Ecosymbiotic resilience is what enables living beings to adapt to unpredictable changes in environmental and ecological conditions (e.g., droughts, floods, extreme weather events, high temperatures), such as those brought on by extractivist human activities (causing rapid climate change).

Ecosymbiotic resilience depends on the existence and preservation of biodiversity. Thus, if most of the biodiversity of an ecoweb is destroyed (in effect, greatly diminishing the creative and adaptive capacity of the ecoweb), such as through a cataclysmic event like an asteroid impact or human extractivist activity, an ecoweb loses its resilience and eventually ceases to exist (in its original biodiverse form).

Why Is Ecosymbiotic Resilience Important for Human Communities?^[3]

Ecocide (the killing of the living and abiotic components of our ecowebs) and jīvacide (the destruction of the diversity in living (jīvadiversity)^[4] of human peoples) have caused irreversible biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, and widespread inequity (injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, identity loss, hunger, violence). Ecocide and jīvacide both result from extractivist global strategies designed to amass unimaginably vast amounts of wealth and privatized resources for a handful of individuals (mostly men) and corporations and to destroy the ecosymbiotic self-reliance of peoples (rendering them vulnerable to exploitation). One of the most effective ways in which this is achieved is by severing communities from their ecowebs (through misappropriation, destruction, or both), thereby rendering them dependent on external humans and systems to meet their basic needs. Such forced dependence makes these communities vulnerable to homogenization and exploitation, resulting in the negative outcomes of inequity. 

The only way to combat ecocide and jīvacide is to restore biodiverse ecowebs across the world and the ability of communities to once more become self-reliant, rooted in their own unique ecoselves and ecowebs. In other words, it is necessary to (re-)establish ecosymbiotic resilience for communities.

For human communities, their ecosymbiotic resilience not only necessitates biodiversity but also hinges on the preservation/ revitalization of their Ādi-Knowtep (ancient Indigenous Knowledge-Technologies-Practices).

Why Is Ādi-Knowtep Necessary for Community Ecosymbiotic Resilience?

Each group of humans evolved by ecosymbiotically adapting^[1] themselves to the particular ecoweb they inhabited, developing a physiology, system of Ādi-Knowtep, and identity optimally adapted and specific to that ecoweb. Jīvadiversity encompasses all the various types of Ādi-Knowtep (part of community-ecoself) that each different human community has developed based on their own unique ecoweb.^[4]

Ecoweb-Rooted Ādi-Knowtep Systems Are Designed to Preserve Ecosymbiosis 

In most cases, the human capacity to analyze enabled each community to become intellectually aware of the extensive interconnectivities and interdependencies within their particular ecoweb and hence develop a system of ecoweb-rooted Ādi-Knowtep designed to preserve that ecosymbiosis (ecosymbiotic community).

Motives

What was/is the motive of ecosymbiotic communities to preserve ecosymbiosis within their ecowebs? 

Each ecosymbiotic community self-reliantly produced/ produce the Commodities and Services (C/S) required to fulfill their basic needs from a variety of ecological resources procured from their own ecoweb. Thus, they understood/ understand that to continue being able to meet their basic needs, a precondition of surviving and thriving, the community had/have to ensure the integrity and health of their ecoweb, so that it would/will continue having and offering an abundance of diverse ecological resources. 

Biodiversity

In other words, revitalization and use of the variety of Ādi-Knowtep of different human communities helps to preserve biodiversity, which is a precondition of ecosymbiotic resilience of human communities.

Fulfilling Needs versus Satiating Wants

Within every system of ecoweb-rooted Ādi-Knowtep of ecosymbiotic communities, there exists the understanding that meeting needs, not wants, results in interconnected wellbeing (ecosymbiotic wellbeing). Thus, ecosymbiotic communities cultivate a highly respectful relationship with their food and other ecological resources, both in terms of the quantities they consume (sufficient to be healthy and preserve the ecoweb) and also of the gratitude they feel toward their biodiverse ecowebs, the plants, other living organisms, and abiotic resources for providing what they need to thrive.

The FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi) projects of the Śramani Institute aim to restore the interconnected wellbeing of diverse humans and ecologies across all bioregions, in part by restoring biodiverse ecowebs and also by revitalizing the Ādi-Knowtep of beneficiary communities, thereby (re-)establishing ecosymbiotic resilience for these communities.^[5]

[1] K. Mitra, Ecosymbiosis: the Basis of Adaptive Resilience Involving Biodiversity (Ecosymbiotic Resilience), Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-007 (3 Sep., 2025).

[2] K. Mitra, Ecological Webs (Ecowebs): Collaborative Creativity Through Adaptation Feedback Loops, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-006 (3 Sep., 2025).

[3] K. Mitra, FiveBecomings: Countering Ecocide and Jīvacide Through a Non-Human-Centric Approach, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-001 (1 Sep., 2025).

[4] K. Mitra, Beyond Biodiversity: Jīvadiversity — Diversity in Living, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-003 (21 Aug., 2025).

[5] K. Mitra, Restoring the Interconnected Wellbeing of Humans and Ecologies Through FiveBecomings, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-010 (26 Aug., 2025).