‘Acting as Nature Does’? …why we need a radical HOW-Shift
The WHAT is international cooperation’s eternal rock star but the state of our planet cannot afford the new WHAT-wave of regenerative approaches. Can we learn from Permaculture?
Cultiva Lab is slowly taking shape and I hope I will be ready to go online with my website and concrete activities in a few weeks.
But Cultiva Lab itself is the outcome of a long and whirling cultivation process. A process of self-knowledge and positioning in this world and the international cooperation sector, in which I have worked for almost twenty years. A process of letting go of those fixed structures that are addressed and funded in similar ways with every new tech hype or peaking call of urgency to care for people and planet. A process of understanding that we carry our own roots, and required journey of self-awareness and self-care, into our work field. That an untamed inner urge to fight for justice does not necessarily translate into direct visible change.
Cultiva Lab subconsciously, and later consciously, took shape throughout my process of engaging with permaculture six years ago, and eventually moving off-grid three years ago. In learning to practice the act of true listening, which I had first encountered in my professional engagement with participatory development communication twenty years ago. In learning to listen to nature, and to live with nature more closely than my former lifestyle would have ever enabled. Where the changing colours of the leaves became my calendar.
Why am I writing this?
We are in the midst of a new and most urgently needed obsession. Regeneration is replacing sustainability narratives as the new centre of attention as we are facing multiple planetary crises. To consequently engage with both concepts is long overdue. More importantly, to deeply engage with the HOW and to let go of spinning in circles about the WHAT. This requires conceptual clarity.
So far so good. We know the game, the funding machinery, the generous adaptation of professional titles and framing of expertise.
Cultivating collaboration with ourselves and nature
The other day I stumbled over a Regenerative Economy Model. It’s ultimate level of achievement constituted the ‘regenerative level’ in which ‘humans are acting as nature does’.
This struck me with concern! It did so because such new WHATs, for me, constitute the driving simplifications that hold us back from seriously tackling our planetary crises.
We want people, including big companies and public institutions, to act as nature does? I wonder how far the majority of individuals, let alone institutions, can comprehend how nature acts when it is at peace. More though, such claims reinforce a perception of nature as something external to us, as something that surrounds us and that we are sharing life on earth with. But the root causes of our planetary crises are multifaceted and deeply intersectional. What is needed is a raw comprehension of how we are intrinsically part of the game, a wheel in the overall ecological system — and how power disparities are systemically cultivated. We also need to acknowledge the rights of nature and consequently enact it in our organisational, institutional, and company models.
Indigenous communities have been living in harmony with nature, in full comprehension of this interrelation. What institutions have failed all along is to acknowledge that the expert is in the room. What we need to learn is to listen, to step back and truly listen, if we want to remotely understand what it means to act as nature does. Or rather, to respect nature and to collaborate.
To listen and to unpack, with brutal honesty, the root causes of institutional failure to ‘act with nature’ in every step we take, requires a feminist ecological approach that is able to address the multi-layered entanglement of the planetary crises with complex and patriarchal power constructions.
If we acknowledge that we are part of the ecosystem, regenerating ecosystem function requires at least three things.
To embrace context
To slow down and act systemically
To start from individual and interpersonal health
What permaculture can teach us
Permaculture, as an ethical framework, can be a useful guidance in this endeavour. Permaculture, as a design system, goes beyond a regenerative approach centred on farming and land management. The ethics and design principles of permaculture, beyond accounting for fertile soil and ecosystem diversity, apply to educational and economic systems, technological infrastructure and spirituality, community and governance. We can learn a lot from the holistic understanding and methodologies of permaculture in the healing and regenerating journey we and our institutions urgently need to address — in the HOW.
In permaculture, we take time, lots of time, to observe, prior to engaging. That requires first and foremost to step back and actively listen. Different climates, the health of soil and how it has been treated before, local vegetation, the water situation, the culture and needs of people managing or living from the land. These are just some components to consider and it takes an understanding of those and other components observed across all seasons to get a rough understanding.
If we want people and companies to ‘act like nature’, the first reality to embrace is that in nature we won’t find the one solution agenda. In western societies that are increasingly disconnected from nature, how do we get people to comprehend how nature works, and that it requires to break with a whole lot of created comfort zones and the constant availability of infrastructures? A regenerative model needs to be ready to slow down, contextualise as a given, and break with dominant availability concepts.
We need to cultivate systemic thinking and practice as defaults. Life on earth depends on healthy soil as it stores excessive quantities of carbon and is one of the main global reservoirs of biodiversity. Nonetheless, monoculture practices have depleted our lands and left healthy soil to a concerning minimum. This, metaphorically, also applies to many other areas of life, that systematically fail to embrace the systemic connections and how to embrace them. Approaching transformation through a permaculture perspective, that is deeply rooted in systemic understanding and practices, can be a useful guidance.
Another aspect is that of individual and institutional health. Achieving planetary well-being requires personal and collective well-being. Understanding what is needed for earth care on a technical level is easy to comprehend. But we know very well that the ecological problem is not a technical one. It is an emotional and spiritual dysfunction in the minority territories, that translate into the institutions we have. In permaculture we work with zones. Zone 0 is the house. In social permaculture Zone 00 is the Self. Our individual and collective well-being shapes our insitutions and infrastructures. Thus, sustainability, and regenerative living that reflects in our institutions, policy agendas, and governance practices, will have to begin in our zone zeroes.
If we, in the international cooperation sector and beyond, bluntly assess our organisations and leadership structures against feminist principles, interrogated in light of a deeper understanding of power, we have a long way to go. But we need to walk the walk if we want to achieve a permanent culture of multi-species justice and well-being on earth.
I dare to claim that we are not ready to systemically act in a regenerative manner. We need to realign with the ecosystems we belong to. We need to consciously cultivate our regenerative potentials. Cultiva Lab set out to nurture the HOW. We explore systems based shifts in how self-awareness and organisational well-being can be translated into strategy and program work. We unpack how the permaculture principles, as one pathway, can support individuals, teams, and organisation in their regenerative transition rooted in a feminist ecology.
Reach out if you would like to learn more, get support, or explore collaboration opportunities! I love to connect!