Why Regeneration?

Our understanding of our relationship with nature, and of our place in the universe, has come a long way. 

The current scientific paradigm of reductionism separates humans from nature.  Attempts to correct this have evolved over the past decades, taking us along a path of increasing embeddedness:

• Sustainability: Humans being and doing "100% less bad" things to nature

• Restorative: Humans operating on nature. Assumes humans as superior to nature

• Reconciliatory: Humans as an integral part of nature, but still separate from it

• Regenerative: Humans participating in nature and co-evolving the whole system

There is a robust body of theory, practice and methodologies developing around the practice of regeneration, using living-systems principles. Regenerative agriculture, health, economics, design and leadership are some of the fields that have emerged to date.

There has been decades of work done by veteran thinkers such as Bill Reed, Carol Sanford, Daniel Christian Wahl,  Fritjof Capra, John Fullerton, and Margaret Wheatley.  These thinkers' definitions and applications of regeneration go far beyond conventional resource management; they expand it into a ‘way of being’ in all aspects of human life - from design to education, to business and to leadership. 

To clarify, by ‘structure’ and ‘infrastructure’ we refer to physical, mental, conceptual, tangible and intangible forms. Systems have structural elements within them.