• September 2006: Peter Berg’s home in Glen Canyon Park, San Francisco
With silver hair tied up in a small ponytail, medium build and small beady eyes, 69-year old Peter Berg enters the 9-by-9 room crowded with hovering bookshelves and randomly strewn papers, posters, and brochures. Barely is our party of nine able to fit, but we do, some sitting on the floor, some leaning against bookshelves spilled over with musty smelling pages. After introducing himself and his wife Judy, Peter settles into a chair and immediately begins talking. After the first five minutes, he stops, ‘Am I going too fast?’ He is so vibrant that his words take flight and to follow his thoughts and ideas seems too easy, like breathing. He addresses one idea and threads it to another and somehow it all flows.
From the minute I walk into the hallowed headquarters, I know that I am entering a piece of history. Here is where it all began, I reflect. Here is where Peter Berg, Gary Snyder, Raymond Dasmann, Jim Dodge, Freeman House, and David Simpson gathered together in the 60s and 70s with big ambitions and philanthropic purpose. Here is where they commiserated, wrote, acted in the streets (this is San Francisco after all) and became involved in local politics and education. It was the beginning of a beginning. A movement, a pledge, a way to live.
Out of this time and out of this group, in 1973, Peter Berg founded an organization called Planet Drum, a central networking group that provides resources and expertise to starter ‘bioregional’ groups. From this organization, the term ‘bioregionalism’ was coined. Planet Drum’s website defines bioregion as ‘a distinct area with coherent and interconnected plant and animal communities, and natural systems, often defined by a watershed. A bioregion is a whole ’life-place’ with unique requirements for human inhabitation so that it will not be disrupted and injured.’ In other words, a bioregion is not defined by county or state lines, political agendas, or school districts; it is defined by its natural systems. Bioregionalism is also not synonymous with Environmentalism, Berg is quick to point out. Environmentalists, Berg clarifies, consider environment as place with problems needing to be fixed. Bioregionalists, on the other hand, concentrate on place as evolving environment with people maintaining, restoring, and adding a voice to it. ‘Environmentalists say no,’ Berg repeats throughout the day, ‘no to environmental crises as they occur. Bioregionalists say yes, yes to living in the present and believing in the future.’ As Berg writes in ‘Home! A Bioregional Reader,’ Bioregionalism is a shift from just ‘saving what’s left’ to asserting bioregional programs, to becoming native to a place and intimately familiar with the ecological relationships that operate within and around it.
Berg makes his point clear by showing us a map of a past and present San Francisco. The left side shows a large green circular blob, the right-a mass of black and white. The difference? The left side shows a green San Francisco in 1750; the right side reveals the city in the 1990s with only a small portion of indigenous plant life, a few pin pricks on the map. We students look at the map and are completely aghast. By my eyes, I surmise it’s too late; the city is a city and there’s no going back. But Berg sees the transition differently: ‘Being hopeless doesn’t achieve any goals,’ he says. ‘I use this map to provoke consciousness and to arouse inspiration. Bioregionalists think proactively, consider urban sustainability in a proactive way. One of my favorite quotes is from Margaret Meade, ‘Who am I? Where am I? What am I going to do about it?’’ This is the bioregionalism philosophy. Learn your environment and take responsibility for it. Live now and for the future of your children and grandchildren.
So, how does a bioregionalist do this, live now and for the future? Berg explains: Notice and learn your environment in respect to watershed, climate, weather, land forms, and native plants and animals. Change your lifestyle to be more informed by the natural systems. Become familiar with your bioregion, past and present, and educate yourself and others about its beginnings, its changes and its evolution. Be involved in education and local politics. And as with most social movements, cultivate a spiritual connection within yourself and your surrounding environment. All these habits of getting to know an environment makes us care about our places, which ultimately inspires us to care for them.
After Berg’s introduction to Bioregionalism and Planet Drum, we leave the teeming office and step outside to a ‘natural habitat’ area, a group of native plants set in the sidewalk next to his corner Victorian. Berg beams with pride at the idea of native plants sowed next to concrete. In these small patches, we witness just one model of greening a city. We then proceed to Glen Canyon Park, a city park a short distance from Peter and Judy’s home. After walking by a playground, a soccer field, and a colorful mural of plants and animals, we gaze upwards to a tall stand of Eucalyptus, at least 50 stories tall. The undergrowth is tidy, minimal, mostly fallen Eucalyptus leaves and fibrous trunk shavings. Berg tells us that Eucalyptus, seemingly native to San Francisco, was transported from Australia in the late 1800s. Other species, such as the dry tall grass we walk on, is also imported, but from South Africa. While the park and other green areas of San Francisco may seem natural, we learn instead that their birth comes from transported seeds and plants.
Then Berg leads us to the piece de resistance, the ultimate bioregionalism experience. We leave the clean, organized Eucalyptus forest and follow a dirt road that leads us to another forest, this one completely different. This wooded area is so thick with brush that the tangled blackberry bushes and overhanging moss force us to bend forward in order to clear the brushy ceiling. In a dark tunnel, we proceed through a dense, mythical landscape and experience on the most visceral level – feel, taste, sound, and smell – what was once San Francisco. Everything around us is messy and everything is wild. Undergrowth, overgrowth; the lines are seamless. An alga ridden creek trickles below the trail and above us rise layered, twisted volcanic rock. The air is dominated by birds’ lively chatter and we delight in watching their sporadic flight in the tangled creek bed. THIS is what San Francisco looked like before the pervasion of concrete and steel. Our group is speechless. We exit the troll-like woods and return to the organized, clean Eucalyptus forest, emerging from the wild to the civilized. ‘Do you smell the difference?’ Berg asks. The scent has changed immediately from earthy-must to earthy sage-laurel.
Our field trip ends back at the playground and soccer field where we say our farewells to Peter and Judy. Surprisingly, I get a little teary eyed and I’m not certain why. Later, I consider my emotional response and conclude that it may have been the impassioned admiration I felt at having met someone who cares so deeply for the earth and mankind. For more than 40 years, Peter Berg has committed his time and energy to educating groups of children and adults around the world, inspiring multiple generations to get to know their environments and to come together as engaged communities. Watershed and other types of restoration projects, and urban sustainability are the focus of bioregionalism, Berg reminds me, and he also reiterates that the premise of bioregionalism is ‘to promote self determined and self governing communities to make their own realities.’
After spending an afternoon with this bioregionalism pioneer, I felt even more proud to be part of the Truckee-Tahoe community because I see bioregionalism ethics practiced everywhere. While this area is developing exponentially, community members maintain and restore the history, character, and environment of the Truckee-Tahoe region. As the Truckee River continues to flow along its path to Pyramid Lake, we continue to change and to grow and to ultimately learn that we are part of nature as nature is part of us.
What’s our Bioregion?
On a broad scale, Tahoe-Truckee is part of the Sierra Nevada Bioregion, defined by the mountain range. On a narrower scale, we are part of the Truckee River Watershed, defined by the Truckee River and its tributaries, flowing from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake. Peter Berg defines Tahoe’s Bioregion as a link between two larger Bioregions, the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin.
How Does Truckee-Tahoe Fit the Bioregionalism Footprint?
Ecology and environmental groups are spreading like wildfire, prompted by too many dry winters and the spate of human developments. Global warming is now a common term, as is sustainability. Green is ‘in’ and so is ‘eco’ and caring for our places and its people is a popular trend. How we build, how we operate, and how we live seem to be prevalent concerns that weren’t necessarily forefront in the past 10 to 20 years. Agencies, organizations, and citizens are banding together to profess new lifestyle schemes and the idea of ‘community’ is making a comeback. Look around our region! Bioregionalism is everywhere! Local newspapers tell stories about community members, weather, history, and alternate energy sources. Books act as guides to the local region’s flora, fauna, trails, and mountains. There are special days devoted solely to knowing our bioregion and performing restoration projects: Truckee River Day. Tahoe Forest Stewardship Day. Truckee Trails Day. Neighborhood cleanup days. Tahoe Truckee Earth Day. In approval processes for future developments, local governments spend a great deal of time addressing how the local ecosystems will be affected. Many Town of Truckee policies are guided by ‘green’ design. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is in the midst of Pathway 2007, a region-wide effort to determine how best to protect the Tahoe basin. Under guidance from The American Institute of Architects, a Sustainable Design Assessment Team is currently working to provide a roadmap for our communities, to help us ‘ meet the environmental, economic, and social equity needs of today without reducing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.’ And in local schools, programs abound: Hug a Tree, Winter Survival, Living History and Outdoor Education. Artistic expression reveals the local Sierra Nevada in a variety of forms: paintings, photographs, writing, and film. Health and wellness centers offer mind and body programs concerning religion, yoga, meditation, and physical health. Our community is exchanging information, networking, and writing new mission statements. As Berg said, Bioregionalists say ‘yes, yes to living in the present and believing in the future.’ Our Tahoe-Truckee communities are doing just that.
And while on the topic of Bioregionalism, coming to Moonshine Ink is a column called ‘Where In the Wild Are You?’ In this column, our Bioregion Boy, and a number of experts in their fields, will be helping our community become more bioregionally-smart, through answering questions from readers about the Sierra Nevada Bioregion and the Truckee area. What’s the mating ritual of the native deer? Where do insects go during winter? What was the main vegetable staple of the Native Americans in days past? You tell us what you want to learn. Topics can include flora, fauna, history, weather, water, indigenous people, and geology. Get native. Email questions to bioregionboy@moonshineink.com. Photo by Court Leve.
For information about Peter Berg and Bioregionalism, visit planetdrum.org.
