Description of Challenge
There is a growing interest in measuring well-being as an alternative concept of wealth. However, the measurements are often used in such a way that they do not encourage the clear need for more localised economic development. The top-down economic development that is driven by deregulated capitalism promotes a human consumer monoculture, and hybridised monocultural species of plants and animals . This monoculture destroys genuine individualism, cultural identity, as well as leading to ecocide.We need holistic solutions like ecovillages to demonstrate that human and ecological wellbeing are inseparable.
Solution
It is important that we promote a holistic vision in which human happiness or wellbeing are seen as inseparable from ecological wellbeing. This means integrating the wealth of information about the human need for community and contact with nature, with the information about the need for biodiversity. In this way, we can spell out the multiple benefits of human-scale adaptation to the natural world, and shift the direction of the economy away from monoculture, towards diversity – a fundamental principle of life.
