What is Bioneers?

Bioneers was conceived to conduct programs in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity, traditional farming practices, and environmental restoration. Our vision of environment encompasses the natural landscape, cultivated landscape, biodiversity, cultural diversity, watersheds, community economics, and spirituality. Bioneers seeks to unite nature, culture and spirit in an Earth-honoring vision, and create economic models founded in social justice.

Restoration addresses the premise that "sustainability" is problematic in the context of an environment that is already depleted. As Paul Hawken has noted, sustainability is simply the midpoint between destruction and restoration. The goal of Bioneers is restoration, addressing the interdependent array of economics, jobs, ecologies, cultures, and communities. Bioneers are biological pioneers who are working with nature to heal nature and ourselves. They have peered deep into the heart of living systems to devise strategies for restoration based on nature's own operating instructions. They come from many cultures and perspectives, and all walks of life.

Bioneers are scientists and artists, gardeners and economists, activists and public servants, architects and ecologists, farmers and journalists, priests and shamans, policymakers and citizens. They are everyday people committed to preserving and supporting the future of life on Earth. They herald a dawning Age of Restoration founded in natural principles of kinship, interdependence, cooperation, reciprocity, and community.

Uniting nature, culture, and spirit, Bioneers embody a change of heart - a spiritual connection with the living world that is grounded in social justice. Their pragmatic strategies effectively address many of our most pressing ecological and societal challenges.

Above all, Bioneers represent a culture of solutions. Their stories demonstrate that just as people have created the environmental and social problem we face, people can solve them - through a reciprocal partnership with nature. Over and over, they show how great a difference the actions of one individual can make.

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Our Mission

Founded in 1990, Bioneers is a nonprofit organization that promotes practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities.

"It's All Alive, It's All Intelligent, It's All Connected."

Bioneers offers pragmatic solutions that honor the living web of the natural world as the most fertile source of inspiration and models. It's all alive.

One of the beauties of biology is that its facts can become our metaphors, and these underlying codes serve as inspiring parables for how we can organize a more just, humane and authentically sustainable society. It's all intelligent. Interdependence also teaches us that there are no single issues because it's one whole that can be addressed only by bringing together all the parts. Bioneers gathers people at the crossroads of ecological restoration, human health and social justice. It's all connected.

The bioneers span all fields, cultures, ages and walks of life. The work ranges from science to spirit - local to global - academia to the grass roots - farm to city - business to public service - art to engineering. We celebrate the gift of life in all its diversity and mystery, conjuring a change of heart to renew our empathic connection with the web of life and the Earth, our home. It's all relatives.