Extinction Rebellion Upper Valley - A Bioregional XR

2 weeks ago

In the Name of Wild Nature
Dear sisters and brothers and trans-siblings
We have come together today to reclaim the commons in the name of wild nature!
We have come to open ourselves to hear the voices, feel the life and spirit of the wild creatures whose very existence as species are threatened by the damage we humans are wreaking upon our planetary habitat.
We come to proclaim our commitment to live in solidarity with all creation! To follow the voice of conscience. To follow the path of the heart. To remember our kinship with every other living being.
We come together to reclaim the commons!
We stand here in this remnant of the commons. This green island in the city harboring these sage trees.
And remind ourselves that the commons is an ancient approach based on a widely-shared worldview. Traditional farmers and indigenous communities around the world still retain vestiges of this form of societal organization. Many are struggling to reclaim it. Colonial and capitalist systems are antithetical to this approach and have compromised or obliterated communal land holdings wherever and whenever the two cultural approaches have collided.
Ever since the process of Enclosure began in Great Britain in the 13th century the war on the commons worldwide has only grown in intensity. Corporate personhood is the culmination of enclosure. It is the total destruction of the commons. The current global civilization has become a death camp for nature. Neo-liberal Capitalism depends on the annihilation of nature. The GNP is a measure of destruction. Exponential growth is a form of mass insanity and collective suicide.
Under current law nature has no rights. It is time for us to recognize the right of nature to exist. Under natural law everything that lives has a right to live.

We recognize that the current political maps by which we organize civil society are arbitrary lines imposed on the landscape by land grants from colonial governments decreed hundreds of years ago and do not represent natural systems. We need to re-think the way we perceive landscape. Begin to read it by shape and inherent design rather than by imposed line.
We need to open ourselves to the natural intelligence of the land. Understand where and when it is best to simply step out of the way.

Each one of us and all of us collectively, in a subtle form of mutual aid, must begin the process of de-colonization of our minds, hearts, and bodies---right down to the cellular level---oppressor and oppressed. We are all traumatized by the singular fact of being born into a world already ravaged and damaged by forty generations of civilized humans. We were molded in a society propped up by the destruction of the natural world. We were expected to take it as normal that that forests be cut, the wetlands drained, and grasslands plowed down to feed the needs of human expansion. We all bear responsibility for habitat loss. We all have an opportunity to become the healer.

If we are to solve the climate and ecological crisis we will have to cooperate and legislate at an international level. Ultimately nation states will become meaningless. Giving way to cooperating Bio-Regions. A world government that works justly for all humans and all species will be comprised of democratically elected representatives from fully autonomous sovereign regional governments. If humans can evolve to become a successful keystone species it will be because we will go on to create a planetary regenerative culture rooted in ecological enlightenment.

In the world we will co-evolve together eco-cide and bio-cide will be abolished under planetary law!

We know what we stand against. And while we engage in creative non-violent resistance---let us not forget to take time together to envision the world we want to see. Not the world we think is possible---but the world we most want to see with our deepest longings. To not be afraid to speak our childish dreams. To unleash the pure light energy of our imaginations.

A bioregional eco-socialist organization of society will allow us to reclaim the commons for all humanity and for all creation. Bioregions defined by watersheds will recognize their interdependence yet be decentralized and autonomous. Right of use replaces private property. Mutual aid replaces alienated greed. Individuals and families still retain personal property but these are articles and goods not land and water and air and all that lives and breathes upon them and within them.

Spiritual anarchy is the heart of eco-socialism. The more enlightened a people become the less need they have for rules. Those who are most free are those who have assumed responsibility for the well-being of everyone and everything. And who know that well-being begins with the earth beneath our feet.
“Half Wild” is an international movement started by a group of conservation biologists who have determined that the way to save bio-diversity on the planet (necessary for the survival of all species---including humans) is to reserve half of the land and half of the oceans for wild nature. A “Half-Wild Upper Valley Bioregion” will demonstrate the efficacy of this approach.
Imagine a future world in which one half of all land is designated as wildlands in perpetuity.
Wildlife corridors are established to prevent habitat fragmentation.
The privatization of nature is abolished.

We will no longer speak of ourselves as consumers. We will become ecologically enlightened producers. This is a transformation that occurs not only in the mind but from engaging completely with a particular place. The story lines in the landscape become written in your DNA. The soil biome is mirrored in your gut.

I am a small farmer and this is what I am just beginning to comprehend after thirty-five years of practicing the craft:
Restoration of the Soil Carbon Sponge is the most effective tool we have at our disposal to mitigate global heating. Not only does healthy soil sequester carbon it also holds water. When soils are degraded or destroyed the water goes into the air as water vapor and adds still more heat to the greenhouse effect. Restoration of soil in every habitat from forest to rangeland to desert will restore the planet’s natural hydrologic cycles and naturally cool the environment. Over healthy soils there are abundant clouds. We have always assumed that the forest needs rain but now we understand that rain needs forests.
Right rain requires healthy soils.

People who take care of land. Serve land as faithful caretakers. Who know when to step out of the way and let nature heal herself---these are the real revolutionaries.
Show me the healer and I will show you the real revolutionary.

Now is the time when we all must become those good caretakers. Every one of us needs to become engaged land managers. We all need to become earth healers. This is the most important direct action we can undertake. It’s going to take every one of us working together to break free from the chains of the predatory capitalist system and to free all the other species from the certain death sentence of an unchecked industrial growth society. Our civil disobedience. Our rebellion for LIFE. Compels us to demand an immediate transition to an ecological civilization.
We hunger to live in right relation with the planet. We are her children. And we are her eyes and ears, hearts and hands, awakening to our senses.
The time is now.
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