https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SPD2r0xV8k&authuser
Chile as the crow flies.
A vision of biodiversity in the mirror of capitalist development.
Rainer María Hauser Molina. DCYA/FAE/USACH. Professor.
1. Chapeau of ethics and thanks.
That UNESCO signaled 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), resounds "entangled" with the call to humanity made repeatedly by the UN General Secretary since 2022, to make a "quantum leap" in our thoughts and actions to face the triple collective failure of Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, and Contamination. The hegemonic system of production in which we live, continues to produce fossil fuels, in a kind of suicidal act, and on top of the insane division of a handful of very rich people and world generalized poverty, has launched atrocious and genocidal wars, as the planet has never seen before. No doubt we need something like a complete transformational change in our views, structures and practices, to continue living and allowing life to continue.
Contemporary war is being in its turn, fueled by technology which contributes heavily to this same situation, and has arrived at a peak which has invaded all the possible fields of our existence, with no regulation whatsoever.
As we have pointed out presenting our proposal at icsd-24 last year “SDG 0: Peace”, no SDG could even be imaginable if there is no peace, and we need to conceive ethics at the very earth of our academic practice. In this same value line, we should say that in doing this presentation, we have not utilized -at least in any authorized form- the tools of AI at our disposal.
This brief but necessary introduction will be uncomplete if we didn´t recognize that the synchronicities who happen, allow us to imagine a change of paradigm or as we said before, a quantum change, a completely new manner of addressing this reality which by no means could be addressed as before.
So we are happy to congratulate the work of the IPBES, who produced, last year, the assessment inform that comes to orientate our presentation, as a collective and very profound reflection who looking for the subjacent causes of biodiversity loss, embodies the knowledge of indigenous people of the world, enhance our comprehension of all the possible relations, between humans as individuals, the ways we establish our social relations with nature, and recognizes the need to conceive an holistic and “entangled” totality in which all forms of life strive with equity and freedom and is a great incentive in our commitment to find a sustainable way to do it.
2. The map is not the territory.
Even being a world vision as old as humanity, we could say that in the last thirty years, a vision has emerged and made continuous steps, that is no longer mechanistic, but rather one of intimate and necessary relationships between its components. The most fundamental developments in each of the specialties point to this, because we have realized that there is a systemic relationship between self-regulating bodies, connected in a network.
It is no coincidence to find in the field of climate change, since its first UNCCC-COP meeting in 1995 in Berlin, that we have managed to bring together this scientific knowledge, the practical aspects of its implementation, and the challenges it poses.
Though it has passed through a series of different challenges, the early understanding that a holistic and integrated approach is necessary to develop a framework for the sustainability of social ecosystems, has allowed not only to construct a history of the relationships between cultures and their environment, but also to place its praxis, which reflects continuous feedback between the laboratory and the field, at the forefront of international developments in Climate Change Adaptation, which has since, guided the efforts of the international scientific community.
These developments of Complex Adaptive Systems, of which we have been able to observe active objectifications in different parts of the world and have been labeled as emerging phenomena (E. Ostrom, 1994), translate into the concretization of innovative forms of Governance and Polycentric Government, not only gradually expand their spheres of trust, in an increasingly feedback-driven manner, between the local, regional, territorial, national, and international levels, but also establish binding communications and commitments that globally address the challenges we face as humanity. Thus, it should not be a surprise that one of the most important roadmaps for connecting the international and local communities is provided by the SDGs or Sustainable Development Goals, which substitute the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the same year of the Paris Agreement in COP21 (2015), and Laudato Sii, the courageous encyclic of the recent gone Pope Francis of the catholic church.
Taking into account that research on the resilience of social ecological systems is still in an exploratory phase, despite its success, recent advances as the IPBES Assessment on Transformative Change, include understanding on the complexity that collective processes, such as social learning and memory, mental models and knowledge integration systems, conceiving and building appropriate scenarios, to convey the generation of leadership agents, group of actors, social networks, institutional organization, has to deal with inertia and change, adaptive capacities and governance systems all which, involve great research challenges, and include feedback efforts to see how these instances interact across different scales.
The implications for policy are profound and require changes in the mental models that place us in relation to the perspectives of the environment, particularly affected by climate change, but they should certainly be treated as a whole, to address issues related to self-esteem and the development of individuals and groups, as has occurred in an uncontrolled but current manner in specific problems of gender and social discrimination.
In this way, the perspectives that stimulate the emergence of adaptive governance for scenarios of socio-ecological resilience, do not only involve currents of adaptation to normal conditions and in the short term, they are projected into a space of transformation toward more sustainable developments, thus becoming a very good path to addressing and raising awareness of the major challenges posed by our energy commitments to building low-carbon societies in accordance with the commitments of the Paris Agreement for 2030, and the coming years.
3. From there to here.
This report, which is a thoughtful synthesis of the results of research, conducted by hundreds of professionals from different countries over several years, should serve as a theoretical framework to guide our own perspectives in the face of what we -they and we- recognize as the three major problems manifesting the threats to the functioning of a system that does not prioritize (or consider) the common good, which have led us to identify as close to the disappearance of life on the planet.
Thus, the transformational change addressed in the report responds to the urgent need to implement profound and radical transformations in vision, structure, and practice, to respond to climate chaos, biodiversity loss, and pollution, each of which has given rise to a dedicated UN Convention. Incidentally, this report originates from the Convention on Biological Diversity and was approved in November 2024 at COP16 in Cali, Colombia. We have welcomed it as a breath of fresh air, given the evident failure last year, of the UNFCCC COP29 in Azerbaijan, as well of the Busan COP in South Korea, to fight against plastic pollution.
Based on the scientific certainty of the accelerated extinction of species, upon which the CBD is based, endangered wild species inhabit places where they naturally live in contact with human groups that have been cut off from civilization. Indigenous peoples, despite comprising 5% of the world's population, live in close proximity to 80% of species, who have always played a fundamental role in their worldview and belief systems until our days.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the search for possible answers to the ills of our civilization finds a necessary reference in their ways of conceiving the world and establishing relationships, which runs through and through the Biodiversity Platform Report, which we consider briefly in some of its leading contributions to our work.
4. Building capacities for transformative change.
1. Comparative case study research through different time periods to draw general conclusions. These case studies are essential to understanding how transformative processes unfold in practice and can provide valuable insights into the factors that lead to success or failure. More robust documentation and analysis of real-world cases (including both historical and current cases) are needed to build a solid empirical foundation for scaling up transformative actions.
2. Imagination gap: Addressing the imagination gap in envisioning positive futures where humans are seen as an integrated part of nature and living in harmony with nature.
3. Cultural insights and social dimensions: The cultural dimensions of transformative change remain underexplored, especially regarding how different cultures and societies envision positive futures where humans and nature are integrated harmoniously and how shifts in cultural values can be supported to advance transformative change for a just and sustainable world.
The specific needs and issues of concern for diverse social actor groups are also under-represented in work on transformative change. More research is needed on how different social actors and cultural perspectives can inform broader sustainability transformations.
4. Philosophical and theoretical foundations: Assessment of the underlying philosophical, theoretical assumptions and epistemologies of transformative change, including how these link to adult learning and development.
5. Inner transformations and empowerment: Assessment of the role of transformative capacities, including inner transformations and empowerment, in transformative change processes, and how to cultivate those capacities.
Prioritizing these gaps through integrative and actionable transdisciplinary research can guide and activate science, policy and society for transformative change. This suggests an implementation gap that can be addressed by linking knowledge and action to produce context-specific and measurable results for transformative change.
5. The road ahead.
Challenges to overcome.
Transformative change for a just and sustainable world faces systemic challenges which manifest as barriers that impede or prevent it and reinforce the status quo. Challenges to transformative change influence all aspects of the relationships between humans and nature. Five overarching challenges were identified by the IPBES who should be used as a guide in our exposition dialogues, because they are certainly determinants to understand the actual reality of our country.
1) Cultural relations of domination over nature and people.
2) Economic and political inequalities.
3) Inadequate policies and unfit institutions.
4) Unsustainable consumption and production patterns including individual habits and practices and
5) Limited access to clean technologies and uncoordinated knowledge and innovative systems.
All the best. Gracias.
Fraternalmente,
R.M.H.M.
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