WELLSPRING COMMONS
Weaving a holistic understanding of what it means to live in a mutually thriving relationship with the larger life family within the limits and regenerative powers of place.
Mission
Our mission is to cultivate a holistic understanding of what it means to live in a mutually thriving relationship with the larger life family within the limits and regenerative powers of place.
​
Wellspring Commons envisions a world where our ecosystems are thriving, where human food and material needs can be met sustainably from place, where design principles emulate nature, and products return to the soil without causing harm.
​
We take a bioregional approach which holds a holistic view of the landscape and its communities and cultures, as shaped by topographic, biological and cultural characteristics – such as watersheds, hydrological basins, landforms, climate, flora, fauna, and human culture – rather than by man-made divisions. Bioregioning connects people to place as part of a whole life community, and links the local to the larger context.
​
Our geographic scope focuses across New England and the Forests of the Northeast bioregion (US and Canada).​
Wellspring Commons
Climate change and ecological degradation render the future highly uncertain. Natural systems are approaching or past tipping points. Protecting key local landscapes, everywhere possible, is crucial for navigating this crisis and providing the best defense against future unknowns. Intact ecosystems, clean water, healthy soil, and biodiversity are the foundation for long-term resilience. Keeping older growth forests standing, protecting habitat for biodiversity, preserving remaining agricultural land and developing local food production helps build community resilience and wellbeing.
In the face of present and future climate challenges, more place-based models are needed of the practical possibilities that make sustainability and regeneration achievable on a local-bioregional-continental-global scale. The vision for Wellspring Commons was born in response to this need.
​
Our name: A wellspring is a source of abundant and continual supply; commoning is a worldview and also a regenerative social system that tends to the wellbeing of the whole - the rest of the natural world as well as humans.
