The Upper New is seeking volunteer bioregional correspondents across the biosphere to contribute to a library of bioregional resources for ecological learning. Essentially, we want folks to serve as groundtruthers reporting evidence of bioregional activities, wherever their chosen bioregion may be within the biosphere. We currently have a couple volunteers in place, including one focusing on permaculture as she engages in various bioregions in South America.
Why Bioregionalism?
The Upper New is a hydrological (watershed-based) bioregion, intersecting and complementing other bioregions. We are a case study for bioregionalism, as our bioregion is (relatively arbitrarily) divided by the political boundary between NC and VA. We want to serve as a model for bioregional communities (of practice) across the biosphere.
Beginning with our home bioregion The Upper New river basin, as well as our nine immediate neighboring basins, we are designing and developing a comprehensive database of basin pages, basin books, basin flyers (maps), basin cards, and basin catalogs: hybrid bioregional catalogs for each basin in North America. Our intention is to make all of these materials available as open educational resources (OER). In the process of generating relevant bioregional content based on their chosen bioregion, bioregional correspondents can help us build out this catalog of OER media.
Bioregional Correspondents
A “typical” news correspondent gathers information, conducts interviews, and creates news stories from specific locations or on specialized topics for media outlets. Usually, this can include investigating breaking news, writing and editing copy, and transmitting stories from remote locations. The job requires strong communication skills, the ability to work under pressure, and the capacity to maintain sources and verify facts. Bioregional correspondents have some key differences, mainly involving timeframes for media production. Verifying sources and facts are the most critical aspects of bioregional correspondence.
Core responsibilities
The core responsibility of any bioregional correspondent within any defined bioregion include research and investigation across various topics in politics, science, and business, as well as gathering information through interviews and observation. Bioregional correspondents will write, edit, and revise narratives, ensuring accuracy, grammar, and adherence to chosen styles and formatting associated with intended media types. Bioregional correspondents must produce media content, including photos, videos, data visualizations, and audio recordings in service of correspondence narratives. The Upper New provides cloud tools for storage and management of submitted media content.
Required skills and qualifications
Bioregional correspondents should be strong, proactive communicators with excellent written and verbal communication skills. Bioregional correspondents must commit to journalistic integrity: accuracy, fact-checking, and professional ethics. Bioregional correspondents must be able to maintain their own deadlines, working as quickly as necessary depending on the nature of the narrative to be produced, and should be able to establish and maintain a network of contacts and information sources within the defined bioregion. Bioregional correspondents must be self-sufficient and proficient with hardware and software tools associated with media production, writing, and social media. Finally, while specialized knowledge in topic areas listed below would be an excellent bonus, bioregional correspondents should be generalists and quick learners, able to absorb complex topics and digest them appropriately in service of narratives produced.
Which modes of expression do we seek?
Depending on the nature and requirements for properly communicating the essence of any given narrative, bioregional correspondents might employ the use of prose, photography, illustrations, diagrams, maps, audio, and video. Typically narratives can be up to 10,000 words before considering the need for serialization. All photographs should be geolocated, and any media sources should be produced specifically in service of the narratives or properly cited if harvested from other sources. As the Upper New website and The Upper New Review are digital media outlets, we encourage bioregional correspondence to take a multimedia approach, combining media types as relevant to the topic at hand.
Usage of produced artifacts and materials
Narratives and media produced by bioregional correspondents will be used in a variety of ways throughout the communications and publishing network of The Upper New, including The Upper New Review, Local Watersheds, Ecotheater, Basin Books, Basin Maps, Eco Challenges, and as case studies or exemplars for various curricula for workshops and longer courses on bioregionalism hosted by The Upper New.
Topics for Bioregional Correspondence
Generally speaking, topics of interest in bioregionalism are centered around what consumers of the contents might do with the topical information: bioregional learning, planning, and building. Bioregional correspondents would, essentially, document, embody, and demonstrate these processes of learning, planning, and building.
Bioregional Learning
Topics, perspectives, and processes within bioregional learning include: mapping, spatial analysis, and regional geography, regional geology and climate, bioregional flora and fauna, bioregional history, legends, and stories, bioregional languages, community structure, organization, and change, regenerative economic development, the Commons and commoning, hydrology and watershed analysis, water resource management, landscape ecology and restoration, regenerative resource management, sustainable agriculture and permaculture, and ethics and civic responsibilities, including interspecific ecological justice.
Bioregional Planning
Bioregional planning consists of four major categories of activities: mapping, monitoring, indexing and footprinting. Mapping, for instance, can include seeking out and recording all mappable information about a bioregion, enabling maps to become social research and action tools. Monitoring is concerned with ecosystem conditions, such as water quality and quantity, wildlife and fish populations, recreational or transit use, and various climate conditions. Indexing is the process of focusing on a physical parameter such as water, energy, or food, allowing analysis to determine how much is produced within a bioregion versus how much is consumed, leading to assessments of self-sufficiency within communities. Ecological footprinting involves calculating the land-equivalent areas needed for sustainable production of life needs, such as water, energy, food, or wood, based on the size of the human population within a given bioregion.
Bioregional Building
Bioregional building is the process of doing the work to bring bioregions into full functional form, based on the process of bioregional planning. Typically planning and building happen in parallel, complementary fashion, and the work is never “finished”. The overarching core areas of the work conducted by bioregional building teams are: the biodiversity framework, the agricultural heart, and regenerative communities and infrastructure. Our bioregional correspondents could document and share stories about bioregional building operations in progress in their chosen bioregion.
Apply today to become a volunteer bioregional correspondent!
If you’d like to volunteer with The Upper New as a Bioregional Correspondent, please apply using the following form: https://form.jotform.com/253234572928059
