Cascadia

The Cascadia Bioregion encompasses all or portions of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta. Bioregion is short for ‘bio-cultural region’ and are geographically based areas defined by a physical traits; land or soil composition, watershed, climate, flora, and fauna; as well as the cultural traits of the inhabitants that live within them, and act upon them. The Cascadia Bioregion includes the entire watershed of the Columbia River (as far as the Continental Divide), as well as the Cascade Range from Northern California well into Canada. The delineation of a bioregion is defined through watersheds and ecoregions, with the belief that political boundaries should match ecological and cultural boundaries, and that culture stems from place.

Stretching along more than 2500 miles of Pacific coastline, Cascadia extends for as long and as far as the Salmon swim - from the glacial cold Copper River Watershed in South East Alaska to Cape Mendecino in the South and the Yellowstone Caldera in the East. Cascadia contains the largest tracts of untouched old growth temperate rain-forests in the world, including 7 of the top 10 worlds carbon absorbing forests, the worlds tallest trees, thousands of volcanoes, hot springs, rivers, lakes, inlets, island and ocean, and some of the last diminishing, though still impressive wild habitats of salmon, wolves, bear, whale, orca. In all -  more than 350 bird and mammal species, 48 reptiles, hundreds of fungi, lichen, and thousands of invertebrates and soil organisms call Cascadia home.

Cascadia is a popular grassroots movement that has inspired the imagination for more than forty years and spans tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and community groups throughout the Cascadia bioregion. The Cascadia movement seeks to further local autonomy, empower individuals and communities to better represent their own needs, and create sustainable local economies through bioregional planning. We encourage people to think bioregionally (and therefore, locally), build community resilience and create new pathways for communication, politics, and interdependence that better represent the social, cultural and political realities of our region.

For many of us, Cascadia is more than just the region we live in. It has become a collective identity stemming from our shared experiences and stories of this place. This identity allows us to come together as a community and social movement to act as a powerful force for change, to build a framework so that every person can be active about the issues they care about, and a vision for a bioregion that is vibrant, autonomous and resilient.