This virtual program addresses ecosystem restoration through bioregional collaborations with a specific focus on higher education institutions. Our featured speaker is Dr. Daniel Wahl, former director of Findhorn College and author of the acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures, which has been called by David Orr as “the doorway to a possible, indeed, a necessary future.” In it, Dr. Wahl promotes the concept of bioregionalism as a way to honor and restore earth systems overridden by years of extractive practices. In so doing, he offers a pathway to reimagine our economic, agricultural, and social constructs. As we begin to explore “the next world” after Covid, Wahl shows us ways to move forward toward what he calls “transformative innovation, biologically-inspired design, health and resilience, and living systems thinking.”
This program is co-hosted with ROAR: Regional Ohio Action for Resilience, which is putting in place a Higher Education Collaborative focused on central Ohio as a bioregion, uniting many of its small universities and campuses (from Otterbein University, Denison University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Kenyon College, to Ohio State Marion and Ohio State Newark) to leverage their collective buying power for renewable energy and food aggregation, and to seek collaborative curricular programming. Together they are establishing a ROAR Academy for summer 2021, forming a team of interns focused on bioregional cooperation.
The closing segment of this program features a breakout session for ROAR Academy students to meet with environmental professionals for networking, mentorship, and information sharing, and begin to explore and apply the principles of bioregionalism and ecosystem restoration.