# Conclusion 9. Conclusion “When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” – Ilya Prigogine With this book, we aim to catalyze nothing less than Bioregional Financing Facilities sprouting up in every bioregion on Earth. They can take in capital from an extractive and destructive economic system and compost it to grow new, regenerative, bioregional economies that eventually do not require external capital at all, but can autonomously engage in economic reciprocity and solidarity with neighbors both near or far. In this way, Bioregional Financing Facilities can channel lifegiving nutrients and energy to, and potentially between, the islands of coherence Islands of Coherence – Ilya emerging amidst increasing disequilibrium. They can support us in reanimating the Prigogine, a renowned theoretical physicist and economy and putting finance in service to life and Indigenous wisdom. chemist, used the concept BFFs can help us return to seeing ourselves as an integral part of the living, of "islands of coherence" breathing Earth, and our economic actions and underlying perceptions of value to describe emergent phenomena in complex as steps toward or away from a regenerative future. We have been stuck for too systems, particularly localized long thinking about what is possible within the bounds of economic and financial regions within a complex systems that have us locked into a path of mutually assured destruction. Creating system where coherence or institutions that can effectively meet the polycrisis will require bold envisioning of the order emerges spontaneously possible.257 And critically, a remembering that it’s all intelligent, it’s all alive, and it’s all amidst overall disorder or connected. Our financial architecture must serve this recognition. randomness. These islands of coherence are characterized We believe that there is an order to the changes now emerging from the disorder of by temporary stability or our current social and economic systems. Ecosystems regenerate through phases organization that arises due of resource exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization and our socio- to nonlinear interactions and economic systems can do the same.258 Just as clouds gather and disperse, so too feedback processes within the system. has capital gathered and is finding its way to flow back to life, including its human stewards.259 257 More on the analysis behind why human survival requires imagination in Iain McGilchrist’s books: The Master and the Emissary and The Matter With Things. 258 “During the slow sequence from exploitation to conservation, connectedness and stability increase and a capital of nutrients and biomass (in ecosystems) is slowly accumulated and sequestered. Competitive processes lead to a few species becoming dominant, with diversity retained in residual pockets preserved in a patchy landscape. While the accumulated capital is sequestered for the growing, maturing ecosystem, it also represents a gradual increase in the potential for other kinds of ecosystems and futures. For an economic or social system, the accumulating potential could as well be from the skills, networks of human relationships, and mutual trust that are incrementally developed and tested during the progression from exploitation to conservation. Those also represent a potential developed and used in one setting, that could be available in transformed ones.” (Resilience Alliance: Adaptive Cycle) 259 Inspired by the Emerald podcast episode On Clouds and Cosmic Law.