Regenerative Practice, or ‘whakapapa’
March 8, 2016 Kosmos Community News


Regenerative Development: Going Beyond Sustainability

By Medard Gabel
In the Current Edition of Kosmos Journal

Sustainable Development is a half-vast approach to vast problems. Its purpose, to make life on this planet sustainable, is a noble disguise for the maintenance of the status quo. When the status quo includes hundreds of millions of acres of degraded to destroyed farmland and leveled rainforest, depleted to exhausted fisheries and aquifers, toxic-choked streams, decreasing biodiversity, and a changing climate, sustainability is simply not acceptable. In short, sustainable development is like the bromide ‘do no evil’; it does not set the bar high enough. We can, and need, to do better than just sustain the unacceptable—or accept the present as the best we can do.


An Invitation to Participate in Creating a Regenerative Society

by The Center for Planetary Culture
in the current edition of Kosmos Journal

image: Richard Buckminster Fuller & Anne Hewlett Fuller Dome Home

The visionary design scientist Buckminster Fuller believed humanity faced a choice between ‘utopia or oblivion.’ According to Fuller, we will either establish a world where everyone on Earth receives a research grant for life in whatever subject interests them or we will fall by the wayside, like the vast majority of species before us. With the acceleration of our technological capacities and the deepening of our ecological destruction, we seem to be approaching the critical threshold where we choose our path.

With our position paper and Wiki, we invite the global community to work with us to envision our current situation as an opportunity for an evolutionary leap, and document what lies beyond it.


Book Preview | Designing Regenerative Cultures

This is a pre-release excerpt from the first chapter of
Designing Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD
Publication Date: May 2nd, 2016 | Publisher: Triarchy Press, UK

Regenerative Cultures create win-win-win solutions by asking deeper questions

On an over-populated planet facing the threat of run-away climate change and the depletion of many non-renewable resources we currently depend upon, we are increasingly becoming aware of our interdependence. For our species to not just survive, but to thrive, we depend on each other and on the planetary life-support system.


World Water Day | Bren Smith and Restorative Ocean Farming

Via Future of Fish and Green Wave

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. Under the theme ‘Water and Jobs’, the year 2016 provides an important opportunity to consolidate and build upon the previous World Water Days to highlight the two-way relationship between water and the decent work agenda in the quest for sustainable development.

Bren Smith is a former fisherman turned sustainable shellfish and seaweed farmer and entrepreneur. His company, Thimble Island Oyster Co., operates one of the first sustainable 3D ocean farms in the country.

Interview and multiple videos


8 Māori Words to Have You Celebrating Exactly Who You Are

By Bahadur Hāweatea Brysonon, via Elephant Journal

“When I started learning te reo Māori (the Maori language) I found my way home. The language is a treasure where even one ordinary word can provide immense understanding and wisdom. After all, the extraordinary hides in the ordinary. One word has me re-evaluating who I am.

With just 13 letters in the alphabet (8 consonants and 5 vowels), all words are deeply connected to each other. Vowels are seed sounds, across lands and cultures worldwide.

Makuini Ruth Tai, who teaches on the vibration of te reo Māori explains it as the language of nature, where REO (language) stands for Rich Earth Oratory. Six years ago she opened me up to seeing reo in this way, by explaining the first two words below. The other words are some I’ve sat with, outside in the fresh air, and tried to get to know. I share what they teach me, and it’s in no way conclusive.”


Community Peacebuilder Immersion Training

Special Announcement

The River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding is offering a Community Peacebuilder Immersion Training Program. This two-week residential experience will provide the knowledge, skills, and support for inspiring and operationalizing peacebuilding practices in personal life and work, potentially creating a center for peacebuilding within the Participant’s community.

Kosmos Board Member, Dot Maver, will be facilitating along with other partners from the River Phoenix Center.