What Happened to Sustainability?

By Anthony Colombo and Aaron Anderson

Printed in Hawaii Island Journal February 1-15, 2005

Sustainability has become a primary goal for many alternative-thinking land developers in America. Yet sustainability does not reflect the natural state of a healthy world. A healthy world does not just sustain existing resources but actively creates new resources, new species and new culture. In fact this deep-seated, creative or generative process is fundamental to life; it constantly renews and evolves diversity in individuals, cultures, ecosystems, etc.

Living Processes vs. Fixed Plans

Sustainable development very often becomes just another redundant example of top-down planning that disregards indigenous or grass roots wisdom; a wisdom that emerges only by directly participating in and observing the actual living process. The process expresses an inherent order that emerges from seeming chaos to create the incredible complexity of life, in all its regenerative abundance.

This does not mean minimizing the importance of the plan, in fact it is just the opposite; the plan becomes alive and changes as the process unfolds. From the regenerative process viewpoint – plan failures, endings and even death fuel new combinations from which we benefit and grow from – just as Mother Nature does.

Sustainable development becomes even more ineffective when it comes from the plans that originate from parasitic County government interests. How is it that a body of “official experts” sit in a room, remote from the site and the indigenous sensibilities of the area, and use the awesome power of government force to manipulate their positions and prejudices upon the process?

Respecting “the process” is a challenge for the western results-based mind. The western mind tends to become myopic in imposing a specific plan to yield a specific result. Becoming myopic in this way means missing opportunities in the constantly evolving ecologic/social/economic landscape.

In order for it to be respectful and appropriate, planning must stem from an indigenous-meditative process. This way the plan doesn't become another foreign or parasitic pattern imposed upon the landscape. We honor the landscape by continuously mediating with it and in the process we meditate and grow within our own personal internal landscapes.

For a dynamic evolving human habitat, supporting flexible processes is more appropriate than following fixed plans. However a plan can be made flexible and appropriate through conscientious local group-based planning. Planning that emphasizes healthy, symbiotic and diverse relationships in and between humans and the environment, and that continuously evolves via the regenerative process.

Process also enables all entities to get the full opportunity to express their freewill and pursue their “enlightened self-interest.” Rigid plans or rules often stifle the spirit or flow and block the gifts individual elements offer as they share the bounty created by achieving optimal health and happiness. The beauty of it is that you can not plan where the process will take you because it is a living process with a collective free-will and in this way yields something fundamentally new and of real value.

Our Enlightened Self-Interests

How does one's self-interest become enlightened?

To answer that question a good place to start is by looking to nature. In nature all plants and animals are in pursuit of their own enlightened self-interests. In other words, a plant will do its best to get as much sun, water and nutrients as it can to be as healthy and regenerative as it can. In the process the plant also creates food, shelter, soil and more, which other plants and animals benefit from as they pursue their self-interests.

When you walk under a fruit tree know that the tree really wants you to pursue your enlightened self-interest. It wants you take that fruit to make you strong so you can walk to new habitat to distribute its seeds and nutrients. This is the symbiotic pump that drives nature. Of course, not all relationships in a healthy ecosystem are symbiotic - some are parasitic.

In an unhealthy ecosystem the parasitic relationships outweigh the symbiotic ones. The ecosystem will eventually collapse as the parasites undermine the host foundations that support them. The same can be seen in human relations as parasitic self-interests undermine our modern consumer society. Parasitic self-interest operates by controlling people to put them in service of the parasites unenlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest naturally gives the freedom, respect and appreciation for each individual's unique choices and gifts. This is what some call liberty.

So our goal becomes to maximize symbiotic relationships that emerge as we encourage those around us to truly pursue and express their unique creativity and optimal well-being. In this way a healthy human ecosystem evolves though a deep respect and love for all our relations - each of which bring us wellness and joy.

Our Indigenous Culture

As a response to the devastation reaped upon the world's indigenous cultures and habitats, conscious people for the most part are not building upon what remains, but rather they are doing their best just to “preserve” it. Although preserving, sustaining and surviving seems necessary now, that is not what the ancestors had in mind for us. They intended for us to thrive and regenerate anew by adding and building upon the knowledge-base and myth that they themselves added to.

We can begin a new indigenous culture, much the same way the Hawaiians did when they first came here with their ancestral knowledge, their plants and animals. They created regenerative human habitats, Ahupua’a, evolving new lifestyles and new myths emerging from close relationships with Hawaii’s unique bioregions and spirits in the earth, sea and sky.

Much is different now; the palette of possibilities has greatly expanded. The canoes are bigger and we have many more plants and animals. There is a huge influx of scientific knowledge and cultural diversity from all over the planet. We have the opportunity to respect the ones that came before us by carefully blending their gifts together into new indigenous-regenerative human habitats. Habitats where we carefully listen to our aina and to each other so that we may evolve synergistic relationships that generate lasting wealth and wellness.

What happens when we stop sustainable development and start the indigenous-regenerative process?

We stop merely surviving and we start truly thriving!