Ecological Regeneration
“Mother Earth is not a resource, she is an heirloom.” David Ipina, Yurok
“Wake up to a new view. One in which we act in accordance with nature. Where our interactions with the earth, our communities and ourselves are regenerative.” Ryland Engelhart, Co-Founder, Kiss the Ground
In 1983, the UN-sponsored Brundtland Commission proposed sustainable development as a global policy, outlined in its publication entitled Our Common Future (1987). In no time, it became a popular policy, endorsed, advocated and promoted by multilateral agencies, governments, donor institutions, civil societies, and academics. However, it has also attracted much critical scrutiny with many scholars and activists highlighting the numerous logical and practical flaws with the concept and policy of sustainable development . Seemingly oblivious to such critical work, the concept of sustainable development, after a brief hiatus, re-emerged in 2015 as the UN-enunciated global program for change known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or simply as The Global Goals. This did not only result in the renascence of this problematic policy but it has once again propped up sustainable development into a buzzword and meme for positive change, dominating the thinking and imagination of an ever increasing number of people, organizations, and institutions.
Taking heed of the critical work on ‘sustainable development’ as well as its related concept of sustainability , the DEEP Network supports calls to shift away from sustainable development and sustainability towards ecological regeneration. Drawing from the large corpus of critical scholarship, we highlight, albeit briefly, eight key problems with the concept and policy of sustainable development:
- First, its logical flaw. Sustainable development is an oxymoron as the goals of sustainability and development, which commonly means economic growth, are inherently contradictory.
- Secondly, it is a chameleon-like concept. Because of its vague definition, it has come to mean different things to different people so much so that it has become meaningless, an empty signifier. Words do matter, especially when they are combined with other words that are part of a discourse or discursive practice. And as Judith Butler (1993: 2) argues, ‘discourse produces the effects that it names’. If the word ‘sustainable’ is defined as being ‘able to be maintained at a certain rate or level’ or ‘able to be upheld or defended’ (Oxford Dictionary), the pertinent question we must ask is would it be ecologically sensible to maintain or uphold the current economic system, which after all is the primary cause of ecological despoilation and calamity? It should also be pointed out that what is seriously problematic is not the adjective in the term sustainable development per se, but the noun, ‘development’ which many critics have indicated is rooted in Euro-centric capitalist paradigms of change. It is viewed as ‘colonialism in disguise’ (Escobar et al 2019) resulting in underdevelopment, dependency, destruction, and increased impoverishment, inequality, and marginalisation. Paradoxically, instead of improving as claimed, ‘development’ has worsened the lives and livelihoods of its ‘beneficiaries’.
- Thirdly, it is anthropocentric, focused on human wants, needs, and interests above ecology. Implicit in it is the problematic ontological dualism between humans and nature which has been identified as the root cause of the ecological crisis. Also evident is the tendency to pursue profits over planet, economic interests above planetary health.
- Fourthly, its pro economic growth, business and free market approach in addressing ecological and societal problems. The policy of sustainable development was created as a means to ensure that economic prosperity was not compromised by any measures taken to stop or drastically reduce ecological harm. This goes against the insurmountable evidence that point to the fact that the key driver of the ecological and social crisis confronting humanity today is the neoliberal/oligarchic capitalist imperative of economic growth, market fundamentalism, privatisation, extractivism, and heightened consumerism. Hence, what the policy of sustainable development is effectively and paradoxically doing is offering the cause of the problem as its solution.
- Fifthly, its environmental hypocrisy. Many critics have dubbed sustainable development as fake greenery; a tool for green washing. Furthermore, involving the leaders of corporations, many of which have been accused of ecological despoilation, in sustainable development policy directives is tantamount to ‘putting the foxes in charge of the chicken coop’.
- Sixthly, it is a hegemonic discourse, a form of Western-sponsored ideological domination, serving as an smokescreen to preserve the status quo (‘business as usual’) and the legitimisation of corporate greenwashing and consumer capitalism. (see the excellent chapter entitled ‘Sustainability: buying time for consumer capitalism’ by Ingolfur Blühdorn in Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, Edited by Luigi Pellizzoni, Emanuele Leonardi, and Viviana Asara). Through sustainable development, western institutions and experts have been able to continue and even advance their dominant and assertive role in policy formulation and interventions globally and particularly in the Global South. It is also a diversionary strategy from real causes of ecological degradation and effective ways for addressing the ecological crisis or for that matter the 17 goals outlined in SDGs such as poverty, social and gender inequality, peace and social justice. Sustainable development is deemed to be the only effective universal panacea to ecological and social woes, such as climate change, environmental degradation, poverty, inequality, and social injustice. And like neoliberal philosophy, SDGs are promoted and advocated as TINA: “There is no alternative”. This is, of course, categorically untrue as alternatives abound, but they are ignored or effaced; if they do get acknowledged, they are regularly devalued or side-lined.
- Seventhly, related to it being a Western hegemonic discourse, several critics have deemed sustainable development (and the SDGs) as a form of eco-colonialism. In his opening address to the Bandung Conference in 1955, the Indonesian President Sukarno noted: ‘We are often told “Colonialism is dead”. Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead. How can we say it is dead, so long as vast areas of Asia and Africa are unfree. And, I beg of you do not think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia, and our brothers [sic] in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skilful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily. Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is an evil thing, and one which must be eradicated from the Earth.’ We contend that sustainable development represents one of many contemporary ‘dresses’ of colonialism. Several critics have rightly argue that sustainable development is colonialist by logic and practice and a manifestation of the colonial mentality (see, for example, Aram Ziai’s (2016) book Development Discourse and Global History: From Colonialism to the Sustainable Development Goals. Available here. Also see the section ‘Coloniality of Sustainability‘ in the Guide to Challenging Coloniality and these media articles (among many others): https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/10/10/does-sustainable-development-have-an-elephant-in-the-room; https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/in-the-world-of-sustainability-colonialism-is-not-dead/; https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/09/21/how-colonialism-spawned-and-continues-to-exacerbate-the-climate-crisis/; https://www.fairplanet.org/story/how-climate-colonialism-affects-the-global-south/ ). It is contended that the colonial project continues in the form of current ecological interventions, be it sustainable development or conservation as poignantly stated by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva several decades ago: “In the early phases of colonization, the white man’s burden consisted of the need to ‘civilize’ the non-white peoples of the world — this meant above all depriving them of their resources and rights. In the latter phase of colonization, the white man’s burden consisted of the need to ‘develop’ the Third World, and this again involved depriving local communities of their resources and rights. We are now on the threshold of the third phase of colonization, in which the white man’s burden is to protect the environment — and this too, involves taking control of rights and resources. . . . The salvation of the environment cannot be achieved through the old colonial order based on the white man’s burden. The two are ethically, economically and epistemologically incongruent” (Mies and Shiva, 1993: 264–265). Focusing her critical eye on the ‘peace-qua-development’ aspect of Agenda 2030, Omer (2020) notes, ‘The pretence of a global “roadmap” for human flourishing conceals the SDGs complicity with histories of marginalization, deprivation, dispossession, and other legacies of coloniality that continue to this day and are engrained into the experiences of those targeted for “development”‘. Following the critical work by anti-colonial/decolonial writers, we contend that colonialism is not an event but a persistent and enduring structure and system; it is a spectre that continues to haunt us. To decolonise, we must emancipate ourselves from such instruments and practices of coloniality (the pervasive and continuing structures and systems of colonialism) as the policy and global goals centred on the concept of sustainable development.
- Lastly, its evident ineffectiveness as an ecological solution. As several critics have observed that after more than three decades of sustainable development, we now have more pollution, greater biodiversity loss, and climate change indicative of the fact that it has failed as far as addressing ecological degradation and maintaining ecological integrity are concerned.
These criticisms of sustainable development are largely ignored, dismissed or neglected by governments and corporations driven by capitalist growth-mania. And they are challenged and rebutted by those serving the political and economic interests of the culprits of environmental despoilation, especially the fossil fuel industries.
It is clear that sustainable development (and sustainability) is not going to put an end to human violence against nature and to repair the ever increasing ecological rift between humanity and nature, we must go beyond sustainability. Inspired by several scholars and change makers (see, for example, Giradet 2013, Habib 2015, Gabel 2015, Wahl 2018, Monbiot 2022), the global organization, Regeneration International (https://regenerationinternational.org) and Indigenous peoples, we settled for ecological regeneration as a comprehensive biocentric or eco-centric practical panacea to ecological and social problems. The word ‘regenerate’ means to ‘grow after loss or damage (as in the case of body tissue)’ or ‘to bring new and more vigorous life to an area, revive, revitalize, renew, rejuvenate, resuscitate’. Implicitly, ecological regeneration transcends environmental restoration. The contention is that humans have disrupted ecosystems and degraded environments to such an extent that these can no longer regenerate naturally. Rather than simply minimising or stopping such environmental degradation as prescribed in sustainable development strategies, proponents of ecological regeneration maintain that efforts to repair, resuscitate or improve degraded environments are necessary for nature to take its course. Hence, ecological regenerative practices are carried out to reinvigorate natural regeneration. This entails human intervention to modify the environment like planting native species or rewilding or building dams to trap run-off water to revive wetlands or improving the condition of soils by mulching with compost and minimising damage to the microorganisms and worms to revive or resuscitate degraded ecosystems, among others.
In a recent book entitled Relationality: An Emergent Politics of Life Beyond Human, Escobar et al (2024: 177) call for regenerative designing as one of the several steps toward building a better world. As they observed: “Regenerative designing is emerging as a powerful framework and set of practices for transitioning between the story of separation to the story of interbeing. Regenerative designing calls for transformative social innovation beyond current notions of sustainability; is centered on a living systems’ understanding of society and the economy; relies on collaborative and communal-oriented practices; and aims at the constitution of regenerative cultures with the potential to change significantly the purpose and character of designing”.
It must be pointed out that ecological regeneration is by no means a novel strategy. As Indigenous scholars have documented, ecological regenerative practices, which mimic natural processes, are time-honoured aspects of Indigenous foraging and farming systems. One can safely assume that such biomimicry is an outcome of longstanding astute observation and deep understanding of nature and its processes. In many parts of Africa, Asia and South America, Indigenous communities engage in a farming system referred to as swidden cultivation (also known as shifting cultivation or pejoratively as ‘slash and burn’ agriculture). Typically, swidden farmers plant a range of cultigens in forest clearings and once crops have been harvested, farm plots are left to fallow and revert to forests, making it an ecologically efficient farming system well suited for tropical forest environments. Today, there are very few communities that depend on the swidden farming for their livelihood as most have been resettled away from their forest homelands and encouraged to engage in ‘modern’ cash cropping or the forests around their settlements have been destroyed by extractive industries and plantation companies.
Another practice worthy of mention is the use of controlled burning by Australian Aborigines to stimulate ecological regeneration and succession of bushlands, leading to the replenishing of the soils and the regrowth of plants attracting wildlife. This in turn provides the communities with prolific hunting grounds and well-nourished land for small scale cultivation of a variety of bush foods. All such practices reflect the philosophy and worldview held by almost all Indigenous peoples that humans are part of nature as well as underscore the pivotal importance of biomimicry in maintaining a healthy and caring relationship with the natural environment.
The DEEP Network is one of the global partners of Regeneration International , a growing network focused on the promotion, facilitation, and acceleration of ‘the global transition to regenerative food, farming and land management for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger and rebuilding deteriorated social, ecological and economic systems’. The RI website offers much more insights, resources, and information about the growing number of regenerative projects around the globe.
As David Graeber in his book, The Utopia of Rules, states, ‘The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.’ DEEP strives to make this world differently, one where empathy, compassion, generosity, mutual understanding, love and respect for nature shape and pervade our lives. And this making of a another world must entail not only ecological regeneration, but also social regeneration through the rebuilding and fostering of communities, commons, and pro-social cooperation.
Authored by Alberto Gomes, DEEP’s Director.