Peter Berg

Peter Stephen Berg (October 1, 1937 – July 28, 2011) was an environmental writer, best known as an advocate of the concept of bioregionalism. In the early 1960s, he was a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Diggers. He is the founder of the Planet Drum Foundation.

Early life and education Born on October 1, 1937, in Jamaica, Queens, New York, Berg was raised in Florida after moving there at age six, which was where he first became interested in the environment as a child. He began attending the University of Florida at age 16, after winning a scholarship to study psychology. After becoming active in the civil rights movement, he hitchhiked to San Francisco in 1964. According to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2011, he "was the primary writer for the Diggers, penning terse, scathingly funny anticapitalist position papers and exhorting the city to prepare for the coming mass arrival of young hippies now known as the Summer of Love." In 2007, Berg told CBS News, "The media, to a large extent had created this 'hippie' who was a person making a 'V for Victory' sign with a silly grin, and wearing 50 buttons that said this and that. That wasn't what a lot of us were doing."

Bioregionalism and Planet Drum In 1969, Berg, Goldhaft, and their daughter traveled around the United States. He wrote books and essays about how the concept relates to environmental sustainability.

Personal life and death Judy Goldhaft was his life partner.

Selected work Envisioning Sustainability, Discovering Your Life-Place: A First Bioregional Workbook (2009) A Green City Program for the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond, Planet Drum Foundation/Bookpeople, (1987) Figures of Regulation: Guides for Re-Balancing Society with the Biosphere (1982) Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California (1978)