Bioregionalism in the context of "Kansas"

Sustainable living describes a lifestyle that attempts to reduce the use of Earth's natural resources by an individual or society. Its practitioners often attempt to reduce their ecological footprint (including their carbon footprint) by altering their home designs and methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet. Its proponents aim to conduct their lives in ways that are consistent with sustainability, naturally balanced, and respectful of humanity's symbiotic relationship with the Earth's natural ecology. The practice and general philosophy of ecological living closely follows the overall principles of sustainable development.

One approach to sustainable living, exemplified by small-scale urban transition towns and rural ecovillages, seeks to create self-reliant communities based on principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency, particularly in food production. These principles, on a broader scale, underpin the concept of a bioregional economy.

A bioregion is a geographical area defined not by administrative boundaries, but by distinct characteristics such as plant and animal species, ecological systems, soils and landforms, human settlements, and topographic features such as drainage basins (also referred to as "watersheds"). A bioregion can be on land or at sea. The idea of bioregions was adopted and popularized in the mid-1970s by a school of philosophy called bioregionalism, which includes the concept that human culture can influence bioregional definitions due to its effect on non-cultural factors. Bioregions are part of a nested series of ecological scales, generally starting with local watersheds, growing into larger river systems, then Level III or IV ecoregions (or regional ecosystems), bioregions, then biogeographical realm, followed by the continental-scale and ultimately the biosphere.

Within the life sciences, there are numerous methods used to define the physical limits of a bioregion based on the spatial extent of mapped ecological phenomena—from species distributions and hydrological systems (i.e. Watersheds) to topographic features (e.g. landforms) and climate zones (e.g. Köppen classification). Bioregions also provide an effective framework in the field of Environmental history, which seeks to use "river systems, ecozones, or mountain ranges as the basis for understanding the place of human history within a clearly delineated environmental context". A bioregion can also have a distinct cultural identity defined, for example, by Indigenous Peoples whose historical, mythological and biocultural connections to their lands and waters shape an understanding of place and territorial extent. Within the context of bioregionalism, bioregions can be socially constructed by modern-day communities for the purposes of better understanding a place "with the aim to live in that place sustainably and respectfully."

The Cascadia movement is a collection of various heterogeneous movements seeking greater autonomy for the Pacific Northwest through a political coalition of the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Included in the movements is an independence movement seeking to establish a Cascadian federation, an economic movement for the creation of a single market, a bioregionalist movement for the Cascadia bioregion, and a nationalist or cultural movement for the creation of a Cascadian national identity superseding identification with the state/territory or federal government.

The movement is largely centered in the major cities of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, although the bioregion also includes Idaho and the Alaskan Panhandle, along with small parts of California, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Yukon. More conservative advocates for Cascadian federalism propose borders that include the land west of the crest of the Cascade Range, while some advocates propose borders as far north as Alaska and the Yukon region.