The Three Rivers Fibershed Strategic Geography by Jaclyn Charais
The Three rivers fibershed’s mission & vision
Within the vision of Fibershed is a call to make textiles a different way, one in which the impact of our fibers are considered from a soil-to-soil perspective. These soil-to-soil systems create just local economies that honor all who participate centering on local labor, local fiber, and local natural dyes. It is our mission to abolish unjust textile systems and create in their place strong, decentralized textile economies that builds from the resources within our own communities.
The Three Rivers Fibershed, an affiliate branch of Fibershed, is working to develop regional fiber systems that build soil health and protect the wellbeing of our biosphere here in Minnesota. While our strategic geography is centered in Minneapolis, it extends out in a 175 mile radius, including portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota.
As a community-based, grass roots organization, we can not and will not tolerate oppression, racism or discrimination of any kind. This type of behavior is in direct opposition to the ethos and mission of our decentralized fiber system. We need our decentralized fiber systems to address systemic and structural inequities while working to build equity, power and agency in our systems, communities and neighborhoods. We believe in abundance over scarcity and know that it will take all of us to create a future where oppression has been abolished from our fiber systems and communities. We are strengthened by our community's contributions and recognize that we have work to do. Join us in doing that work, today and every day.
TRF has compiled a (incomplete) list of agricultural-based organizations, within our 175 mile radius, creating just food and farming systems. That list can be found here.
—Three Rivers Fibershed Board
Fibershed’s mission & vision
Soil to Soil illustration by Andrew Plotsky
Fibershed develops regional and regenerative fiber systems on behalf of independent working producers, by expanding opportunities to implement carbon farming, forming catalytic foundations to rebuild regional manufacturing, and through connecting end-users to farms and ranches through public education.
We envision the emergence of an international system of regional textile communities that enliven connection and ownership of ‘soil-to-soil’ textile processes. These diverse textile cultures are designed to build soil carbon stocks on the working landscapes on which they depend, while directly enhancing the strength of regional economies. Both fiber and food systems now face a drastically changing climate, and must utilize the best of time-honored knowledge and available science for their long-term ability to thrive. As each Fibershed community manages their resources to create permanent and lasting systems of production, these efforts to take full responsibility for a garment’s lifecycle will diminish pressure on highly polluted and ecologically undermined areas of the world.
Future Fibershed communities will rely upon renewable energy powered mills that will exist in close proximity to where the fibers are grown. Through strategic grazing, conservation tillage, and a host of scientifically vetted soil carbon enhancing practices, our supply chains will create ‘climate beneficial’ clothing that will become the new standard in a world looking to rapidly mitigate the effects of climate change. We see a nourishing tradition emerging that connects the wearer to the local field where the clothes were grown, building a system that can last for countless generations into the future.
—Fibershed
From the three rivers fibershed blog
