Adapted from the words of Christina Bowen in conversation with Alex Lion Yes! and Andrew Alan (video link)

Mapping the Forest: A New Frame for the RegenOS Ecosystem

When people speak about ecosystems and mycology, the metaphor often goes like this: projects and organizations are the trees, and the mycelial network is the web of resources that sustains them.

It’s a familiar image, but it has a hidden trap: it keeps us thinking of projects as entities that “compete” for nutrients. In this framing, trees are separate, and the mycelium is just a pipeline for feeding them. The result? We often slip back into resource-hoarding dynamics, even while talking about networks.

Flipping the metaphor

What if the trees in our RegenOS forest aren’t the projects at all?

What if the trees are the outcomes we care about — thriving local food systems, regenerative energy, resilient communities — and the projects are the nodes in the mycelial mat that nourish and connect those outcomes?

This subtle shift flips the metaphor on its head. Instead of competing trees, we become a living web of actors collaborating to bring outcomes into being.

Why map a forest?

When we map the forest this way, something powerful happens:

• Projects no longer stand alone. They become visible as contributors to shared outcomes.
• People who care about the same outcome suddenly see each other: the narrative storytellers and the tech builders, the farmers and the financiers, the policy folks and the cultureshapers.
• The forest itself — not just its individual parts — comes into view.

This is what mapping and ontology work can unlock: clarity around shared purpose and hidden synergies across layers of the system.

Seeing the layers

A forest has clear layers, and so does our ecosystem:

• Canopy – the big-picture outcomes, what the world sees from above.
• Mid-layer – narratives and strategies that weave our stories together.
• Understory – the concrete activities happening on the ground.
• Mycelial mat – the projects and initiatives, exchanging resources and supporting one another.