What is meant by “Relocalisation”?
The descent from peak oil can be regarded as an opportunity to strengthen and re-build economic and social connections within local communities through a process of Relocalisation.
The Post-Carbon Institute’s Relocalisation Network offers the following definition:
“Relocalisation is a strategy that has developed in response to the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy. Climate change, the erosion of community, wars for oil-rich land and the instability of the global economic system have resulted from our dependence on cheap non-renewable fossil fuel energy.
Relocalisation is a strategy, which aims to build societies based upon the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalisation are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and to dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity. The aim of Relocalisation is to develop exemplary community actions that can be used locally and as working models for other communities when the effects of energy decline become more intense.
Relocalisation is the re-claiming of our socio-cultural and economic systems so that each locality operates well within its regional ecological boundaries…”