Join us for AELA’s “Exploring Bioregioning” webinar series!

In our final bioregioning webinar for 2025, AELA Convenor and Greenprints creator, Michelle Maloney will be joined by Nisha Mary Poulose and Manu Bhatnagar to discuss an amazing bioregional mapping project in India, led by the South Asian Bioregionalism Working Group.

Bioregioning is a Western term that sees human societies and culture as part of nature, and proposes that modern human societies can be more sustainable, successful and meaningful, if our political, cultural and economic systems are organised within natural boundaries such as bioregions and catchments (watersheds). Some have referred to bioregional governance as ‘localisation within the foundations of nature’.

‘Exploring Bioregioning’ is part of AELA’s Greenprints program, and features guest speakers from diverse backgrounds, disciplines and bioregions, sharing research, insights and stories from around Australia and around the world. Our goal is to show how bioregioning offers important pathways to create Earth-centred systems change. 

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

NISHA MARY POULOSE

Nisha Mary Poulose is a bioregional planner, regeneration strategist, researcher and architect whose career at the confluence of human habitat, planning, and ecology now spans 14 years and 4 countries. Her regenerative focus has been the guiding force behind her work, as is the deep bond she shares with nature and her own indigeneity.

She is the founder of Woven Design Collaborative, a spatial design and planning firm that works with strategic visions and action plans for integrated regional development to preserve human and natural heritage, with regenerative livelihoods and native wisdom at the centre. Nisha is a member of the South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group through which she co-led the initiative to map bioregional boundaries in the Indian Subcontinent and co-authored a monograph.

The South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group, researches, ideates and dialogues with the vision of thriving bioregional South Asia. The Working Group is a voluntary network focused on promoting bioregional governance in South Asia by advocating for decision-making based on natural boundaries like river basins rather than colonial nation-state borders. The group works to create and strengthen bioregional knowledge, highlight traditional ecological systems, foster cross-border people-to-people collaboration, and integrate bioregional principles into policy and governance to achieve ecological and social well-being in the region.

MANU BHATNAGAR

Manu Bhatnagar is an architect, urban and environmental planner with 27 Years of experience in the environment sector. He currently heads the Natural Heritage Division of INTACH as Principal Director.

He has worked in India and in SE Asia on diverse projects ranging from urban-regional-environmental planning to river conservation, water policy, sustainable agriculture, urban biodiversity, lake conservation and management [with studies, projects and activism on several significant lakes and wetlands] and cultural documentation. He has worked on Ramsar sites, salt water lakes, oxbow lakes and marshes, heritage water bodies, water policy, river island policy, geoheritage, rewilding.

He is carrying out plantation of mixed forests around Rudraksh species and Bhojpatra trees in several sites in Uttarakhand, has rebuilt Govt. Inter College at Bhiri with soil blocks technology, revived Hauz Khas [Delhi] and Rudrasagar lakes [Ujjain], worked on conservation of Ganga and Yamuna rivers, created watering holes and sanctuary for wildlife in Rajasthan, created the Indian Garden in Thailand. He has authored/co-authored/edited the following books :

• Understanding Rivers {2017}
• A Guidebook to River Basin Management for Medium & Minor Rivers {2020}
• Naturalizing the River Front [2022]
• Uncovering Pre-Districts Bioregions of India [2022] (unpublished)
• Samagrata & Samakshata [partly co-authored and edited volumes] on the Ganga [2022)
• A Narrative of the Ganga – A Citizens’ Report [2023]
• Heads and Tails of the Ganga [2023]
• Construction In Earth (1989)

HOST – MICHELLE MALONEY

Dr Michelle Maloney (PhD) is an Earth lawyer and advocate for ecocentric and bioregional governance. She is recognised internationally and in Australia for her work advocating for Earth centred law and governance, including First Laws and the Rights of Nature. Michelle is Co-Founder and Director of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), and Co-Founder and Director of Future Dreaming, an Indigenous led organisation that works to share Indigenous ecological and governance knowledge with non-Indigenous people and organisations in Australia. Michelle lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For more information about Michelle’s work, publications and affiliations, please visit: www.michellemaloney.au 

ABOUT GREENPRINTS

Greenprints is a framework for building the foundations of bioregional governance. It has been designed to make it easier for people – especially people living in industrialised and Western societies – to understand how to build sustainable/regenerative futures, by first understanding local ecological systems and using those systems to guide human societies and economies. Greenprints draws on bioregionalism and ‘bioregioning’ as key concepts for rethinking our personal, organisational and community wide governance systems.

ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN EARTH LAWS ALLIANCE (AELA)

AELA is a not-for-profit organisation working to increase the understanding and practical implementation of Earth-centred (ecocentric) governance, with a focus on systems change across law, economics, education, ethics and community participation in Australia. AELA’s vision is an Australian society that embraces an ecocentric or ‘life-centred’ culture, with governance systems that enable human communities to thrive within ecological boundaries, while nurturing biodiversity and ecosystem health. AELA’s work includes education programs and project support for people, communities and organisations working to create ecocentric systems change.

For more information, visit our website: www.earthlaws.org.au
or email us anytime: aela@earthlaws.org.au