Regenerating Central America

Regenerating Central America is a voted-in Alliance of SEEDS. It is a systems approach designed to meet socio-economic and cultural needs and restore essential ecological corridors through inclusive economies that sustain an integral well-being. This is a copy of their 2020 proposal and is currently being updated.

Executive Summary

The Earth is in planetary overshoot and collapse. The conditions required for individuals and societies to develop and thrive are no longer sustained by the planet’s biophysical processes. This situation is exemplified by the migration crisis in Central America, driving increasing numbers of families to make life-risking journeys in search of better odds for survival.

Leveraging our partnerships in essential biological corridors in the region, we propose a whole-system transdisciplinary approach that combines proven frameworks of best practices in ecological restoration in conjunction with meeting the socio-economic needs of communities that depend on a functional environment.

Our solution is designed to effectively address a complex systemic failure that risks driving millions to emigrate from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) and fortifies the resilience of Costa Rica and Panama to be able to cope with the increased immigration through large-scale regenerative development.

Principal Organizations

• Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional
• Capital Institute
• HYPHA/ SEEDS
• ThreeFold
• 32 Volcanes
• Integrity.Earth

Case for Partnership with SEEDS

The Regenerative Communities Network was launched by Capital Institute to enable multi-stakeholder collaborations operating at territorial scales to learn with each other across diverse geographies around the world. Establishment of new territories in the target countries for this project will be incorporated into this implementation network. Capital Institute has developed a very strong framework for regenerative economics over the last decade and has collaborators at the global level; for example, Savory Institute with expertise on holistic cattle grazing.

Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional has 25 years of experience working with local communities, private and public institutions, and organizations throughout Latin America. It has an MOU with the Central American Integration System (SICA), which will benefit the project. UCI has conducted projects in all of the target countries at the interface between conservation and development, giving it access to a large number of professionals and organizations to assist in local implementation.

In recognition of the need to unite fragmented efforts towards a co-creative development process that effectively addresses the challenges of today, drives Integrity.Earth to create the tools, processes, and on the ground collaborations to support the development of regenerative bioregional economies. Integrity.Earth guides and sustains multilateral and transdisciplinary efforts in converging key partners towards streamlining solutions to solve grand challenges of today.

Why Regenerating Central America?

Our team is uniquely positioned to undertake this project. We bring a strong network of relationships working with local communities throughout the target region of Central America with the 25 year track record of UCI. Established in 1994 to address the fragmented approaches that hindered dialogue at the Rio Earth Summit, UCI began developing training programs in sustainable development throughout Latin America. It has since evolved its programs to include the formation and management of biosphere reserves, scenario planning and community engagement for local resilience, and in the last ten years has increasingly emphasized the need for regeneration of functional landscapes to become integrated into the core of economic policies.

Combine this with the global network and reputation of the Capital Institute, which has created case studies for 50 regenerative projects to showcase its previous work developing a foundational framework for regenerative economics. It has been a catalyst for network activation among impact investors, design practitioners, policymakers, and researchers. The Capital Institute incubated and launched the Regenerative Communities Network to support the integration of small-scale projects into regional and territory-scale economies that embody the principles of living systems.

We are people who have dedicated our entire careers to this massive undertaking—weaving partnerships together with knowledge and experience about how to guide the evolution of economic systems away from the extractive paradigms that significantly reduce the resilience of human communities and ecosystems and toward the regenerative paradigms that integrate them to restore healthy functioning.

Biographies of Key Staff

Dr. Stuart Cowan, Capital Institute

Dr. Stuart Cowan, is the Co-Founder of the Regenerative Communities Network, an initiative of the Capital Institute, and has served as its Director/Systems Convener since 2017. He leads the delivery of a full cycle of engagement with each collaborative in the Network while also coordinating the design, governance, and business operations of the Network. Stuart brings a unique combination of practical engagement with circular/regenerative economies, systems science, design thinking, transaction/business experience, netweaving, and community facilitation.

Stuart previously served as Chief Scientist for the Smart Cities Council. In this role, he developed knowledge frameworks and tools supporting the integration of smart technologies with urban sustainability and resilience. Previously, Stuart was a Partner with Autopoiesis LLC, which applies complex living systems models and frameworks to regenerate communities, ecosystems, and organizations. Autopoiesis LLC has worked with a wide range of financial institutions, municipalities, state and federal agencies, tribes, non-profits, utilities, companies, and religious orders. Stuart served as a Transaction Manager and founding team member with Portland Family of Funds, an innovative sustainable community investment fund. He helped develop a triple bottom line investment strategy for Portland Family of Funds and its national affiliate, United Fund Advisors, LLC, which have together closed $2.8 billion in transactions, generating 21,000 jobs. He served as Conservation Economy Research Director at Ecotrust, an innovative sustainability non-profit based in Portland, Oregon where he led the development of the Reliable Prosperity framework for a regenerative bioregion. He is the co-author with Sim Van der Ryn of Ecological Design (Island Press, 1996/2007), a visionary overview of the whole systems integration of ecology and architecture, land-use planning, and product design that has been translated into three languages and was reissued in a special Tenth Anniversary second edition. He received his doctorate in Applied Mathematics from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on complex systems modeling and ecological economics. He has taught ecological design, sustainability, and complex systems at a wide range of universities, including the sustainable MBA program at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, U.C. Berkeley, Portland State University, and Naropa University. Stuart serves on the Global Council for the Well-Being Economy Alliance, is a Councilor for the SDG Transformations Forum, and is a member of the Netweaver Network.

Dr. Eduard Müller, Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional

Dr. Eduard Müller is the founder and rector (president) of the University for International Cooperation, being responsible for the institutional development of the university since 1994. Currently one of the global leaders on promoting regenerative development based on the Planetary Boundaries and the “Safe operating space for humanity”, for creating innovative solutions to the current challenges through transdisciplinary teams, the use of climate change and socio-economic scenarios, working integrally the economic, social, cultural, environmental, political and spiritual realms, seeking to increase the resilience of impacts of global change and especially climate change, facilitating mitigation and adaptation strategies for making a better planet.

His over 40 years of experience in five continents and dozens of countries in a wide array of fields, have enabled him to become an internationally recognized trend-setting leader. His work has covered management and innovation in higher education, global and climate change communication, nature conservation and nature based solutions, business and biodiversity initiatives, public private partnerships, conservation and development, sustainable development, sustainable tourism, eco and agrotourism, tourism, rural community development, rural development, local agendas 21, community management for poverty reduction, functional landscapes. He has occupied relevant international positions in wildlife management, protected areas, UNESCO MAB Program, development and evaluation of agricultural and environmental productive projects, breeding and animal production, alternative production systems and veterinary medicine. He has adopted spirituality as the major change-maker in human behavior, working closely with the Earth Charter initiative and more recently the Laudato Sí. He is also the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair for Biosphere Reserves and Natural and Mixed World Heritage Sites.

Franz Josef Allmayer, Integrity.Earth

Franz Josef Allmayer, is the Co-Founder of Integrity.Earth, where he leads multilateral and transdisciplinary efforts in converging key partners towards streamlining solutions to solve today’s grand challenges. He is a member of HYPHA, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) pioneering SEEDS, a financial ecosystem and digital currency designed to consolidate the various movements, organizations and platforms striving towards empowering humanity & regenerating the earth’s biosphere. His role as Whole Systems Integrator is geared towards uniting regenerative impulses into catalyzing the emergence of bio-regional economies of inclusive abundance.

Franz Josef is a universal citizen with roots between Austria and Guatemala. These contrasting yet complementary perspectives allowed him to question existing cultural paradigms built on scarcity from an early age. Dedication to the fields of innovation and global development has enabled Franz to gather transdisciplinary experience working with international organizations, governments, the private sector, NGOs, and academia. This process allowed him to recognize pervading patterns and embrace a whole-systems approach to development that effectively provides value towards the entirety of the system.

In recognition of the need to unite fragmented efforts towards a co-creative development process that effectively addresses the challenges of today, motivates Franz to create the tools, processes, and on the ground collaborations to support the development of regenerative bioregional economies.

Previously, he worked as a Program Coordinator with Advanced Development for Africa, where he led multidisciplinary approaches to address the Millennium Development Goals throughout Africa. More recently, with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) he developed the global strategy for mHealth/eHealth, engaging with governments and partners to address large-scale barriers to effective treatment and care.

The Problem

Problem Statement

Central America has a long history of unrest. Livelihoods for millions have become critical and mass migrations have concentrated the focus of political and economic discussions. A complex systemic failure of historic development models has triggered these migrations due to political unrest, high criminality and violence, extreme poverty, land degradation and ecosystem collapse, loss of productive soil, failing agriculture, food insecurity, frequent impacts of extreme weather events, global warming, lack of quality education and the lack of clear political leadership associated with high levels of corruption.

All of this is intensified in a world dominated by exponential change, where the climate emergency is poised to exacerbate all other social challenges humanity now faces. Structural inequality and poverty make it difficult to achieve the necessary scales of cooperation. Historic patterns of development have degraded lands, removed vital ecosystems, and set the stage for a Mass Extinction Event. We are at risk of losing the conditions required for human societies to develop and thrive.

Every person at risk of forced displacement from environmental change will benefit from this approach--with estimates of 143 million displaced persons in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia by 2050 and 3.5 million currently in need of humanitarian aid in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. We are taking an ambitious pioneering approach that strives to work at the scale of converging problems humanity faces.

Demand to Address the Problem

Migration has been an issue in the region for decades. The recent migration caravans have become a major headline. Extreme poverty, land degradation and ecosystem collapse, loss of productive soil, failing agriculture and food insecurity are recognized as among the main causes.

High deforestation rates and biodiversity loss were recognized decades ago and led to one of the world’s most innovative large-scale interventions, the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which ended in 2006. Today, extreme weather events are causing major damage to farms and crops and climate models predict a decline in precipitation with more frequent, severe and longer lasting droughts.

The increase in migration coincides with the drought, which began in 2014, and those living in Central America’s so-called dry corridor. According to a recent World Bank report, climate change has emerged as a major driver of migration, propelling increasing numbers of people to move from vulnerable to more viable areas.

The Solution

Solution Overview

Central America, with a high potential for regeneration, offers a unique opportunity for resolving the complex symptoms plaguing the region through practical and implementable solutions integrated into a whole-system framework. We have a proven record of rapid adoption by local stakeholders at small scale. We will accelerate implementation with measurable impact at larger scale to continually improve the regeneration of landscapes and systemic health of local communities.

Our pathway to restore ecological balance to the region while safeguarding the long-term livelihoods of communities starts with targeting essential biological corridors over a five-year period, where we intend to build capacity for a broad impact encompassing the following principal components:

• Co-creating multidisciplinary solutions with all stakeholders to develop regenerative economies that build resilience at the local level.
• Enhancing community participation, especially the capacity of youth, in decision making processes through empowerment and education.
• Developing regenerative agriculture that allows the optimization of food production through land-use-planning and the recovery of regional agrobiodiversity, linked with local ancestral knowledge, allowing for the recovery of essential ecological corridors that sustain biodiversity levels and build resilience to climate change.
• Incubating entrepreneurs, cooperatives, and small enterprises, inclusive to women and youth, establishing value chains for sustainable market opportunities.
• Developing regenerative tourism models
• Deployment of innovative technology for sustainable energy production to rural communities, allowing for youth to identify with local development. ie. Threefold Grid
• Creating a network of networks consolidated by the Hypha DAO platform allowing for the exchange and implementation of experiences of best practices across regions and stakeholders. Key functions of the DAO are decentralized payroll and contribution accounting that facilitate exchange of flows:

Value Flows · Knowledge Flows · Network Flows · Monetary Flows · Information Flows · Data Flows

Technical Process Description

We employ the demonstrated by approach for holistic landscape management [1] that can be described in four steps:

1. Build a regional multi-stakeholder network bringing together the key people involved in various aspects of land management and economic development in that region – including staff of national ministries, agribusiness, smallholder farmers, regional investors, conservationists, and researchers.
2. Create a set of data-driven scenarios of the future state of the region, and work with the multi-stakeholder network to envision a preferred direction for economic development that balances conservation, regeneration, economic and social goals to achieve the desired future.
3. Work to identify, co-develop, and bring in investment – as well as local, regional, and global partners – to projects that help transform the regional economy.
4. Monitor the long-term benefits to the landscape ecosystem and society to report on progress to all stakeholders, which then feeds back into the ongoing project identification process.

Additionally, we employ the principles for managing common-pooled assets identified by Elinor Ostrom [2] and the principles for regenerative economics outlined by John Fullerton [3]. We design for the conditions associated with evolutionary transitions [4] to achieve higher levels of integration among actors and institutions.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The principles of regenerative economics include empowered participation, being in right relationship, and the honoring of community and place. This project embraces these principles by seeking the most marginal and vulnerable populations of Central America with whom to co-create strategies for economic development.

Our project aims at creating long-term livelihoods and viability for marginalized and displaced communities, including many indigenous communities. We will operate based on the fundamental principle that communities know what is good for them, must be able to speak for themselves, and make their own decisions. In each of the focus territories, we will engage with marginalized communities where we have existing relationships and that are also deeply aligned with the vision of our project. As part of the community engagement process, each territorial project funded and supported through our project will be inspired from within the community itself, receive community backing, be led directly by community members, and be focused on the overall vision of restoring ecological balance to the region while safeguarding the long-term livelihoods of communities. As a result, most of the funding for our project will be redistributed directly to marginalized communities by funding these community-led solutions.

To ensure culturally responsive processes we will use culturally appropriate principles and frameworks in all our group facilitation, stepping back and letting the community lead wherever possible. To carefully avoid tokenism, we will undergo robust recruitment and onboarding processes that focus on fully incorporating indigenous representation and capacity in the core team and in the evaluation team.

Opportunities and Accommodations

We will make reasonable accommodations so that disabled people can participate in planning and implementation.

Life in rural areas is particularly challenging for people with disabilities in terms of access to education, training and employment opportunities. Beyond our inclusive policies with hiring practices, our holistic approach naturally includes improving the livelihoods of rural disabled people to help them become active in rural economic development.

As we develop rural development strategies and programs, we will include people with disabilities and involve them in designing those strategies and programs to allow them to define their priorities. Disenfranchised populations will also be included in community decision-making processes, resulting in increasingly inclusive rural development strategies.

Our multi-stakeholder approach includes collaborating with national institutions, international agencies, scholars and practitioners skilled in disability issues. Staff, advisors, partners and consultants will be sensitized to support building the capacities of program participants to work effectively with disabled people.

Theory of Change

We view the change process fundamentally in two ways. Firstly, societies organize themselves around basic functions that enable them to exist. When landscape degradation goes too far, these functions break down and forced displacement becomes necessary. We focus on the functional landscapes of watersheds, mountain ranges, flood plains, and coastal estuaries as key organizing principles for guiding the regeneration of local economies.

Secondly, social innovations spread through a combination of pragmatism and prestige. People will readily adopt practices they see working for their neighbors and are quick to jump on the bandwagon when something becomes trendy. We focus on identifying innovative leaders within each community to create demonstration projects that become visible in their region.

This approach is informed by the integrative research frameworks of cultural evolutionary studies – enabling us to draw upon the expansive peer-review literature for how social change occurs in diverse settings as informed by the biological, ecological, and social sciences.

The logic of our change strategy is to support the conditions for emergence at the intersections between human communities and the biophysical flows they depend upon for their survival. Essential biological corridors with the highest potential for regeneration will be selected based on measures of biodiversity, land degradation, and social instability to form effective groups, facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborations, and set shared agendas at the territorial scale.

A suite of ecological monitoring tools will be employed to track changes in forest cover, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and water quality as they relate to the well-being of human communities.

Locations of Current Solutions

Where are we currently implementing our solution?

Costa Rica

Infusing ideas of regenerative economics across many of the 28 Territorial Councils (watershed governance councils) in Costa Rica, building momentum for a national regenerative economy strategy (see below).

Hudson Valley, New York

In the Hudson Valley in New York, the regional “systems convener” for the Regenerative Communities Network has been able to do extensive systems mapping in the regenerative agriculture space. This resulted in the identification of several different farmer training programs which are being harmonized with each other and better aligned to regional demand. It has also uncovered several potential transaction opportunities.

Denver, Colorado

In Denver, Colorado, a deep engagement with CityCraft has resulted in new approaches to regional data gathering and analysis from a regenerative economics perspective along with cooperation along these lines amongst seven regional academic institutions through the Community Integrated Research Center.

Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

In the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, which holds 2.5% of global biodiversity, efforts are underway to conduct causal systems mapping, regenerative project mapping, and investor mapping to systematically connect regenerative projects with regenerative capital and make these projects priorities for the Osa Peninsula Territorial Council.

Mexico City, Mexico

In Mexico City, Mexico, regenerative finance activities are underway for the preservation of biodiversity and resilience in local communities. Financial management tools for portfolio investments are being developed alongside learning journeys for impact investors to incorporate biodiversity into asset valuations for prospective investments.

Locations for Bioregional Regeneration Efforts

Locations for project implementation.

Northern Triangle Central America

In the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras our work will be concentrated in the Dry Corridor and the tri-national Trifinio Biosphere Reserve that spans portions of all three countries.

Guatemala:

• Lake Atitlán Basin
• Altiplano

Partner Organizations:

• 32 Volcanes
• Senacri: Semillas Nativas y Criollas (translates to: Native and Indigenous Seeds)
• Vivamos Mejor
• IMAP
• Micelica Biotecnologia
• Alticultura
• Catafixia
• Artzenico Teatro
• Ministerio de Salud Pública Regional
• 48 Cantones
• Universidad Ixil
• Artesanía Maya Ixil
• Escuela Caracol

Costa Rica

The goal is to establish Costa Rica as one of the first regenerative nations on earth, now at an accelerated pace to palliate the systemic effects of COVID-19. Additionally, this would allow the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved and surpassed through deep transformation and seamless integration across the 17 goals.

Regenerate Costa Rica national framework

Panama

In Panama we will concentrate our work in the Peninsula de Azuero, an area with very similar conditions to the Dry Corridor that could be regenerated and converted into an area of regenerative agriculture.

Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are considered by many donors when looking to support both domestic and international work.

Taking a holistic approach means that we work on all SDGs at once in our target region. This is the only way to systematically address them as whole-system solutions.

• No Poverty
• Zero Hunger
• Good Health and Well-being
• Quality Education
• Gender Equality
• Clean Water and Sanitation
• Affordable and Clean Energy
• Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Reduced Inequality
• Sustainable Cities and Communities
• Responsible Consumption and Production
• Climate Action
• Life Below Water
• Life on Land
• Peace and Justice
• Strong Institutions
• Partnerships to achieve the Goal

Solution Stage

• Scaling: We have evidence that our solution achieves impact and are in the process of expanding and adapting the solution to a greater number of target beneficiaries, in new contexts or geographies. We are continuing to monitor for impact and refine the solution but have yet to achieve large-scale implementation.

Key Words

• Systemic
• Inclusive
• Integrative
• Collaborative
• Transdisciplinary

Projected Impact

Evidence of Effectiveness

Holistic approaches are accomplished by evaluating the effectiveness through all four dimensions of natural, human, social and built capital. We measure effectiveness based on the valuation of all outcomes with the understanding that human activity should enhance the environment and the community by providing benefits to the majority and not only a few.

Convergent studies of ancient civilizations systematically reveal that land degradation ultimately leads to decline and collapse [5]. Wars and conflicts are frequently driven by scarcity and depletion of natural resources [6]. The rise of social complexity is accompanied by profound capacities for cooperation that arise under special evolutionary conditions [7].

Similarly, in public health research there is widespread recognition that human conflicts arise through the perception of coercion [8]. Communities become resilient when they are able to manage their own affairs in dynamic harmony with their surrounding environments [9]. The use of developmental evaluation [10] and interrupted time series trials [11] show that it is possible to discern the causes of social harm and manage their complexities in effective ways.

Holistic land management can be used to restore soils, establish healthy forests, clean riverways, and engage communities in participatory governance [12]. Carbon sequestration can be robustly measured in agroforestry and regenerative agriculture projects [13]. Community-driven monitoring of biodiversity has lasting effects on stewardship norms [14]. Structural inequality is inversely related to a variety of well-being measures for entire societies indicating that inclusive development processes increase civic engagement and improve overall health for community members [15].

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

We are delighted to implement Michael Quinn Patton’s new “Blue Marble Evaluation” framework that emerged from more than a decade of case studies in developmental evaluation. This highly effective approach adapts the evaluation process to changing contexts in support of project evolution. At the heart of our project is a platform strategy to capture the learnings in each region and across the global network – with developmental evaluation training delivered in each territory so that evaluation can play an active role in the management of real-world complexities at all levels.

Questions we will ask are informed by the principles of regenerative economics: Does this honor community and place? Is it seeking balance among the various dynamic drivers of the region? Will it increase empowered participation for marginalized people? Are landscapes being reforested and capturing carbon from the atmosphere? Do local communities have increased revenue flows that remain in their households?

We will continuously gather datasets from environmental monitoring, social system mapping, surveys and user data of various kinds – all enhanced by the creation of a digital platform to synthesize, visualize, and act upon asynchronous and real-time information. Our evaluation process will adaptively improve its use of monitoring to improve learning throughout the duration of the project.

Planning for Scale and Amplifying Impact

The organizing principle we are using to achieve scale and impact is to work with functional landscapes – for example to organize economic activities around watersheds and mountain ranges, coastal estuaries and historic trade networks. This allows us to work with whole-systems that naturally integrate themselves in ecological and cultural terms.

Each territory that we engage in will establish a bioregional learning center that is cooperatively owned and managed by local communities. This begins with the development of land suitable for regeneration that can be employed as a training ground for regional economic development. Each learning center becomes the convener for mapping of its territory, coordination of development efforts, related research and educational activities.

By establishing learning centers in each of the ecological corridors, we will establish a network for peer-to-peer learning among the regional economies across Central America that becomes embedded within the global Regenerative Communities Network that has already been established.

We have been approached by more than 70 bioregions on six continents since the launch of the global network. Our strategy is to weave existing permaculture camps, retreat centers, ecovillages, and other educational organizations into a planetary-scale network of regenerative campuses – all of which align around shared pedagogical philosophies and curricula for regenerative development.

By establishing Central America as the first regional-scale collaborative, this global network will be able to grow from the “backbone” infrastructure put in place during the five-year period of this project.

Durability of Impact

We are proposing a far-reaching, long-term solution that consolidates existing initiatives in the region towards the effective restoration of key biological corridors essential for systemic well-being that opens up a pathway for effective replication and scale. The intended impact of our multi-stakeholder approach has a long-term durability in its design and is conceived to increase local resilience as time goes on.

This project is an initial infrastructure and capacity-building stage for a 50 year developmental trajectory. Our time frame is roughly:

• 2020-2025 :: Support local network of bioregional collaboratives with economies built on regenerative principles.
• 2025-2035 :: Out-compete the extractive economic systems so that regeneration becomes the dominant economic model.
• 2035-2070 :: Bring all Central American ecosystems back within safe operating range and ensure thriving human communities have the long-term ability to live within this range.

Bibliography

1. Tools for Implementing Integrated Landscape Management by EcoAgriculture Partners (2018)
2. Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom (1990)
3. Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy by John Fullerton (2015)
4. The Major Transitions in Evolution by Smith and Szathmáry (1995)
5. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by Montgomery (2007)
6. War and Peace and War by Turchin (2006)
7. Ultra Society: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth by Turchin (2015)
8. The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives by Biglan (2015)
9. What Do We Mean by ‘Community Resilience’? A Systematic Literature Review by Patel et al. (2017)
10. Developmental Evaluation Exemplars: Principles in Practice by Quinn Patton et al. (2015)
11. The Value of Interrupted Time-Series for Community Intervention Research by Biglan et al. (2000)
12. Spatial Modelling of Participatory Landscape Scenarios by Meijer et al. (2018)
13. World Bank Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils (2012)
14. Biodiversity and Tourism in Costa Rica by Zamora and Obando at INBio (2001)
15. The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Pickett and Wilkinson (2009)

Resource Requirements

Project Phases

Phase 1: Set Up the Network

Duration: 18 months Description: Establish work plan, deepen community relationships, and coordinate learning across sites. Initiate multi-stakeholder mapping and scenario-planning processes for all territories.

Phase 2: Guided Development for Regeneration

Duration: 34 months Description: Accompany the implementation of solutions to empower communities to regenerate biological corridors, including the implementation of holistic metrics for effective monitoring and evaluation of the development process.

Phase 3: Codify and Expand Solutions

Duration: 12 months Description: Roll out a bioregional platform for coordinated exchange and investment, consolidating regions into circular well-being economies. Track value creation and capital flows across territories and throughout the entire region in service to community resilience and ecological health.

Total Resource Requirements

Bringing a regenerative economic development model to scale in the region will ultimately require tens of billions of dollars. We anticipate this pilot-and-expansion phase to attract a 10-to-1 investment return for each region -- the $100 million seeding the birth of this new model -- for a total of roughly $1 billion spread across all of Central America.

We have ongoing collaborations with multiple global networks to catalyze additional funding as this project takes off. Included among them are Commonland Foundation, Savory Institute, SDG Transformations Forum, Well-Being Economy Alliance, Common Earth (Commonwealth Secretariat initiative), Global Ecovillage Network, and the Club of Rome.

Budget Narrative

Phase 1. Set up Network

$20,000,000. Includes dedicated funding of $1,800,000 each for 10 locally-staffed bioregional collaboratives in Central America along with $2,000,000 for overall project coordination and administration. This phase includes detailed planning, deepening community relationships, undertaking multi-stakeholder mapping and scenario planning, and coordinating implementation across all 10 territories.

Phase 2. Guided Development for Regeneration

$55,000,000. Includes dedicated funding of $5,000,000 each for 10 bioregional collaboratives along with $5,000,000 for overall project coordination and administration; half of this likely being place-based impact investments for the territories. This phase includes supporting implementation of community designed projects to regenerate the selected biological corridors in ways that support long-term community health. These projects will be in the areas of regenerative agriculture, holistic grazing, ecotourism, renewable energy, water, and community health.

Phase 3. Codify and Expand Solutions

$15,000,000. Includes dedicated funding of $1,350,000 each for 10 bioregional collaboratives along with $1,500,000 for overall project coordination and administration. This phase includes launching a digital platform for bioregional exchange and investment to further regenerative projects identified in Phase 1 and tracking value creation and capital flows across the region from the perspective of community resilience and ecological health.

An additional $2,000,000 will be set aside for accessibility for people with disabilities. A final $5,000,000 will be used for monitoring, evaluation, and learning using the Blue Marble Evaluation framework. Contingency is $3,000,000.

Detailed Budget

Phase 1: Budget Breakdown

Overall project coordination and administration $2,000,000 Bioregional collaborative, area 1 $1,800,000 thru Bioregional collaborative, area 10 $1,800,000 Accommodation for disabilities $500,000 Monitoring, evaluation, and learning $1,000,000 Contingency $1,000,000

Phase 2: Budget Breakdown

Overall project coordination and administration $5,000,000 Bioregional collaborative, area 1 $5,000,000 thru Bioregional collaborative, area 10 $5,000,000 Accommodation for disabilities $1,000,000 Monitoring, evaluation, and learning $3,000,000 Contingency $1,000,000

Phase 3: Budget Breakdown

Overall project coordination and administration $1,500,000 Bioregional collaborative, area 1 $1,350,000 thru Bioregional collaborative, area 10 $1,350,000 Accommodation for disabilities $500,000 Monitoring, evaluation, and learning $1,000,000 Contingency $1,000,000

Total Costs: All Phases

Phase #1 $22,500,000 Phase #2 $60,000,000 Phase #3 $17,500,000

Notes:

The vast majority of funds will pass through directly to 10 bioregional collaboratives to be chosen in key biological corridors in the target region for the project. These funds will continue to be carefully monitored by the overall project team, but will be allocated directly by locally staffed collaboratives drawing on community design and facilitation processes.

The monitoring, evaluation, and learning budget will provide a critical initial application of Blue Marble Evaluation, recently developed by the dean of evaluation studies, Michael Quinn Patton, who is a key collaborator of the Regenerative Communities Network.

Financial Sustainability

This grant is intended to seed self-sustaining projects by building the capacity for transformative leadership; regenerative learning; communication and collaborative platforms; systems mapping; Blue Marble Evaluation of transformative potential; regenerative design; and access to regenerative capital. With this capacity in place for 10 critical bioregional collaboratives in the target area, it is anticipated that a strong deal flow of self-sustaining projects with broad community co-benefits across multiple forms of capital will be identified and brought to investment-grade feasibility stage. Every $1 invested in core transformation infrastructure should yield $10 in investment match from private, philanthropic, government, and academic sources. It is anticipated that the $100,000,000 seed funding will result in $1 billion of matching investment during the initial project and in the five years following its completion.

Other Resource Requirements

As this project advances, it will become increasingly vital that we weave together with as many learning networks as possible to co-create the conditions for a new economic paradigm to emerge. You can help connect us with learning partners in the philanthropic, scientific, spiritual, economic, and educational domains that have grown around your programs. We are eager to facilitate the conditions for emergence all over Central America as regenerative economies struggle to take hold amongst the splendid diversity of cultural and ecological contexts in which they are being born today.

G. Legal Compliance

Charitable Purpose

The charitable purpose of the project is to benefit: Residents, especially including recent migrants to, in 10 to be identified territories (bioregions) in the target region of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) and secondarily Costa Rica and Panama. Of particular interest are residents at risk of involuntary migration due to climate change, political instability, violence, lack of economic opportunity, and related factors. Within this group, women, children, disabled, and economically marginalized people are core beneficiaries. Residents with similar characteristics in neighboring territories within ecological corridors identified by the project. Residents with similar characteristics in other areas of the world suffering from similar impacts (e.g. Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, South America) who can be served by similar types of bioregional collaboratives that will learn from the work in Central America. Researchers, impact investors, evaluation experts, transformation systems practitioners, regenerative designers, and others engaged in regenerative development.

Private Benefit

The project will trigger private benefit. The project has a strong focus on identifying and nurturing regenerative entrepreneurs, who will play a key role in co-designing participatory community-led initiatives that lead to systemic transformation. The bioregional collaboratives may take investment positions (interest-free loans, equity investments, credit guarantees, etc.) in regenerative enterprises launched or scaled up in these processes, which will ultimately provide private benefit to owners of these enterprises. Like any other investment activity undertaken by a non-profit entity, the public benefit cannot be achieved without necessarily benefiting individuals connected to the investment targets.

However, this will allow investments triggered by the project to be matched by other private, philanthropic, and government investment, greatly amplifying impact. Returns from these investments can also support future activities. By design, only truly regenerative enterprises will potentially receive private benefits within the project, ensuring a focus on inclusion, ecological restoration, and enhanced rural economies.