About
This site is the public hub for the Cascadia Movement. It is stewarded by the Department of Bioregion, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 85-4402939) that supports the people, groups, and projects working toward a healthy and resilient Cascadia bioregion.
Our mission
Our mission is to develop bioregional frameworks, regenerate our bioregions, and cultivate the conditions for place-based movements, cultures, and ways of living in place to thrive.
Cascadia is a movement to build interdependence, sustainability, and resiliency for the Cascadia bioregion. The movement starts from our watersheds and uses the idea of Cascadia as a framework, guided by shared principles, to break global issues down to a local level, increase the accountability and transparency of our regional economic and food systems, and move actions and impacts to where individuals have the greatest say in the issues that affect their lives.
Different communities have different needs, and each is best suited to confront the issues it faces. By sharing a land base, we hold common principles, values, and concerns that pull us together. The Department of Bioregion exists to steward this bioregional vision within our own watershed.
Cascadian principles: a lifelong journey
Cascadia and bioregionalism are more than a place or a movement. They are a commitment to a way of life, and a lifelong journey. A Cascadian seeks to live bioregionally: to live and work according to bioregional principles, in a sustainable manner, with a net positive impact on their land and community.
On a personal level
We work to better ourselves in our habits and principles, in how we eat, consume, work, and play, and to improve our relationship to the land we live on and rely on.
On an interpersonal level
We examine how we treat each other. We approach others with respect and compassion, work to make every interaction a positive one, learn the history and context of how we came to be where we are, create spaces to address past injustices, and work together in an equitable and just manner, in mutual aid, solidarity, and support.
On a societal level
We create new models, tools, culture, and identity: the sum of our interpersonal actions and choices, positive, inclusive, and authentic, rooted in place. We build accessible pathways for the more than 16 million people who live here to get involved and shift our impact as a region, and we magnify the solutions that already exist.
An interdependence movement
Bioregionalism, at its root, is the idea that we should care about what flows toward us from upstream and what we ourselves send downstream. Regardless of political lines, it takes everyone living along a watershed to make real change happen. Rather than a segmented approach, bioregionalism offers a model of decentralized, place-based movements and hubs, not simply a political one in which we send people to a voting box every four years or wait for someone else to act.
Culture stems from place. Together, this builds a regional identity rooted in a love of place, with shared principles, values, and concerns. Cascadia is a vision we can work toward, and a movement that empowers every person to walk out their front door, make a difference on what they care about, and connect with the people in their community already making that change happen.
Bioregionalism is not a national or global solution. It is an alternative, place-based model, and a framework that supports a mutual and collaborative network of bioregional movements around the world, each able to learn from the others and adopt the models best suited to its own locality.
Cascadia is a social, economic, and political movement that exists to steward this bioregional vision within our own watershed. We hope you join us.
Theory of Change by Cascadia Founding Director Brandon Letsinger.
How the Department stewards the movement
The Department of Bioregion is the nonprofit home of the Cascadia Movement. It maintains this hub and supports the network through several standing commitments.
- Local groups. Cascadians organize where they live. Groups grow along a shared ladder: a Circle is a starting group, a Chapter is an established group, and a Hub is a regional anchor. Find a group near you on the Chapters page.
- Topic Groups. Bioregion-wide groups organized around shared subjects rather than geography. Browse them at Topic Groups.
- Ambassadors. Our education program for people who want to learn bioregional ideas and share them in their communities. Start at Ambassadors.
- The Doug flag. The Department of Bioregion is the Cascadia Flag Trust. It owns and stewards the Doug flag mark and copyright under a two-track use framework: free community use and licensed commercial use. Learn more on the flag page.
- The directory. The Cascadia directory connects projects, organizations, and businesses across the bioregion.
- Support. Donations and memberships sustain this work. Both run through our support page.
Accountability and transparency
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Department of Bioregion publishes its annual filings and organizational records. Review our Form 990 filings, read the organization overview and our projects, and meet the team. Questions are welcome through the contact page.