What is the New Silk?
Trade Routes of the Future
The Silk Road was named after a tangible commodity, something that people could use, that they could build livelihoods around. We believe such products and services are key when regenerating landscapes and societies. That is why we work with value chains for food and textiles and tourism. But these are not just random commodities or sectors.
When experimenting with alternative economic systems such as local currencies and Gift Economy, we realised that food and farming has to be the basis of any such attempt. Why?
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If people cannot use the proposed system to meet basic needs they will not participate for long, and
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Farming constitutes the primary interface with the natural world and as such is the key to changing our relationship with the ecosystems upon which Life depends.
Of course most Bioregions are already too dependent on cross border trade for their own good, and the path to regeneration is not more export and import, but less. However, trade will always have a place in a healthy economy, so we decided to focus on disruption of value chains so that they support localisation, not undermine it. How?
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By allocating a percentage of trade income to a Bioregional Treasury, governed by a Bioregional Regeneration Council, tasked with investing in restoration ecology and community resilience. This includes improving food security and sovereignty;
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By promoting circular production models that use the same raw materials multiple times, paying farmers every time their product is re-used. This increases income per crop and allows farmers to shift land away from cash crops to biodiversity or food.