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Beyond Sustainability? — We are living in the Century of Regeneration.
Beyond Sustainability? — We are living in the Century of Regeneration.
Valuing Ecosystem Function higher than material things is the paradigm shift that determines whether we understand the meaning of our lives and survive or whether we remain ignorant and selfish and destroy our own habitat trying to gain more wealth or more power. If we reach this level of understanding, not only can everyone live on the Earth but the natural systems on Earth can reach their optimal ability to sustain life.
— John D. Liu (2016)
There are some practitioners who work on sustainability with a regenerative development mindset. The reason why I would say it is time to move beyond sustainability is twofold. On the one hand the term itself has been coopted and some people now call their company sustainable because it has sustained growth and profits for a number o years in a row. The term sustainability begs us to explain what it is we are trying to sustain.
The term regenerative development, on the other hand, carries within it a clear aim of regenerating the health and vitality of the nested, scale-linking systems we participate in. At a basic level regeneration also communicates not to use resources that cannot be regenerated, nor to use any resources faster than they can be regenerated. Development in this context is “co-evolving mutuality” (Regenesis Group) — so biological and cultural evolutionary development, not in the sense of economic development (only).
The second reason is that I believe we need a reframe that honours the importance of getting to ‘sustainable’ while opening the possibility to deepen our practice and go beyond merely being sustainable to actually regenerating the damage humanity has wrecked on the planet since the dawn of agriculture, city states and empires.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“The Day When Change Will Come” – It’s Time To Break the Vicious Circle of Capitalism
“The Day When Change Will Come” – It’s Time To Break the Vicious Circle of Capitalism
A man of the Co Tu nation prepares to fish in a river that likely supported humans long before historical records began. But this might be one of the last times. Small-scale, high-pollution gold mining is spreading across the lands of the Co Tu, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, as well as larger corporate extractive industries.
Around the fisherman, large diesel-powered sifting machines dredge the water, discoloring the wide river with a brown, oil-stained effluent. The discharge contains a high concentration of heavy metals including mercury, which will poison the fish and those who eat them. Further upstream, I walk around an open cast gold mine, a swathe of mud hills and tailings ponds. Until recently, this area was as rich in biodiversity as the tropical rainforest that surrounds it.
I discover that the workers extracting the gold are from different indigenous nations. Vietnam has 54 recognized indigenous groups distinct in language, culture and means of livelihood. These workers left their communities as their livelihoods became untenable due to a vast expansion of “economic development.” A Vietnamese NGO worker accompanying me during my research makes it possible to interview the fisherman and gold prospectors.
– See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/day-when-change-will-come-–-its-time-break-vicious-circle-capitalism#sthash.94iEqJuH.dpuf
Amnesty International: Tories’ Resources-Over-Human-Rights Approach Mistaken
Amnesty International: Tories’ Resources-Over-Human-Rights Approach Mistaken.
OTTAWA – Amnesty International’s Canada branch has issued a wide-ranging attack on the Harper government for making economic development a higher priority than human rights — especially in resource development.
Alex Neve, Amnesty’s director general, said the organization wants human rights issues to be on the agenda for the expected federal election in 2015.
Canadians will be talking about jobs and economic prosperity during next year’s election, and those issues are inextricably linked to questions of human rights, said Neve.
Amnesty is accusing the government of doing too little to ensure that the rights of aboriginal people are adequately protected in the hundreds of major resource projects that are planned for the next decade.
“With all the attention that will be on jobs and the economy, we have to recognize how important it is to deal with indigenous people’s land rights, corporate accountability and a trade policy that is grounded in human rights,” said Neve.
