Collapse Permission Zones (CPZs) Draft White Paper

Research and Sense-Making
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CPZ White Paper ( draft outline )

White Paper Proposal: Collapse Permission Zones (CPZs) as Adaptive Resilience Hubs in Wales

The author, Gen Zendahl, is practicing and living in one of many places that might be described as a proto Collapse Permission Zone. She lives with her family at Bryn Bashō, an off-grid permaculture smallholding, part of Lammas Eco Village, West Wales.

Executive Summary

Collapse Permission Zones (CPZs) offer a new, urgently needed framework for strengthening Wales’ adaptive capacity in the face of escalating ecological, social, and economic disruptions.

CPZs are community-led resilience micro ecosystems and zones where systemic collapse is acknowledged, and preempted, and invited rather than denied, and where adaptation, and regenerative innovation are consciously supported.

CPZ could be an community, a farm, or a city zone. Each CPZ will have it’s own unique versions of collapse and invitation to adaptation.

The purpose is to formulate a path forward that lessens institutional denial, wilful ignorance and apathy, which may lead to catastrophic, synchronous collapse events. CPZs give a framework for collapse to be pre-emptively enacted, and staggered to afford portions of the economy, community and individuals to engage in action research and learn adaptations, which can then be deployed as a ripple effect over time.

This white paper proposes a phased government-supported initiative to establish CPZs across Wales as experimental hubs for post-growth, regenerative, and community-based adaptation.

Rationale

The meta-crisis — including climate disruption, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and social fragmentation — presents systemic risks that traditional models of resilience are insufficient to address. CPZs offer a pragmatic and culturally sensitive method for:

  • Enhancing local adaptive capacity.
  • Safeguarding psychological well-being during systemic disruptions.
  • Stimulating regenerative innovation at the community level.
  • Reducing social fragmentation and preserving cultural identity.

Rather than imposing rigid solutions, CPZs foster conditions where diverse, locally appropriate responses can emerge organically.

Objectives

  1. Recognize CPZs as experimental resilience hubs.
  2. Provide minimal but essential support and regulatory flexibility.
  3. Foster grassroots regenerative innovation and adaptive practice.
  4. Document, reflect, and scale successful adaptations.
  5. Preserve Welsh cultural and ecological identity during transitions.

Implementation Phases

Phase 1: Recognition and Permission

  • Establish legal and policy frameworks that recognize CPZs as sanctioned experimental zones.
  • Partner with interested parties to voluntarily host CPZs.

Phase 2: Resourcing and Support

  • Provide micro-grants, access to public lands, and minimal infrastructure support.
  • Offer training in regenerative agriculture, cooperative governance, psychological resilience, and community organizing.

Phase 3: Trail-Finding and Experimentation

  • Encourage diverse adaptation experiments: localized food systems, alternative governance models, decentralized energy, ritualized community processes.
  • Allow each CPZ to evolve based on its unique cultural and ecological context.

Phase 4: Reflection and Amplification

  • Host regional gatherings to share learnings and celebrate adaptations.
  • Create open-source documentation to seed future CPZs.
  • Integrate successful practices into broader national resilience strategies.

Key Benefits

  • Cost-Effective:

    Proactive investment in CPZs can prevent greater financial and societal costs associated with unmanaged systemic collapse.

  • Mental Health Safeguarding:

    By creating spaces where grief and anxiety c an be processed, CPZs mitigate widespread psychological crises.

  • Stimulates Innovation:

    Grassroots adaptations can yield unforeseen, scalable solutions for broader societal benefit.

  • Preserves Social Trust:

    Maintaining relational and cultural coherence during collapse reduces the risk of societal fragmentation.

  • Aligns with Climate and Resilience Goals:

    Supports the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and broader climate adaptation policies.

Policy Recommendations

  1. Pilot CPZs in diverse ecological and cultural settings across Wales.
  2. Establish an interdisciplinary task force to oversee CPZ development.
  3. Fund cultural initiatives that weave traditional Welsh wisdom with regenerative practices.
  4. Integrate CPZ learnings into long-term national adaptation strategies.

Conclusion

Collapse Permission Zones resist surrender and despair.

They are about consciously, courageously stepping into the reality of deep global systemic change, and nurturing new forms of living within it.

Wales, with its rich cultural memory, deep connection to land, and tradition of resilient community life, is uniquely positioned to lead the world in pioneering this transformative model.

Supporting CPZs is an investment in the future resilience, creativity, and well-being of Wales.

Appendices (suggested additions)

  • Definitions and Examples of Regenerative Practices
  • Psychological Health Impacts of Systemic Denial vs. Acknowledgement
  • Models from Transition Towns, Deep Adaptation, and Indigenous Resilience

Prepared for: Welsh Government, Local Authorities, Community Councils, and Regenerative Stakeholders

Date: April 2025

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I’m curious how the proposed CPZs might relate to this:

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Roy was on our research call today. We discussed quite a rich array of responses with the hope that we might design a place where there was signposting for multilayered paths of enquiry/action for people to take.

But as to you specific question, Roy and I only met a few days ago. Watch this space :wink:

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Thanks Gen. I have a few thoughts:

  • What is the permission that is being given?

  • Do you have any specific examples of actions that might be associated with such zones?

  • Is there a process that ensures, or enables, community involvement and collective decision-making?

  • What measures are proposed for recording and reporting?

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I’m wondering if we might think of a number of different alternative terms as well as “collapse permission zones”, to cater for different perspectives? Obviously, use the lead term that is most likely to attract support, but also perhaps make it clear that other frames are possible.

Voluntary simplicity is one possible phrase to conjure with. My sense is that we don’t necessarily even need to go with the “collapse” mindset, to get similar results.

Degrowth has been going for several decades now. Still rather controversial, it seems (though heaven knows why!)

Local provisioning is a concept that has come to my attention more recently. Short supply chains that are not dependent on global (and fragile) economic systems.

And I’m keenly aware of the need (in line with reminders from @RobertBunge ) to stay away from appearing simply to try to turn the clock back. Reviving lost wisdom: yes, for sure. Trying to recreate the past: hazardous to say the least!

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I’m just trying to accommodate different ways in to this very much needed vision. The more ways in we can muster, the more people we are likely to attract.

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Yes, terminology matters. I have considered other options but nothing that feels right has yet emerged.

A single catchy term would be e very useful. Think about how terms like “ thinking out the box” or “ lateral thinking” have become part of our thinking language.

Folding, composting , retiring…

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Thanks Roy all excellent questions.

Permission to collapse an unsustainable practice. Many of these practices are sustained by tax breaks and incentives, or by refusing to make industry pay to clean up its mess, and instead placing the burden on the tax payer, so indirectly subsiding pollution and degradation.

I imagine the final paper will have brief “stories/scenarios” to illustrate.

A key factor is not to apply top down proscribed solutions, that is why it is a permission zone, not a specific policy in action zone.

This prefers facilitating local human creativity and resilience. We have to get over our attraction to central control. It’s not adaptive or agile.

The key idea is that we remove support for an unsustainable practice ( ie a farm is not trapped into debt and chemical purchase by land grants, and allowed to build housing for family members, and have tax rules relaxed in return for transitioning to regenerative farming)

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A key question for any sort of “zone” is who is in and who is out? Preppers can prep at any level. The classic US off-the-grid type, for example, prefers the proverbial cabin in the woods, away from any community, with a large cache of provisions (including lots of guns and ammo, of course) to make it through whatever challenges present themselves. Or … one could form a community with similar purpose. Maybe put walls around the community, Fort Apache style. That’s another classic US model. (Or for that matter, think back to the age of castles and walled cities in Europe).

In either case - or in any case - the question of where to draw the boundaries of concern is a live one. My own personal preference is to hedge bets by working concentrically from immediate family to local community to region to global network. (I’m not really rooting for nation-states anymore - just treating them more like unavoidable bundles of both danger and opportunity). But can my family, for example, make it through any sort of collapse that profoundly affects the local community? Doubtful. Can the community outlast the region in general?” Maybe. Can the region manage through collapse scenarios that devastate other parts of the world? Probably. There are some matters, however, which really do need to be addressed at planetary scale (missiles and nuclear weapons come to mind). so local or personal prepping is only going to go so far. Complexity seems a game that one must play on many levels simultaneously.

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Rather than address the existential and philosophical matters ( hopefully not to ignore them) the CPZ paper is an attempt to develop a pragmatic and practical framework for institutional national and local policy making.

For example Wales has a planning policy called One Planet, which has allowed individuals to build on agricultural land as long as they live within the carbon footprint of their share percentage one planet. Most Westerners are using up the resources of much more. Each one planet smallholding is a mini collapse permission zone, with permaculture, off grid power water and waste, sustainable building practices etc and my village, Lammas Eco Village, covers 75 acres and 9 smallholding, and several more developing outside the original envelope. The increase in biodiversity is amazing. Those that live in and volunteer in such zones, and on community farms and growing cooperatives are developing skills of resilience that are not common in Western society.

In another area, local people have collaborated in running community shops, community farms, social centres, the old working men’s club ran educational centres and libraries. These are grassroots responses to the collapse or failure of the political and commercial responses to local needs.

Rather than ignore these as anomalous, a CPZ offers a pathway to recognition and possible improvement and support.

Rather than optimisation and efficiency, resilience is the governing principle of these activities.

Consider the tax breaks offered to religious communities and monasteries. Another micro CPZ supported and recognised by policy.

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What a great policy, and sounds like you have great results already! What other names for the Zones could there be that reflect the essence of the policy itself, so that people who know about the policy can naturally relate to the Zones?

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The idea of using local and regional zoning laws to promote pro-social purposes is excellent. (The term “zoning law” is well established: The Basics of Land Use and Zoning Law ) That’s a battle that seems worth fighting on political levels. By way of branding, to promote such a model more widely, something like “sustainability zones” might work better than “collapse permission”. Sustainability makes sense in a wide variety of cases, come what may with this or that collapse.

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@RobertBunge are probably right about “Collapse” not possibly the best choice of branding. However Sustainability is so bland and generic.

I’m looking for a term that represents the acceptance of the present systems lack of viability in the long term, and gives “collapse” a positive and generative quality.

It need to recognise the dark reality and yet offer hope and something positive to do.

For the natural world the term is leaf mold, compost, that collapses of the old in preparation for the new.

In myth is the phoenix, Noah’s Ark, Fellowship of the Ring.

In human terms it of the release of divorce, life-saving cancer surgery, or resigning from a horrible job.

We risk being forced into pre-industrial lifestyles through denial and inaction. We need to design a post-industrial world, technology that respects limited resources, research and companies that seek value not profit.

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No “right” answer here. The brand image - the vocabulary - the symbolism - have to work for the people one might wish to persuade, or whose support will be required to launch or sustain the initiative. Without being on the ground in your location and deeply acquainted with the forces at play, any guess as to which words would be most purpose-built for your situation are just that - a guess.

The underlying idea is something like chaos theory’s “islands of coherence”. Robin Lincoln Wood uses “pockets of the future in the present”. Lately I’ve been using the “seed crystal” metaphor. The underlying mythic structure you perceive is spot on - “ark”, “phoenix”, hero’s journey (the “fellowship”) - rite de passage, transformation in general, express the underlying psychology. As an example from my local practice, in considering how to pitch new educational thinking to our faculty in 3 weeks or so (I’ve earned my speaking spot - but it will need to be quick, penetrating, and on point), it occurred to me to go with themes around “we are all living in a new world now - we need to rebuild for the emerging future we have all been thrust into”. Expecting pushback and skepticism (typical audience behavior from adults especially), I’m crafting various hero’s journey metaphors to frame the stakes. All this benefits from certain current political leaders being well-cast in the role of Sauron. Dark clouds and thunder are on social media every day of the week - no one could have missed that. What a lot of people are missing right now however is the call to adventure - the idea that on the far side of whatever we are going through in 2025, at some point at the end of an arduous quest, we can indeed arrive “there and back again”.

In writing that just now, it strikes me one can’t really buy one’s way into a CPZ. Money is not enough in a CPZ - if it’s just title to real estate, it’s not a CPZ. It strikes me an updated version of the old Benedictine formula, ora et labora, may be in order. The point of the CPZ is how humans relate to the land and how humans relate to other humans on the land. Symbolism around roots or ground or soil might prove useful …

The thing about “collapse” is it’s going to happen whether any of us like it or not. We don’t really need to “sell” collapse. I’ve got the same feeling about “metacrisis” or “polycrisis” or whatever the disease is supposed to be. No one has to be persuaded about the disease as such. The “branding” should focus more on the cure. For example, take a natural disaster like wildfire smoke - people either smell it or they don’t. In the past few years, everyone around here has certainly smelled and seen that sort of smoke, so no need to hammer away on the “smoke is coming” theme. It’s more like reminding people about the smoke they have already suffered through and suggesting forward preparation in advance of the next round will reward the effort when that day comes.

With that in mind, what is the “smoke” (or “storm” or “earthquake” or “tsumami”) that people in your region already remember in their bones? Is that sort of thing coming again? What might one have wished for to better navigate those circumstances? To me, the current era is on analogy to WWI + Great Depression + WWII. Plenty of metaphors there. Where might one wish to be when the larger cities feature mostly air raid sirens or soup lines? A CPZ strikes me as the sort of place one might wish to inhabit to weather whatever the next sort of gathering storm might turn out to be.

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This is so helpful. So .,.I’m asking the questions, what should/could a CPZ do?

  1. Open an experimental space that invites human resourcefulness, novelty to emerge and be tested.

  2. Give a community experience in test scenarios where they can explore and discern what is valuable to keep, and what can be discarded.

For example, in living in our CPZ off grid very small community, we have learned, quite painfully, that anarchism and novel governance structures can be disastrous, abusive and wasteful. The stress and anxiety in just getting our short communal track fixed and funded was huge.

Meanwhile, out on the main public road a section of road collapsed and the local council men appeared in orange jackets and fixed it in a few weeks. No fuss.

I now know, experientially, how incredibly valuable our local municipal government levels are. Governance, and services only work well at scale. There might be sweet spots with this, but I’m in no doubt it is way bigger than a Dunbar number.

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This sort of practical experimentation is super-helpful! Quoting theoretical anarchists like Graeber and Wengrow will only take a community so far. Trying anarchy on for size - and finding out what works and what does not - is far more convincing.

Because of where I live and work, leaning heavily into the idea of experimental innovation is the best way to sell anything. Even if the guts of innovation involves things like goats instead of power mowers, or weeding permaculture beds by hand. In my own mind, maybe, some version of future collapse may be providing motivation to push the limits of low tech, but for public-facing communications, packaging the initiatives in technical terms like “pilot”, “R&D”, “skunk works”, “innovation”, etc. seems more advisable. The use case for all that is risk management - how to be resilient and insured against all manner of potential political, economic, or natural disruptions. I’d venture to guess project insiders may be sitting around the campfire processing the end of modernity or civilization or whatever major transition they may be seeing, but for those on the outside more attached to the current system, it can all be presented as a prudent lifeboat strategy for things like economic downturn, which are are certainly not unprecedented. Whatever results from the experimental community can speak for itself.

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Regen Zone
Transition Zone
Fold Zone
R&I Zone (Regen and Innovate) RIZone
Integrative Zone

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Of these choices, I like the term “Regen Zone” the most. The reason is, regeneration is an obvious good idea regardless of what happens at macro levels around collapse or crisis scenarios. Even if current civilization muddles through for a good long time, regeneration of key resources like soils, water tables, plant and animal populations, biodiversity, local community, etc. all carry obvious advantages. On analogy to the human organism, we all need to regenerate through eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, recreating, etc. all the time. It’s just a prerequisite for life itself.

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@Gen I’d be curious what you think of this action learning framework. https://sociocracy30.org/common-sense-framework/