It’s important to ask, what do we already know about our bioregion, and how to steward it?

To begin with, how do we celebrate what we already have? I think immediately of farmers’ markets, orchards and u-pick farms, any regenerative agriculture and indigenous cultivation, all the nonprofit initiatives we have (including Rochester Ecology Partners, the EcoRestorational Alliance, the CLE and nature educators, the Pachamama Alliance of the Rochester Area, etc.), the schools (especially the Harley School and any others like it, Waldorf schools, Montessori schools, and of course the public schools which do the job they are capable of within their limitations), churches and synagogues and mosques (because even thjough I am nonreligious, and think most of what establishes religions teach is false and misleading, but they are ways people com,e together), our communities, neighborhoods, indigenous tribes (yes, they are still here). How much water flows in and out of our watersheds? How much food flows in and out of our region? How many people live and work in the region which we call the Genesee Finger Lakes bioregion? Why is it a bioregion—what makes it one? How can we best describe this and tell the story—not just the dominant story but the story that is in right relationship to the land, to the original inhabitants, to the people who live here now and their descendants?

This feels like the necessary starting point for the bioregional project: before asking what must be created or repaired, we need to discover what is already alive here. I would organize the inquiry around four things: our ecological inheritance, our existing communities and institutions, the flows that sustain us, and the stories through which we understand the region.

Here is a polished version of your passage:

What Do We Already Know About Our Bioregion?

Before deciding how to steward the Genesee–Finger Lakes bioregion, we need to ask what we already know about it—and what knowledge has been overlooked, fragmented, or forgotten.

We can begin by celebrating what is already here: farmers’ markets, orchards and U-pick farms, regenerative farms and Indigenous cultivation practices; Rochester Ecology Partners, the EcoRestoration Alliance, the Community Learning and Engagement initiatives, local nature educators, the Pachamama Alliance of the Rochester Area, and the many other organizations working—sometimes without knowing of one another—toward ecological and community renewal.

We should recognize our schools, especially those such as the Harley School, Waldorf and Montessori schools, and the public schools doing what they can within difficult institutional constraints. We should also recognize churches, synagogues, mosques, and other communities of faith. Even for those of us who are nonreligious or critical of religious teachings, these institutions remain important places where people gather, care for one another, preserve traditions, and sometimes act together for the common good.

The bioregion is also made up of neighborhoods, municipalities, farms, businesses, civic associations, informal networks, and Indigenous nations and communities—not merely as “original inhabitants,” but as living peoples who remain present and whose knowledge, rights, and continuing relationships with the land must be respected.

Celebration, however, should lead to understanding. How much water enters, moves through, and leaves our watersheds? How much food do we grow, import, consume, waste, and export? Where does our energy come from? What happens to our nutrients, materials, and wastes? How many people live and work within the region, and how are they distributed among its cities, towns, villages, and rural landscapes? Which communities are thriving, and which bear the greatest ecological and economic burdens?

We must also ask why we call this a bioregion. What combination of watersheds, soils, forests, climate, agriculture, wildlife, geological history, settlement patterns, and cultural relationships gives the Genesee–Finger Lakes region its coherence? Its boundaries will never be perfectly fixed. A bioregion is not simply another administrative district. It is a living territory defined by overlapping natural systems and human relationships—and by the responsibilities that arise from inhabiting it.

Finally, we need to tell its story. That cannot be only the dominant story of settlement, industry, growth, and technological progress. Nor should Indigenous history serve merely as a preface to a story centered on later settlers. We need a fuller account: one that acknowledges the Haudenosaunee nations as living sovereign peoples; recognizes dispossession, migration, labor, industry, agriculture, pollution, conservation, and renewal; and includes the many communities that live here now and those who will inherit the consequences of what we do.

The purpose is not to produce a definitive description from above. It is to develop a shared and continually evolving understanding of where we live: what this place gives us, what has been damaged, what is already regenerating, and what responsibilities we owe to the land, waters, other species, one another, and future generations.

Only then can we ask the central practical question:

How do we become good inhabitants of this place?

This could become the opening inquiry for both Living Into the Book and the eventual Bioregional Assembly. The Assembly’s first task would not be to announce a grand plan, but to create a participatory “portrait of the bioregion”—combining ecological data, maps, institutional knowledge, Indigenous perspectives, local histories, personal stories, and an inventory of regenerative activity already underway. That portrait could itself become the first act of collective stewardship.

I appreciate this. Can you also provide some specific answers about the GFL bioregion? Not the entire detailed store of knowledge that you have about the bioregion, but a high-level view with facts and figures, important areas of ecological and social concern, opportunities, and constraints.

Yes. My high-level assessment is that the Genesee–Finger Lakes region has extraordinary ecological assets and enough institutional capacity to become a model of bioregional regeneration—but it is fragmented politically, socially unequal, and still poorly understood as a system of flows.

First, what is the GFL bioregion?

For practical purposes, we can begin with the nine-county Genesee–Finger Lakes planning region: Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates. It covers about 4,680 square miles, contains roughly 1.2 million people, and is divided among approximately 190 cities, towns, and villages. Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council

But this is an administrative region, not a single natural watershed. Ecologically, it contains several interconnected systems:

• The 2,500-square-mile Genesee River watershed, extending from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario.
• The four western Finger Lakes within that watershed: Conesus, Hemlock, Canadice, and Honeoye.
• Canandaigua, Keuka, and Seneca Lakes, which drain eastward through the Seneca–Oswego system.
• Direct Lake Ontario watersheds such as Irondequoit, Braddock, Sandy, Oak Orchard, and Sodus.
• The Lake Ontario shoreline, wetlands, drumlins, gorges, forests, agricultural plains, and the Erie Canal corridor.

Thus, the GFL is best understood as a family of nested watersheds and landscapes organized around the Genesee Valley, the western Finger Lakes, Rochester, and the southern Lake Ontario shore. Its boundaries should remain somewhat permeable: the upper Genesee watershed lies outside the nine counties, while parts of the eastern Finger Lakes have stronger ecological connections to Central New York.

A bioregional snapshot

Dimension	High-level facts	Significance
People and government	About 1.2 million residents across nine counties and roughly 190 municipalities	Large enough to possess substantial knowledge and resources; fragmented enough to make regional action difficult
Genesee River	Approximately 158 miles long with a 2,500-square-mile watershed	The region’s central ecological spine, connecting farms, villages, Rochester, and Lake Ontario
Water flow	Long-term average Genesee discharge at Rochester is approximately 2,800 cubic feet per second—about 1.8 billion gallons per day or 660 billion gallons per year	Water is one of the region’s greatest assets, although abundance does not guarantee clean or equitably accessible water. NYS Department of State
Agriculture	The 2022 agricultural census counted approximately 5,578 farms and 1.36 million acres in farms across the nine counties—about 46% of the region’s land area	This is still fundamentally an agricultural bioregion, not simply a metropolitan area surrounded by scenery
Farm production	Those farms reported approximately $2.34 billion in agricultural products sold in 2022	Dairy, apples, vegetables, grains, grapes, livestock, nurseries, and specialty crops constitute an unusually diverse productive base. Totals calculated from the nine USDA county profiles
Ecological anchors	Letchworth includes a 17-mile Genesee gorge within a 14,350-acre park; the larger Montezuma Wetlands Complex encompasses about 50,000 acres; nearly 7,000 acres protect the Hemlock–Canadice water supply	These are not isolated attractions but potential anchors for connected ecological corridors. Letchworth State Park, Rochester water report
Indigenous presence	The Genesee Valley remains the ancestral and culturally significant homeland of the Seneca, or Onödowá’ga:’; part of the Tonawanda Seneca Territory lies within Genesee County	Indigenous people and governance belong in the region’s present and future, not just its historical introduction. Livingston County Indigenous History
Climate	The regional climate plan reports that emissions declined 9.5% between 2010 and 2022, although transportation and buildings remain the largest sources	Progress is real, but incremental measures will not by themselves produce regional transformation. GFL Comprehensive Climate Action Plan

The agricultural figures are particularly important. They tell us that the region already possesses a formidable food-production base. But they do not tell us how much of that food is consumed locally, how much is exported, how much food consumed here is imported, or how much is lost or wasted. A regional food-flow analysis remains one of the most important missing pieces.

Principal ecological concerns

Water quality

Phosphorus, sediment, agricultural runoff, stormwater, wastewater, septic systems, shoreline development, and warming water interact to produce harmful algal blooms and other impairments. Conesus and Honeoye have phosphorus reduction plans, while Canandaigua and Seneca–Keuka have watershed-based plans. The Genesee remains a federal priority for phosphorus reduction. NYSDEC clean-water plans

There has also been genuine progress. The Rochester Embayment was removed from the federal Great Lakes Areas of Concern list in October 2024 after decades of restoration work. That is an achievement worth celebrating—and an example of sustained regional cooperation—although it does not mean that every water-quality problem has been solved. U.S. EPA

Soil, farming, and farmland

Agriculture is both an ecological pressure and an indispensable partner. Soil erosion, nutrient loss, manure management, pesticide use, drainage, and simplified landscapes affect water and biodiversity. At the same time, farmers cannot be expected to bear the costs of restoring watersheds on narrow operating margins.

Eight of the nine counties reported fewer farms in 2022 than in 2017, and several experienced double-digit declines in land in farms. This suggests continuing consolidation, conversion, and succession problems even while the dollar value of production increased. Regeneration therefore has to improve farm viability, not merely prescribe better practices.

Habitat fragmentation and invasive species

The region retains exceptional forests, wetlands, gorges, grasslands, riparian corridors, and lake ecosystems, but many are separated by roads, suburbs, industrial development, and large agricultural fields. Invasive plants, forest pests, aquatic species, and changing fish communities add pressure. Protecting celebrated sites is not enough; the region needs connected habitat extending through private lands, farms, stream corridors, villages, and cities.

Climate instability

The likely regional pattern is not simple drying but greater volatility: heavier precipitation, flooding and erosion, warmer lakes, longer growing seasons, heat waves, intermittent drought, reduced winter ice, crop and pest changes, and shoreline instability. Water abundance may make the region relatively attractive in a climate-disrupted future, but it can also encourage complacency.

Principal social concerns

The sharpest social divide is between the region’s ecological and institutional abundance and the uneven ability of its people to benefit from it.

Rochester’s 2020–2024 estimated poverty rate was 27.8%, compared with 14.1% for Monroe County as a whole. Median household income was approximately $47,200 in the city and $76,400 countywide. Census QuickFacts: Rochester, Monroe County

That urban–suburban disparity overlaps with racial segregation, school inequality, health differences, food access, lead exposure, energy burdens, and access to parks and transportation. Rural communities face a different configuration: aging populations, loss of working-age residents, limited transit, declining services, and difficulty maintaining infrastructure. Indeed, the regional planning council’s draft 2026–2030 economic strategy makes increasing the working-age population its central objective. GFLRPC economic strategy

A bioregional program that speaks mainly to environmentally engaged, relatively affluent residents would therefore reproduce the region’s divisions. Stewardship must also mean affordable housing and energy, good food, mobility, public health, meaningful work, and a genuine voice in decisions.

The major opportunities

The region’s strongest opportunity is to connect things that already exist:

• Link farm viability, soil health, riparian restoration, drinking-water protection, local processing, institutional food purchasing, composting, and food access into one regional food-and-watershed strategy.
• Treat Letchworth, the Genesee Valley Greenway, Hemlock–Canadice, Montezuma, Ganondagan, Lake Ontario wetlands, parks, land-trust properties, school grounds, farms, and neighborhood habitats as elements of a connected ecological network.
• Use schools, colleges, libraries, nature centers, congregations, neighborhood associations, Indigenous knowledge holders, farmers, and nonprofits as a distributed bioregional learning system.
• Build on Rochester’s universities, technical knowledge, health institutions, philanthropy, arts, and diverse communities while reconnecting the city materially and imaginatively to the land and waters that sustain it.
• Implement the regional climate plan through building retrofits, compact development, renewable energy, public transportation, walkable communities, soil carbon, waste reduction, and community-owned energy.
• Make the region’s restoration successes—including protection of the Hemlock–Canadice watershed and delisting of the Rochester Embayment—part of its public story.

The most important constraints

The greatest constraint is not a lack of good projects. It is the absence of a mechanism that allows them to see themselves and act as parts of a whole.

Other constraints include:

• Ecological boundaries do not match county and municipal jurisdictions.
• No regional government possesses either the mandate or public legitimacy to steward the whole.
• Municipalities and nonprofits have widely varying staff and financial capacity.
• Farmers and landowners operate within markets that often reward extraction more than stewardship.
• Urban, suburban, rural, Indigenous, agricultural, business, and environmental communities do not automatically trust one another.
• Essential information is scattered among agencies, universities, nonprofits, counties, consultants, and private companies.
• Much of the region’s food, energy, manufactured goods, fertilizer, machinery, and finance still comes from outside; local production should not be confused with self-sufficiency.
• Volunteer enthusiasm can generate projects, but durable bioregional institutions require paid coordination, long-term funding, and public accountability.

The high-level conclusion

The Genesee–Finger Lakes bioregion is a water-rich, agriculturally productive, institutionally capable, and culturally diverse region with the underlying assets needed for regeneration. Its central problems are fragmentation, inequality, ecological disconnection, and the failure to perceive and govern itself as a living system.

That suggests a concrete first assignment for a Bioregional Assembly: create a publicly accessible State of the Bioregion portrait with perhaps 20–30 carefully selected indicators—water flows and quality, farmland and soil practices, food production and imports, biodiversity and habitat connectivity, energy and emissions, population and health, equity, housing, waste, and civic participation. It would not simply assemble data. It would help the region begin to recognize itself.