they balanced rigor (so institutions would take outcomes seriously) with convivial process—picnics, film nights, and similar gatherings. A community of practice of about 160 people formed; visioning held social and ecological dimensions together. Mapping exercises helped people attune to the place’s particular rhythms. Phase two—cornerstone indicators. Guided by Katherine Trebeck, they use “cornerstone” measures as a counterpoint to indicators that read as technical or illegible to the public. The idea: a small set of metrics the public can stand behind—living at the interface between institutions and communities. Cornerstone indicators braid social and ecological dimensions. One example: families who are glad not to need a car in a given area—touching transport, services, autonomy, and emissions in one indicator. Midway through phase two, they compare the neighborhood vision (informed by memory of pre-colonial conditions and honest about structural barriers) with what council is already doing, surface gaps, and ask how to measure progress toward the vision. Phase three—transition pathways. They will help people find roles in the transition. With vision and indicator-backed targets, the question becomes how the community can act together in ways that complement council and raise ambition. Methods will include live modeling games and “warm data” sessions to weave diverse knowledges. Participants have already offered sharp reflections—for instance, that connection to place can rest in a deeper spiritual bond with nature. There is no single fix; some see Waverley’s doughnut work as carrying wider significance.
He Ripo Kau: A Vision for the Hokianga
He Ripo Kau applies the Tapere logic in Hokianga—linking taiao renewal with mana tangata. Since 2016, hui have convened hau kāinga around a shared model. NZD 3.2 million in Provincial Growth Fund support underpinned a 2020 recovery and employment wave—45+ km of stream fencing, 50+ ha planted, and training pipelines into land-care jobs. The case shows vision translating into paid, on-ground regeneration.
Tapere: Planning Rooted in Ancestral Boundaries
Tapere builds hyper-local plans aligned with Māori tapere land units—not imported grid lines. Reconnecting Northland supports hapū and whānau to state restoration goals that match culture and geography. Wānanga, story, and mapping invite communities to picture thriving ancestral estates. Visions then steer practical work—planting, stream repair, nature-based enterprise—through a shared cultural lens, with connectivity and corridors treated as landscape-scale outcomes.
Osa Biocultural Fund
The Osa Biocultural Fund is a flexible tool to seed community-run work in food sovereignty, ecological restoration, arts, and education. It is designed with participatory governance anchored in local women and elders. They are seeking $29,000 to develop and scale the fund, which distributes more than $25,000 a year to regenerative projects. One fully participatory round used $6,000. Ambassadors, the council, participants, and investors all voted on which projects to fund. That modest sum has helped spark broader collaboration—among them a complementary currency at the local farmers market and a microcredit system applicants now run themselves.
Alliance for the Mystic River Watershed
The Alliance models joint municipal–tribal planning for climate, equity, and ecosystem health. Philanthropy and unrestricted gifts have passed USD 1 million toward a watershed regeneration action plan. The Alliance aims to cut risk to USD 400 million+ in climate-exposed assets in a 30-odd-square-mile basin. With the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, it is advancing a 5,000-square-foot resilience hub showcasing regenerative building plus farmer training and land access.
Northeast Bioregional Strategy & Intertribal Governance Framework
A draft regional regenerative strategy—Indigenous co-governance at the core—bundles restoration with food, fiber, and fuel systems, then links those to efficient buildings, clean energy, and active mobility (trails, multi-use paths). The spatial imagination is villages and cities re-embedded in larger land regeneration. Co-design with tribal and non-tribal partners proceeds under rights-of-nature framing; resources are steered toward projects that earn reciprocity with Native nations facing distinct colonial legacies.
Planning Assistance to Local Governments
KEM backs districts in drafting plans that lock in environmental and social commitments—not only pilot projects. Workshops bring government, smallholders, firms, and financiers into the same conversation so VC3 logic can be embedded in formal instruments.
Participatory Planning and Visioning
Weekend programmes included facilitated workshops for shared visioning and for drafting concrete proposals in each thematic area. The process and outcomes are documented in *Borgofuturo+ A local project for inner areas.* A core group of festival organisers, with researchers, planners, architects, and environmental scientists, then formed Inabità, a cooperative for territorial planning and governance.
Landscape Planning and Pattern Language
During onboarding, participants used cadastral sheets and community-scale maps of forest, slope, erosion risk, and connectivity to relate regeneration choices to parcel-scale management. Joint planning flagged priority zones—unstable slopes, riparian corridors, connectivity gaps—and paired them with a pattern vocabulary: swales and vetiver for erosion, agroforestry on degraded pasture, buffers near intakes. The aim was landscape literacy: seeing each plot as part of a larger system and preparing evidence for later DAO proposals.
Renewable Energy Transition
SabahRE2 (August 2021) is a four-partner consortium pursuing energy equity, livelihoods, and wellbeing for rural Sabahans. Sabah holds about 72% of Malaysia’s unelectrified rural households, so off-grid renewables are a practical lever. Year one produced a public roadmap for rural renewable electrification. The target is 200 renewable mini-grids by 2030. A demand map of ~400 villages yielded 206 meeting readiness criteria; feasibility work advanced for 35 mini-grids serving 57 villages across diverse biocultural settings.
Human-Elephant Harmony
Since 2016, Human-Elephant Harmony has worked with Dusun communities, agencies, and partners to treat conflict as a coexistence problem. Herds returned in 2014 after absence since mid-1980s forest fires. Telupid’s forests had largely become oil palm; elephants used plantations for food and reserves for daytime cover, while unfenced smallholders bore crop damage—fueling calls for relocation. From March–December 2016, Forever Sabah worked with the Telupid District Office; village input recalled older protocols of mutual respect with elephants, so the frame shifted from “conflict” to Human-Elephant Harmony. Workshops began in three villages (a fourth joined in 2018) around a four-part plan: train a Community Elephant Ranger Team, map elezone zones, build citizen science, and fence selected sites. Kopisuladan di Aki (“friendship between villagers and elephants” in Dusun Labuk)—nine young professionals with strong field knowledge—received a February 2018 National Conservation Trust Fund grant (RM 200,000 over 22 months, co-financed by the U.S. Shared Earth Foundation at USD 65,000); five members became Honorary Wildlife Wardens. “Listening to elephants” tracks movement, diet, and use of oil palm. Observation showed elephants following machinery that clears mature palms to feed on chipped replanting waste—evidence that access to oil palm matters for nutrition in these landscapes and that trade-offs around plantation entry differ from simple removal narratives. No further translocations have been attempted from this area since CERT formed; several calves have been raised in Telupid. The team estimates about 25–50 elephants use Telupid—the northern edge of the wider Central Sabahan population.
Findhorn Watershed Deer Forum
The Catchment Deer Forum aligns stalkers, gamekeepers, and other land managers so deer densities support both woodland regeneration and viable stalking. It connects herbivore pressure to tree survival and peatland recovery, while keeping venison in local supply chains—pairing ecological goals with rural food economies across fragmented ownership.
Archetype-Based Planning
Curridabat used archetypes—stand-in beings whose needs and experiences shape the story of a place—to surface gaps between today and a desired future and to support backcasting and sequencing of change. In Curridabat, archetypes ranged from pollinators, air, and water to children, very old residents, and wheelchair users—each illuminating different facets of justice, access, and ecology. The same approach was applied in Nosara, a coastal community in Guanacaste, where people chose archetypes suited to shoreline life—among them young people, species such as marine turtles that link land and sea, and everyday coastal livelihood roles—showing how the method travels beyond the city.
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.
Strategy Games
From 2023-2025, a strategy game was implemented in the Ericht catchment bioregion. The process began with listening to diverse stakeholders—farmers, anglers, land managers, estate owners, and community leaders—to understand their roles and perceptions. This information formed the basis for a prototype game representing the landscape's resources and dynamics. The games help players visualize interconnections across the landscape, demonstrating how individual actions impact others' livelihoods and environmental conditions.
Amazon Headwaters Bioregional Plan
The alliance's first major undertaking was creating a comprehensive regional strategy developed through an 18-month collaborative process involving extensive workshops with indigenous organizations, NGOs, and technical experts, conducted primarily in the field. The plan's defensive objectives focus on stopping extractive industries and eliminating degradation and forest loss—urgent priorities given the accelerating threats to biodiversity and cultural survival. Proactive objectives include ensuring indigenous territorial governance, promoting forest conservation and restoration, and consolidating Amazonian well-being through a holistic approach that integrates ecological, social, and economic dimensions. The alliance describes a bioregional cycle: using the plan to track progress, learn from implementation, and accumulate stories, data, and relationships that keep work moving. Fully carrying out the plan implies large investment—on the order of $18,241 billion over ten years in the published estimate—with most of the total framed as national and local public obligations, while roughly $672 million in civil-society implementation targets priority actions that complement government programs.
Altiplano Regeneration Manifesto
The common challenges facing the territory—environmental degradation, social loss, and economic uncertainty—inspired entities from across the region to unite and create a common manifesto. The manifesto serves dual purposes: acting within the territory to regenerate and revitalize it for maximum positive impact, and serving as a powerful tool to influence regional, national, and European policies. They have united, represented in the town councils, more than 200,000 people, creating a significant collective voice for bioregional regeneration. This manifesto is designed to inspire people from different organizations to join, while also devising ways to cooperate, create networks, and build synergy between territories to inspire each other.