The Living Systems Alliance

The Living Systems Alliance is a collaboration between five leading organisations working to help communities and regions make decisions guided by nature’s wisdom. The founding partners are:

• Transition Network International — supporting community-led resilience across more than a thousand groups in 67 countries
• Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) — pioneering community-led social-ecological innovation
• Permaculture Association — decades of permaculture education and practice
• Kincentric Leadership — tools and networks centered on kinship with all life
• The Biomimicry Institute — inspiring innovation based on nature’s genius

Together, these organisations reach thousands of local groups and practitioners across a global movement of change-makers. The Alliance’s collective aim is to strengthen, scale, and cultivate pathways for communities to weave place-based action into widespread, systemic change.

Why It Matters

Current systems largely fail to recognise humanity’s deep interdependence with the living world. While awareness of global ecological and social challenges continues to grow, many communities still lack practical pathways and structured support to translate that awareness into meaningful, coordinated action. The Living Systems Alliance exists to close that gap — connecting people, places, and the wider community of life through shared tools, learning, and governance practices.

GEN’s Role in the Alliance

The Global Ecovillage Network brings three decades of experience supporting ecovillages and intentional communities worldwide. As a solution-based, multi-stakeholder network, GEN contributes:

• Practical tools, examples, and demonstrated models of sustainable community living
• Representation for a global network of ecovillages and allied communities
• Deep, lived experience in regenerative design, governance, and social-ecological resilience

GEN’s involvement anchors the Alliance’s work in real, tested community practice rather than theory alone.

Key Milestones So Far

What the Alliance Is Building

• A shared toolkit of accessible practices for nature-centric design, decision-making, and governance in place-based partnerships and global networks
• 8–10 regional pilot partnerships to test and deepen these approaches, supporting communities as catalysts of regeneration and resilience
• A global community of practice linking people, places, and movements bringing ecological intelligence into policy, planning, and everyday decisions
• A growing library of stories documenting communities acting as “keystone species” — living in deep alignment with the natural systems around them

Growing Partnerships

The Living Systems Alliance is delighted to welcome twelve pioneering bioregional partnerships from across five continents into our inaugural Community of Practice.

Selected from more than 130 applications, these partnerships represent a rich diversity of ecosystems, cultures, governance approaches, and regenerative initiatives. Together they form a living laboratory for exploring nature-centred governance, bioregional collaboration, and practical pathways toward regenerative futures.

Over the next year, participants will learn from one another, test new approaches, and contribute case studies, tools, and insights that will help communities worldwide strengthen their relationship with the living systems they depend upon.

A Global Cohort Rooted in Place

From coral reefs in the Caribbean to wetlands in Uganda, from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil to the agricultural landscapes of Hungary, each partnership brings unique knowledge and experience while sharing a common commitment: working with communities, organisations, and the living world to regenerate place-based systems.

Toulouse Ville et Campagne, France

This pioneering network connects urban, suburban, and rural transition initiatives across southwest France. Bringing together local associations, researchers, community groups, and ecological innovators, the partnership is exploring how food systems can become a vehicle for ecological restoration while strengthening connections between city and countryside.

Living Systems Thailand

Based in Chonburi Province, this partnership demonstrates how the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy can be applied in practice. Through learning centres, ecological education, traditional medicine, and community networks that have reached more than 100,000 practitioners, the initiative offers a powerful example of whole-system regeneration in a rapidly developing region.

Koffi et les Écovillages du Togo

Working alongside local communities, government agencies, and the United Nations Development Programme, this partnership supports ecovillage development through renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, reforestation, and cultural preservation. Their work demonstrates how traditional knowledge and modern sustainability practices can reinforce one another.

Kiwaatule-2030, Uganda

Centred around the Nalubaaga Wetland Bioregion in Kampala, Kiwaatule-2030 combines traditional Baganda governance, ecological restoration, and innovative digital participation tools. Local residents collaboratively direct resources toward restoring relationships between people, land, water, and community.

Sydney Eastern Heathway, Australia

This collaboration is working to reconnect fragmented urban landscapes through habitat corridors, regenerative economic models, and Earth-centred governance. Drawing on First Nations knowledge and contemporary systems thinking, the partnership seeks to restore ecological connectivity across one of Australia’s largest metropolitan regions.

Regeneramos Coquimbo, Chile

Operating in one of South America’s most climate-stressed regions, this emerging network brings together communities across three interconnected watersheds. Faced with prolonged drought and ecosystem degradation, partners are developing a bioregional weaving approach that supports collaboration, resilience, and regenerative solutions tailored to arid landscapes.

Teranga Alliance – Guardians of Paradise, Colombia

Located within a marine protected area in the Colombian Caribbean, this alliance works to transform tourism from an extractive industry into a regenerative force. Through coral restoration, environmental education, and community-led governance, the partnership is helping protect one of the region’s most important coastal ecosystems.

Transition Common Grounds, Brazil

Connecting urban and rural initiatives across Rio de Janeiro State, this partnership supports community resilience through agroecology, reforestation, regenerative enterprise development, and distributed leadership. Their work illustrates how networks can function as living systems, adapting and evolving through collaboration.

Community Catalysts of the Southwest Algarve, Portugal

This partnership is weaving together diverse grassroots initiatives across a region facing drought, wildfire risk, and social fragmentation. Using participatory design and regenerative frameworks, the network focuses on strengthening the relationships and collective intelligence needed for long-term bioregional stewardship.

ReThink Red Deer, Canada

Working across Central Alberta, ReThink Red Deer is building a coordinated regional approach to food resilience, land stewardship, inclusion, and anti-racism. The partnership places particular emphasis on Indigenous leadership, youth engagement, and creating practical pathways for community participation and employment.

We Are Avon, United Kingdom

Based within the Bristol Avon catchment, this growing alliance is bringing together citizen groups, farmers, legal advocates, researchers, and community organisations to address water pollution and ecological degradation. Through river pilgrimages, assemblies, festivals, and agroecological initiatives, the partnership is helping communities reconnect food, land, and water systems.

Zala Green Network Collective, Hungary

This rural partnership is strengthening community resilience through permaculture, agroecology, biodiversity conservation, and local economic development. Working in a region challenged by depopulation and industrial agriculture, the network is supporting practical alternatives rooted in community participation and ecological stewardship.

Learning Across Bioregions

Together, these twelve partnerships represent tropical forests, marine ecosystems, wetlands, coastal regions, agricultural landscapes, urban catchments, mountains, and drylands. They bring experience in community governance, regenerative economies, rights of nature, ecological restoration, food sovereignty, Indigenous knowledge, and systems transformation.

By sharing their successes, challenges, and innovations, the cohort will contribute to a growing body of knowledge that supports communities everywhere to govern and regenerate in partnership with the living world.

We look forward to sharing their stories, insights, and learning journeys throughout the year.

Further Reading

• Transition Network — The Living Systems Alliance
• Kincentric Leadership — LSA overview