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Writer's pictureHamish Evans

River action, Landscape recovery and Food systems renewal

 

 Launching We Are Avon, a place-based movement



We are in a new and unique moment for climate action, food systems renewal and ecological repair. To live with open eyes in the last 10 years is to bear witness to the tipping points in ecosystems and society, whirlwinds of social movements and action interspersed with pandemics, species extinctions, extreme weather on our doorstep, heatwaves and floods across the country. The world is being forced to wake up and face the consequences of the industrial era, invited to reconcile and repair before it’s too late. The awareness of the problems is now more widely understood thanks to waves of social action and rising of grassroots living democracy. The social movements and oppositional action is still needed more than ever to push systemic change and hold powers accountable. And yet, we also find ourselves at a crossroads, a new moment for the movement of movements. At a time so late in the game of planetary collapse, beyond tipping points and ecological boundaries, we need to embark upon urgent and transformative action on the ground now, and cultivate a grassroots movement capable of building the alternative systems in the decaying shell of the old. Co-creating the regenerative farms, regenerative communities and cultures of tomorrow, today. Its too late to wait for government or markets to shift – for sure we need all of it, but we need to simultaneously start in our places, regenerating life, restoring rivers, rebuilding healthy food systems.

 

This post explores an emerging new story of place in the Avon valley, weaving together the diverse yet interwoven components required for bioregional regeneration, and a modelling of what’s possible. At its core, We Are Avon has come from a deep connection to place, and a sense of compassion and duty towards all the life this Avon valley supports. We are each nested in systems that we feed into and are in turn nourished by; we are nested within communities which are in turn nested in ‘bioregions’. Humans and nature have organised and governed themselves for millenia through the concept of ‘bioregioning’, or a place-based culture. This invitation to return to grounded belonging is both a return to the natural scale (e.g. of a valley) and the human scale (the ‘village’, or a wider community of life), and the re-harmonisation of both. The vision broadly is of bioregions coming back to life, of living and belonging in places where we see the rivers returning to clarity and vitality, where our children witness species spiralling upwards (not downwards) in numbers, birdsong getting louder every ‘Soundful Spring’. We’ve all tasted the possibility of this, in moments of pause such as the pandemic when many non-human species did indeed flourish, and we stopped still to notice. On a micro level I’ve also witnessed this potential of healing biotopes on our farm (and countless other regenerative organic farms) with bird life, soil health and ecology returning (not by some vague observation but also by the hard data, testing and surveys). It’s all possible, and nature has such resilience and regenerative capacity if we give her a chance and be of service to this natural force. This is a reciprocal exchange, because the more we enter this purposeful work, the more we are rewarded with abundant life force, connection, joy and drive to continue making it a reality, the potential is unknown and the timeline for regeneration is non-linear, potentially exponential.

 

Bringing this into our place, the lands which we stand upon and the waters we depend upon, requires a new worldview and cosmo-vision of how we humans relate to world. The definition of bioregion from South Devon Bioregional learning centre: “A bioregion invites us to inhabit a place in a way that is full of relationship. Seeing where the natural boundaries of our bioregion are, we can then see the many ecosystems and human systems alive within it. All of these systems like fresh water and biodiversity or transport and health are connected. There is also a connecting story that starts in deep geological time, shows up in the landscape and soil and then in human culture. Bioregioning is the collective practice of bringing vitality to these connections, angling the systems towards regeneration, and taking actions for a climate resilient and biodiverse future.” 

We Are Avon emerges from this bioregional consciousness, re-engaging across our lands in many ways, from the right to roam movement to the momentum around regenerative farming and river action. A bioregional vision for regeneration and greater access to (and connection with) land is a uniting force across these parallel movements. The broader vision is to begin building a web of bioregions coming back to life through community engagement and landworker custodianship. This also has parallels with the ‘healing biotopes’ model popularised in the ecovillage and permaculture movements, but it also goes beyond both the people-centric and the romanticisation, bridging these with the place-centric and pragmatic solutions on the ground, at a level of scale and impact needed in these critical times.

 

So, bringing this into our place, our catchment area and bioregion of Avon, the historic county boundary which was only recently replaced by political/economic rather than ecological lines. The Avon bioregion encapsulates 860  square miles, 554,000 acres19 towns, 2 cities. The exact boundary lines are not necessarily important, but the old maps from county Avon lines are helpful to define where we are, and this area is still under some governance of the ‘West of England Combined Authority’ so maps and data are available. We Are Avon aims to be in service to the regeneration of this valley, focusing on its water flows, landscape regeneration and food systems as the 3 critical levers for change. The root of our intersecting crises so often goes back to food and water, to our basic daily needs and this is a good starting point to which we can all connect and act upon each day. This combined with the growing River action momentum and food awareness points to a pragmatic recipe for community-led action, with some ideas for this below:

 

3 community needs

3 branches of action (working groups)

1. A requirement for local, affordable, healthy food which does not come at a cost to the environment upon which we depend. An easier way for individuals, communities and schools to access a range of regenerative foods with accountability, fair supply chains and source transparency. Whilst supporting growers to access land and grow for local resilience.

1. Land– Restoring land through regeneration and ecological food production. Linking local producers to supply a range of products and offering sliding scale and accessible pricing. Efficient, local and sustainable distribution systems for ease of access to the varied foods of this place, through a central Food Hub and a regenerative Producers co-operative.

2. A yearning for hands on action and learning opportunities to be part of the solutions. A yearning for reconnection and purpose in the age of disconnection, severed community and loneliness. A lack of clear and accessible pathways into both environmental action, volunteering and lack of training for paid professions in Green Jobs.

2. People – Movement building and community engagement with grassroots land and water action. Growing regenerative community through grassroots action, volunteer and training opportunities. Engaging diverse communities into a place based movement, redefining humans as regenerators.

3. A clean and healthy river and bioregion for all stakeholders. Thousands of users enjoy and depend upon the river Avon from which is currently polluted largely by unsustainable agricultural practices and profit-based water companies. From boaters to fishermen to swimmers and walkers, there is a stronger than ever momentous call to protect our Avon. 

3. Water –Creating regional river protection momentum: raising awareness, stopping the harm, riparian restoration, a river charter/vision with stakeholders and supporting the transition to a clean and abundance river Avon.

 

 

A broad and evolving vision for this, from many years work in the environmental and food movements:

 

 Breaking this down into some specific aims

 

This aims will require the 3 cogs of Land, Water and People working in symbiosis in a joined-up way. Rather than lots of siloed projects, we need systemic and collaborative action. Practically this may take the form eventually of 3 working groups or organisations in the bioregion, or more distributed models for each micro-biome (e.g. a town or smaller valley), but the key part is that these groups are aligned through a wider bioregional identity, mission, vision and values. Its easy to dismiss these bigger picture projects as too ambitious, whilst disregarding smaller local projects as ineffective. The reality is we need to get over our cynicism and get to work on all of these levels, but to join them up. The landscape level solutions will not come from top down action alone, or from siloed individual projects alone. Like an ecosystem, we need a tapestry of actors and drivers, all dancing uniquely, but united in their service to life. Food, water, land and communities are inseparable. We cannot look at river action alone and ignore the role of food & farming in this (currently the major source of river pollution in the Avon, and yet potentially the greatest solution if we shift farming practice).


 

The specific pathways and timelines to this are largely dependent upon the level of community action and engagement, and further input from the wider stakeholders in the bioregion. Some suggestions from our work and consultation so far are below, in order to get the ball rolling with a vision of what’s possible and pragmatic, and to then evolve this as an emerging movement:

 

 

The pathways to system transformation, the evolving objectives and the potential of this movement cannot be predicted or understood rationally, we must take a leap of trust and come together in service to life regardless. Very likely the wider ripple effects will reach far beyond what we initially set out to do, as I have seen countless times before. The important part is to make a start, let go of some cynicism and self-doubt, and the sense of powerlessness that has been conditioned upon communities. We as citizens of place, custodians of land, and protectors of water have the real power, from a much deeper place than the selfish and ego driven lairds of power that have got us into this mess. It is my firm belief through lived experience that when we answer the call of what Earth is inviting us to in this moment, we enter a conversation with a deeper ancestral part of our ecological self that belongs to this place – our gifts and potential shine in previously un-dreamable ways, our joy and purpose unfolds through this, and we realise what we are here on earth to do now.



And We Are Avon social media pages for more info and live updates in the coming months and years.

We need support, funding, skills and experiences to join this bioregional movement.


Please contact weareavon@outlook.com if you can help. 



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