Bioregions
Three pilots, sequenced
Three pilots, one at a time. The sequencing is an explicit founder commitment driven by current stewardship capacity, not an ambition cap. Hudson Valley activates in Spring 2026; Mexico City sequences in October 2026; the third bioregion is named through discernment in late 2026 or early 2027. Each activation is held with presence by the core team and the local stewardship circle, and what the first bioregion learns about itself informs how the second one enters. Concurrent activation would dilute the attention the work deserves; sequenced activation lets each bioregion teach the federation what it needs to know before the next one begins.
Spring 2026
The first pilot. Northeast deciduous forest ecology. Lenape and Mohican lineage on the land. Stewardship anchored through the Bioregional Embassy partnership.
Partners
Status
Pre-conditions met. First node in the Northeast bioregional activation series.
October 2026
The second pilot. High-altitude valley ecology. Nahua and Otomi lineage on the land. Stewardship anchored through Huerto Roma Verde in Roma Norte and the Mexico Climate Week catalyst.
Partners
Status
Exploring. Partnership in active development; informed by Hudson Valley's first cycle.
Late 2026 or early 2027
The third pilot. Geography not yet named. Possibilities the stewardship is holding: Cloud Forests in Mexico, a Caribbean continuation of the Hurricane Melissa relief work, a continental-Africa or continental-Europe activation.
Partners
Status
Open. The stewardship has committed the capital; the geography is what is being listened for.
Why three
Three is the number that lets the federation learn what is constant and what is local. The Protocol’s five phases, the Flow Fund architecture, and the sovereignty firewall are constant across bioregions; the lineage holders, the stewardship circle’s particular voice, and the festival’s specific ceremony are local. Three different ecologies and three different cultures (Northeast deciduous watershed, Mexican high-altitude valley, a third in discernment) compose enough diversity for the pattern to prove itself across difference, not just within one bioregion’s shape.
Three is small enough to hold with presence and large enough to test against pattern. One pilot reads as a single ecology’s success; two reads as comparison; three reads as federation. Beyond three at this stage would dilute the stewardship attention each activation needs. Below three would not test the hypothesis the Protocol is built on. The number is a stewardship choice anchored in what the work asks for.
Per-bioregion deployment
$160K
Stage 1, one bioregion
Each activation deploys $160,000 over the 18-month Stage 1 arc. Sixty-three percent is people work: a named lead steward, community mapping, governance facilitation. Sixteen percent is Flow Fund seed capital to demonstrate the rail. Six percent is storytelling that lets the next bioregion fork the pattern. The remainder is governance setup, reserve, and contingency.
The line-item breakdown sits in the use-of-funds page and in the financial model the funder community reviews. Each bioregion page below carries the same allocation with the bioregion-specific context.
Read deeper
The bioregions are the unit. The horizon page reads the 18-month arc that holds the three pilots and the seven-year trajectory the catalytic frame implies. The flow page reads the rails the Flow Fund seed capital travels into and through.
