Regeneration Rising in Brazil: “Nós somos a geração que regenera!”
‘Designing Regenerative Cultures’ will be published in Brazil
I am very excited to have signed an agreement with Bambual Editora for the publication of ‘Designing Regenerative Cultures’ in Brazilian Portuguese. A committed team is working to get the book ready for my forthcoming trip to this country of immense natural beauty and vibrant cultural diversity.
For the last two years I have been talking with my Brazilian friends Taisa Mattos from Conecta Ecossocial and Flavia Vivacqua from Nexo Cultural Design Regenerativo about a possible visit to Brazil. Since leaving my baby daughter alone for a few nights only nearly breaks my heart, I have been delaying this visit and even now I dread not being with my family. And yet, I do feel I am going to visit the growing family of regenerative design activists that is contributing to the Regeneration rising in Brazil. Although it physically hurts me to think of being 12 nights away from my family, I trust that it will contribute to co-creating a healthier future for my daughter and all the children on this beautiful planet we are fortunate enough to call home.
As I prepare for the visit and read the news about the horrific recent disaster when the bursting of an insufficiently safe dam of an exploitative iron mining operation caused 65 deaths and widespread environmental damage while the current president declares war on Brazil’s indigenous people and their sacred Amazonian home, I am very aware that I am going to visit a country in need of healing and regeneration.
Luckily, Brazil is one of the places where the Regeneration is rising and every day more people join this movement dedicated to the healing of the Earth and her people. I have been in love with this country and its people ever since my first visit to Belo Horizonte for the ‘2020 Climate Leadership’ conference in 2009 and my return to Rio the Janeiro for the ‘Cupola dos Povos’ and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. My work with Gaia Education has connected me with a vibrant social movement in Brazil that is spanning the whole country. There is no other country in the world that has run so many Gaia Education courses and has so many graduates doing amazing work in social, ecological and economic regeneration.
After my recent talk at the Findhorn Foundation on ‘Human and Planetary Health: Ecosystems Restoration at the Dawn of the Century of Regeneration’ I started to re-read James Lovelock’s wonderful book ‘GAIA — The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine’. As we engage in this work of civilizational and planetary importance of healing the damage of centuries of ‘industrial growth societies’ and moving towards ‘live sustaining societies’ — diverse regenerative cultures everywhere — what happens in Brazil will be particularly important.
Brazil is holds such precious biodiversity and cultural diversity and I mean precious in the sense of intrinsic value and not utilitarian value! Brazil and its vast forests are rightly described as the lungs of Gaia and the cancer of an exploitative and resource hungry degenerative civilization has damaged these vital organs of our planetary life support system. If we hope to meet the Bonn Challenge and reforest more than 350 million hectares of diverse forests around the world by 2030, much of this planetary healing will have to take place in Amazonia and the Mata Atlântica.
I am immensely grateful to Flavia and Taisa for putting so much heart and hard work into organizing my visit to Brazil in March of 2019 and also to Isabel Valle and Camila Rocha at Bambual Editora for working overtime to get my book published in time. I truly hope that what I can share with people during my visit and the meaning, projects and visions we can co-create together during my talks, workshops and courses in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will help energize the rise of the ReGeneration in Brazil.
“Nós somos a regeneração — a geração que é chamada para regenerar a terra e seu povo!”
My visit is made possible by the support of the Goethe Institute in Sao Paulo, where I will be offering a talk on March 22nd and a workshop on March 23rd. Friends from Educação Gaia are hosting me for a workshop in Rio de Janeiro on March 24th, and on the March 28th I will give another talk in Sao Paulo and then a three day course at the magnificent Terra Luminous near the city from the 29th to the 31st. Flavia has put the whole programme online, so if you to share it with someone here is the link.
In the run-up to my visit the Goethe Institute will be hosting two free webinars that I will offer in English with simultaneous sub-titling in Portuguese. The first one ‘Why go beyond Sustainability?’ will be on the 31st of January and the second one ‘Bio-inspired Design’ will be on the 25th of February. I was amazed to learn that there are already more than 300 people signed up for the first webinar and there is even a viewing hub dialing in from Mosambique. The Regeneration is rising! Not just in Brazil but everywhere!
Jane Goodall and Greta Thunberg have demonstrated so effectively “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” I am coming to Brazil to make a difference together with all those wonderful people I look forward to seeing again and meeting there.
Let us make a positive difference together!
As life we are capable of creating conditions conducive to life!
May it serve the healing of the Earth and her people!
[Note: For more information about the talks, workshops and course in Brazil, or to sign up for the free webinars on January 31st and February 25th do take a look at DesignRegenerativo.org]
