Planet Drum Foundation - Bioregional Education and Action

Planet Drum Foundation (PDF), founded in 1973 to promote the concept of a bioregion through education and action, serves as a “mother” networking source for the worldwide bioregional movement.

Based in San Francisco of Shasta Bioregion (northern California), PDF has had considerable influence molding the growing ecological consciousness in its home life-place. It sponsored the Frisco Bay Mussel Group as a public think tank for understanding Shasta Bioregion and opposed a Peripheral Canal scheme to divert water away from SF Bay to southern California. The Mussel Group prevailed through publicity campaigns to defeat both a California Legislature bill and later a ballot proposition to build the Canal. This was the first distinctly bioregional political victory in the state. The staid Sierra Club originally endorsed the Canal scheme, so PDF was termed by a San Francisco Chronicle journalist to be “a thorn in the side of the Bay Area’s environmental movement.”

In 1989 PDF published A Green City Program for San Francisco Bay Area & Beyond, a multi-faceted proposal for creating ecological cities that offered sustainable ways to satisfy basic human needs of food, water, shelter, employment, education, and so forth. It became the impetus for founding San Francisco’s Department of Environment a few years later.

These are the ways that PDF continues to work within San Francisco: 

• Bioregional Education Program workshops designed to familiarize people with the San Francisco Bay Area bioregion that include map-making to show the inter-relationship of natural systems, and direct exposure to features such as landforms, soil, native plants and animals, and examples of sustainability.  

• Green City Calendar to connect the public with over 200 groups’ projects, events and volunteer opportunities through our website www.planetdrum.org.  

• Presentations including talks to community groups, university lectures, and public performances.

• Special events such as a panel discussion on the need to practice local remanufacturing of products to fulfill the promise of collecting recyclables.

• Informational materials for deepening bioregional awareness:

• "Wild in the City", a poster-map comparing a view of the natural geography of San Francisco before colonization with a present-day street map to show what features could be restored. "Shasta Bioregion" map and descriptions of natural zones within Northern California.   

• "Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Norther California" book to present cultural attributes of different natural areas. "Envisioning Sustainability", a collection of essays by Peter Berg.

Where is the place that urbanites, suburbanites, and rural residents inhabit together?

Where is the place to learn and practice sustainable ways that satisfy basic human needs?

Where is the place nearest at hand to restore & maintain ecosystems & wildlife?

Where is the place to re-localize & decentralize political, social and economic features?

Where is the place to remanufacture products from recycled material?

Where is the place for students to learn about ecology?

Where is the place to begin both reducing climate change & planning suitable adaptations?

Answer: The watershed in the bioregion where you live.

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