Planet Drum Foundation

Planet Drum Foundation (PD) is a 501(c)(3) ecological educational non-profit organization founded in 1973. PD’s mission is to provide an effective grassroots, bioregional approach to ecology that emphasizes sustainability, community self-determination, and regional self-reliance. We seek to enhance the intimate connection with “life-places” by spreading the ideas and activities of bioregional sustainability through field trips, workshops, publications, formal curricula, and hands-on demonstration projects. Through the workshops and field trips PD guides local individuals in finding new ways to live within the natural confines of their bioregions so that all residents are informed and engaged in the life of their communities to preserve and restore the natural environment for people, plants, and animals.

Planet Drum Foundation developed the definition of a bioregion as a geographical area with coherent and interconnected plant and animal communities, and other natural characteristics (often defined by a watershed) and the cultural values that human inhabitants develop for living in harmony with these natural systems.

Today it is essential that humans support the ecosystems that sustain them. Getting city people to participate in this big shift towards living on/with the planet is a difficult task. The real frontier for ecology today is to make cities sustainable and changes in this direction are already beginning. The first step toward this end is to understand the bioregion and the second is to find out how we can live there without destroying it. Bioregional education is an exploration in these directions and key to accomplishing this goal.

In 1986 PD facilitated a series of meetings in San Francisco that brought together 150 knowledgeable individuals to discuss sustainable public policy goals for cities. They included educators, planners, government agencies, businesses, ecologists and activists. The Green City Project, which developed into an extensive network of local environmental organizations, was born out of these conversations and led to the publication of A Green City Program.

As part of the Green City Project, PD conducted very successful in-school ecological education projects from 1993 through 2000 via its Education+Action Program. Using suggestions from classroom teachers, we brought experts and volunteers to lead students in carrying out a broad array of activities from planting gardens to initiating recycling systems on school sites. Through the E+A Program, we gathered an understanding of San Francisco Bay Area conditions and what could be done most effectively here.

PD initiated the Bioregional Education Program workshops in 2005. These adult workshops have been ongoing for the past six years in collaboration with local environmental organizations actively involved in restoration, recycling, reuse, native plant propagation, or other ecological activities. PD believes that working in conjunction with other groups is mutually beneficial since each brings its own expertise, experience, knowledge, and methodology to each project. It also enables BEP participants to grasp the bigger picture and thus better understand their individual role within it.

Our current Bioregional Education Program-Field Trips/Workshops are a revamping of PD's initial, very successful BEP program.

PD is in the process of scheduling additional BEP Field Trips/Workshops for this year, we've already conducted two. PD also tables at a variety of city events throughout the year.