COBALT is the Collaborative for Bioregional Action Learning & Transformation
Our Vision is A Deeper Sense of Place: Seeing, Connecting and Amplifying Change
COBALT is ALL About Co-Creating A Deeper Sense Of Place
Instead of asking ‘what’ is the place in which I live, the COBALT Team and remarkable COBALT Fellows are all about embarking on a process of discovering ‘who’ this place and what is the “genius loci” or spirit of place. This requires a deeper understanding of place – the land, air, and water as well as how to create the right relationship with place. In order to share this process with others, COBALT hosts learning journeys and is co-creating the worlds first Living Atlas for Bioregional Stewardship. A COBALT Learning Journey can take place anywhere and features a process of learning how to see the patterns that regenerate life and allow for a better understanding of its potential. This opens up exploration, careful observation, and learning how to see together. We call this a “Learning Journey” as it is a journey of imagination and direct action, an opportunity to be together as part of a global movement and deepen our work in our own bioregions!
COBALT is based in the Casco Bay Bioregion, nested within the Gulf of Maine on the Western Shore of the Atlantic Ocean and the exploration of its identity requires a long view from many different perspectives. The Gulf of Maine is one of the most rapidly warming coastal seas on the planet and therefore our focus is on response to change through action-learning, adaptation, and transformation.
We are in collaboration with communities in many regions across the globe with a current focus on bioregions in Canada, Colombia, Iceland, Scotland, USA and Wales. Our vision is to provide navigation for journeys of guided imagination to build relationships between people and place. We work together to discover unique potential, identify and explore new possibilities for collective practice. We will appreciate and learn how to better see, connect, and amplify the innovations already well underway related to our food, fiber, energy, water, waste, and tourism. This work is about love of place and stewardship of ecosystems that need attention like seagrass meadows and tidal wetlands in Casco Bay and Oak forests and paramo ecosystem in the high Andes of Colombia. We are connecting to the wholeness and patterns of life. Join us in discovering these patterns, the essence, the unique nature of place.
JOIN US on May 22nd in Freeport Maine as we experience the transformation of BECOMING a SEAGRASS Meadow. Register here.
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.
SUCCESS: First Successful Seed-Based Restoration of Seagrass
Delighted to report that COBALT/Team Zostera have documented germination at two pilot seed-based seagrass restoration sites: Cousins/Littlejohn and Mackworth. This work was done in partnership with Manomet, Maine DEP, Friends of Casco Bay, EPA Region 1 and Casco Bay Estuary Partnership. While the pilot demonstration was relatively small (16×16 meters at each of the two sites) – the results exceeded expectations for germination success. Our dive team was “over the moon” and speaks volumes to the potential for seed based restoration. While excited, we are working on developing more simple, practical, cost effective methods to increase success and reduce bottlenecks for larger scale restoration.
Some of our Partners :
Thank you to our SPONSORS for the support in the development of several Bioregional Workshops.
