Janak Raj Pant

In the changed environment after the World War II, the world followed the notion of development, but could not explicitly trace standards for development. There were a lot of competitions to exploit natural resources, endangering the very environment we live in. It took another three decades for people to come to an understanding that development is not just about the availability of resources and economic growth. The true essence of development lies deeper than that, which is sustainability. The human community and the United Nations have made some decent efforts in the field of sustainable development and environmental protection since the 1970s. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) announced in 2000 and the "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" implemented since 2016, are the great source of inspiration for the promotion of environment.
Some obligations need to be fulfilled by every human and this can be attributed to the fact that humans live in a society and their actions affect one another. Additionally, humans are the major users of natural resources and should think about future generations as well as other species that depend on the same environment for their survival. According to Vitousek (1997), about 50 per cent of the earth's surface has been changed by humans, and about 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been added since the industrial revolution. On the other hand, the average Biocapacity of earth available per person is 1.6 global hectares and the world average ecological footprint is 2.7 global hectares which equal to 1.75 planets (2019).
If we look from the perspective of a developed country, more than 8 global hectares of land are required to sustain their lifestyle. If everyone on the planet lived like developed countries, we would need more than five Earths to support us. The data shows that the Biocapacity of Nepal is 0.59 and the ecological footprint is 0.98 (2021). In this context, we need different approaches to re-establish connections between people and nature, between art and science, and between technology and daily life. The famous scientist Albert Einstein said that "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it". Human consciousness can be gradually integrated through efficient use of resources, conservation of resources, affiliation with nature, mimicking nature, restoration of nature, tending to nature, and being nature (doing as nature).

Different approaches
There are different approaches to preserve nature - conventional (staying with the law), green (little less negative impact on nature), sustainable (adding no additional harm to nature or keep doing what we are doing), restorative (humans healing nature), and regenerative (humans increasing the vitality, viability, and capacity with nature). It’s apparent that we need to look at how we go beyond sustainability to restore and even increase potential, capacity, vitality, and viability to sure we leave a world better for the next generation.
Sustainability and regeneration are practices that can work together and are complementary to each other. However, regeneration looks beyond the limited approach of reducing waste and resource consumption. It rather implies undertaking development projects from a living systems perspective and working to create positive outcomes for all the living and non-living things. Sustainable design has the intent to keep going as we are going with the aims for 'neutral' or 'zero' environmental outcomes, to do so sustainably. Regenerative development aims to increase the vitality, viability of the place, country, city, community, and ecosystem as a whole.
It doesn't aim to keep it the same but to nurture it. It asks the question of what can we contribute here, not what can we extract. The saying - “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” - is the old extractive way of thinking. It only works until the fishes exist. Instead, regenerative development challenges us to "teach him to love the ocean" if you love it you will look after it. That is shifting from consuming to contributing through deep understanding. It is about building relationships between people and places and establishes a system that would continuously self-replenish and nurtures itself. That would ultimately help in creating a future world that would be more abundant and desirable for all the creatures living on this earth.

Ecological worldview
Regenerative development provides us the opportunity to limit future negative environmental outcomes on the one hand, and produce net positive environmental benefits on the other. To achieve this, we need to produce more than that we consume, and end pollution, environmental damages and ecological footprint inflicted upon this world and ultimately increasing the Biocapacity. It would be important to ask each project, what benefits can these structures provide to the system with regard to bringing life, vitality, and viability to a place? This question can be addressed through the regenerative concept. The regenerative concept also advocates for resilience thinking, helping us to grasp the concept of the ecological worldview.
As Nepal has so far failed to become an 'early adapter' in most fields of innovation and despite the fact what Nepal does or does not do is not going to save the planet but we should not delay in adopting a developmental approach that preserves natural, cultural, and social heritage while we are just trying to emerge as a developing nation. Nepal aims to achieve the SDGs before 2030 so it needs to be clear about the next development concept to be followed. In this context, we shall start to think beyond sustainability to concepts such as regenerative development.

(Pant is an engineer at the Department of Local Infrastructure, Lalitpur. janakpant2006@gmail.com)