Peter Berg (1937-2011), the social-revolutionary thinker, writer, ecologist, environmental activist and founder of Planet Drum Foundation, died on July 28, 2011, after a sudden case of pneumonia complicated by his bout with lung cancer. He was an unforgettable personality for anyone who made his acquaintance over the past several decades.
You can view, below, a complete archive of Peter’s works that are on this website. We've also published a selected bibliography of some of his essential writings, and a collection of appreciations of Peter from around the world.
Report From Ecuador #1 It’s in the humid summerish 80s Fahrenheit here a few minutes south of the equator, with curtain-rippling breezes and light gray clouds. The small city of Bahia de Caraquez (named as though it was a whole bay in the ocean) is shaped like a thumb (with the part of the hand that holds it) jutting out into the Pacific on a […]
Bioregionalism Meets Local Autonomy in Mexico reports on the November 1996 Turtle Island Bioregional Gathering (TIBG) in Tepoztlán, Mexico. She squatted over another woman lying on the grass beside the parking area. The blood red cloth holding back her black hair was exactly the same color as her blouse, a long black skirt matched her hair. She chanted and passed her hands a few inches […]
Introduction An indication that bioregional consciousness might contend with the highest level of officialculture in the United States arrived with a 1996 event titled Watershed: Writers, Natureand Community in Washington, DC. Convened by President Clinton’s appointed PoetLaureate Robert Hass, it brought a total audience of thousands to fill several auditoriums atthe Library of Congress and other venues for a week. They heard dozens of contemporarynature […]
A Metamorphosis for Cities is an article that outlined the blueprint for transforming urban areas to bring them into “balanced reciprocity with natural systems.” Subsequent work by Planet Drum Foundation in cooperation with the Eco City Movement in Ecuador stems from the vision this article described. [Excerpted with permission from Putting Power in its Place, edited by Judith and Christopher Plant (New Society Publishers, 1992)] […]
Bioregions is the precursor to Berg’s 2002 revision, Bioregionalism: An Introduction. This article, which originally appeared in the British periodical Resurgence #98 (May/June 1983), provides context for the evolution of bioregional thinking. It serves as both an introduction and a reference for bioregional thinking, with clear and concise definitions of bioregion and reinhabitation, as well as a simple analysis of why bioregions are important. * * […]
Bioregion and Human Location was a talk that Peter gave at the University of North Carolina in 1982 (published originally in All Area #2, Spring 1983). It lays out the argument that “there has to be a new politics based on reincorporating the social and natural sciences together in a way that is appropriate for developing a planetarian civilization.” It’s been a ferocious run the […]
This is an improvisation guide for performing stories that come specifically from native northern California Pomo. Maidu, Karok and Pit River tribal traditions. The “coyote stories” feature human/animal characters and were told around fires during the rainy winter months for both entertainment and philosophical reference to human and planet events. * * * The stories embody multi-species consciousness; human beings as such don’t have to […]
Planet Drum Continent Congress Bundle (1976) Reprinted 1992 Amble Toward Continent Congress is a manifesto to overcome the politics of extinction, the Earth-colonist globalism which exhausts whole continents, their people, and moves now to devastate deep floors of our planetary oceans. This piece was distributed with one of the early Planet Drum Bundles, and was written to counter the patriotic fervor of the US Bicentennial in 1976. […]
A bioregion is defined in terms of the unique overall pattern of natural characteristics that are found in a specific place. The main features are generally found throughout a continuous geographic terrain and include a particular climate, local aspects of seasons, landforms, watersheds, soils, and native plants and animals. People are also counted as an integral aspect of a place’s life, as can be seen […]
…on the summer solstice in 1968, the Diggers began radiating out from San Francisco to other regions and cities to spread their anti-materialistic and increasingly earth-centered ideas. Homeskin was a statement of vision and intent for this exodus. It expands what had been the Diggers’ mainly urban experiment with mutualistic anarchism to now embrace the vast natural interdependence found in Earth’s biosphere. It was specifically […]