Registration of contributions to the work on capacity-building under IPBES: Submission #9

Brief description of contribution Earth is firmly on track toward an unlivable world. After more than three decades of scientific reports and international meetings, it is clear that there is no consistent progress being made in the public and private arena towards the effective implementation of environmental objectives, in view of an integrated approach to the interrelated political-economic-socio-ecological problems worldwide. The recovery of the Earth and the recovery of mankind are complementary aspects, and must be addressed simultaneously, in space and time, for their mutual support. "Development" policies, the concept of "growth", usually associated with profit-making activities, rarely contemplates relevant aspects for the general well-fare and well-being; "progress", directed by major political and economic actors, hardly implies a change of the economic and political power asymmetries between common people and business corporations. Instead of dealing with the bubbles (segmented public policies, reduced academic formats and mass media headlines), trying to solve isolated and localized problems without addressing the general phenomenon, problems are defined and dealt with deep inside the “boiling pot”, encompassing the current “world-system” with its boundaries, structures, techno-economic paradigms, support groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Endurable and consistent results are not achieved by trying to integrate different competitor parts, but by the non-partition of scientific knowledge, encompassing human sciences, exact and natural sciences; all areas must be considered and validated; excellence is not obtained by the agglutination of parts, nor by the sum of isolated efforts, but by the construction of new concepts and practices to live better in a better world. Instead of taking current prospects for granted and project them into the future, the definition of desirable goals and the exploration of new paths to reach them contemplate a set of values, norms and policies that prioritizes socio-ecological objectives, human well-being, natural and built environments, the aesthetic, ethical and cultural meaning of the existence. In this ecosystem approach, spaces are opened for new allocation of meanings, instead of being trapped into pre-established problem-definitions; heuristic-hermeneutic processes develop, in the sociocultural learning niches, a capacity to ask wider questions, reframing the problems, unveiling their dynamic and complex configurations, altering definitions and ways to deal with them, encompassing public policies, advocacy, communication, research and teaching programs. Problems are defined in the four dimensions of being in the world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), as they combine to elicit the events and maintain or change the status quo. The objective is to open up spaces for new allocation of meanings, instead of being trapped into the path-dependency of pre-established problem-definitions and biased ways to deal with many of the problems of difficult settlement or solution in the world.