My research investigates how Biosphere Regions can foster approaches that bring together diverse actors – government, Indigenous, business, civil society – to learn, innovate, and overcome the challenges that often arise when environmental, social, and economic sectors attempt to resolve issues separately. In particular, I seek to identify how entrepreneurship might drive new spaces for harmonizing conservation and development efforts; new practices and mutual learning; new innovations for creating value within communities and nature; and new long-term, regenerative solutions.

This idea falls under the theoretical umbrella of regenerative organizing – a process that creates local conditions for cultivating biocultural diversity and abundance. By regenerating biocultural diversity, regenerative organizing transcends trade-offs and moves beyond sustaining conservation and development conditions or developing adaptive resilience to stressors. Entrepreneurial pathways drive organizing efforts toward this regenerative vision. Including economic development in initiatives that support communities and conserve nature requires new arrangements – structures for decision-making and operations. These form as new competencies are developed among actors and local resources are mobilized and coordinated.

My research objectives and associated questions are as follows:

Objective 1: Explore the potential for regenerative organizing within Biosphere Regions.

How do actors in Biosphere Regions understand regenerative organizing?
How do actors in Biosphere Regions currently collaborate in entrepreneurial pathways benefitting biocultural diversity?
What current arrangements help or hinder these entrepreneurial pathways?
How do these arrangements support or constrain progress toward more regenerative ways of working?

 

Objective 2: Understand harmonized collaborative spaces within Biosphere Regions.

How are spaces for collaboration created and used to support entrepreneurial initiatives, and how can new spaces for harmonizing conservation and development be explored?
How can the range of local actors be expanded and collaborative spaces managed to strengthen regenerative organizing?

 

Objective 3: Assess readiness for change within Biosphere Regions.

What conditions affect actor readiness to work in new, regenerative ways?
How do local actors evaluate their ability and willingness to engage in entrepreneurial pathways?

 

Objective 4: Build a framework for lasting regenerative change within Biosphere Regions.

What arrangements support embedding entrepreneurial pathways in organizational practice and replication across organizations and places?

What is a Biosphere Region?

The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme – an intergovernmental program that seeks to establish a scientific basis for improving relationships between people and their environments – has been recognizing local efforts to convene organizational partnerships to conserve ecologically and culturally important landscapes since 1976. Internationally, different names have been adopted to reflect local culture, goals and legal frameworks - for example, “Biosphere Regions” in Canada and “UNESCO Eco-Parks” in Japan.

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What is entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial pathways?

Entrepreneurship is the process of finding creative ways to use what already exists – skills, resources, and relationships – to develop new ideas or activities that create value. This process creates pathways – step-by-step routes toward a big goal that guide decisions and actions.

Value comes in many forms:

  • Ecological (e.g., cleaner water, restored habitats, reduced pollution, improved soil health)
  • Cultural (e.g., preservation of local traditions and languages, Indigenous knowledge sharing, celebrating community identity)
  • Social (e.g., stronger community relationships and trust, shared decision-making and leadership, learning, improved well-being)
  • Economic (e.g., sustainable livelihoods, fair incomes, local job creation, nature-positive enterprises and circular economy practices, new markets for regenerative products and services)
  • Knowledge (e.g., shared learning, innovation, access to diverse ways of knowing, building capacity for future generations)

Value creates benefits that help people, communities, and nature thrive together.

When is something ‘regenerative’?

Regenerative means people and nature thrive together, keep resources flowing in healthy cycles, and make things better over time instead of just keeping them the same.