The globally imposed extractivist ELGE system obliterates community autonomy, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency, which causes community members to become dependent on the system for everything, including livelihoods, resource access, health, food, shelter, and knowledge transmission. This dependence, in turn, enables the system to control and debilitate not only communities through oppressive and disenfranchising laws but also the ecological resources we all rely on for our wellbeing.

In short, through misappropriation, control, ecocide, and inequity, the extractivist ELGE system severs individuals and communities from their own ecoselves, leading to severe ill-being for humans, other living beings, and the planet. How do we counter this system?

First, it is necessary to understand why and how the system obliterates community self-reliance and self-sufficiency.

Humans living autonomously in self-reliant and/or self-sufficient communities, i.e., communities in which members live symbiotically with each other and within the ecological webs (ecowebs) of which they are a part, are able to make their own food, medicines, clothes, and accommodations from the biodiverse resources available in their ecowebs. These communities thus generally create their own livelihoods and knowledge transmission paradigms through autonomous decision-making, without needing to rely on external people or systems. Such community members are creators, not consumers.

Conversely, the extractivist ELGE system is a non-symbiotic system purposely built to exploit human and ecological resources without replenishing them (i.e., an extractivist system), so that a handful of individuals can make unbridled profits. However, unmitigated profit-making by profit-makers, such as corporations, can only occur if the commodities and services they sell become necessary for humans, so that they are obliged to buy these from the profit-makers. In other words, profit-makers can amass wealth only if they turn autonomous, self-sufficient creators into controlled, dependent consumers. Thus, profit-makers sever self-sufficient communities from their ecowebs and misappropriate and privatize these ecowebs for the profit-makers’ exclusive use, so that community members can no longer access their ecoweb resources for self-reliance or autonomously make decisions about resource use and access. As a result, community members must turn to the extractivist ELGE system for all their needs; they become dependent, controlled consumers.

Given an understanding of how and why the extractivist ELGE system works, how do we do counteract it?

We need to restore community autonomy, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance, which requires that communities be reconnected to their ancestral and/or adoptive ecowebs. One way to accomplish this is through land-based FiveBecomings projects.

FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi) is both a framework and a project component of the Ecosymbionts Regenerate initiative of the Śramani Institute. FiveBecomings projects are land-based projects with the objective of (re)establishing integrated self-reliant wellbeing for communities by:

1. revitalizing their ancestral and/or adopted ecowebs;
2. reconnecting them to their ancestral and/or adopted ecowebs; and
3. (re-)introducing ecoweb-rooted knowledge-technology-practice systems (ecoliving systems) that are ancient Indigenous and/or modern regenerative.

The FiveBecomings projects aspire to be practical demonstrations of how to transform the extractivist ELGE system into transitional and regenerative systems, in which all aspects of a community’s wellbeing are restored/established in an integrated ecoself- and ecoweb-rooted manner, including:

• living in (ecosymbiosis with) safe and healthy biodiverse ecowebs;
• sustainably accessing culturally relevant biodiverse food and medicines;
• engaging in innovative livelihoods and economic systems catalyzing dignified self-reliance;
• having (and practicing) autonomous decision-making capability over their own ecowebs and ecoselves;
• implementing ecoliving systems that approach economics, law, governance, and education (ELGE) in ways that are ecoweb- and ecoself-rooted, including circular and local economies;
• enjoying inclusive gender and socioeconomic equity; and
• fulfilling creative and inspiring ecoself expression.

The general site plan of a land-based FiveBecomings project is illustrated in the figure above. In rural contexts, a FiveBecomings project lies at the center of surrounding villages that are within an accessible distance (optimally, within 2-50 km). Together, the inhabitants of the villages served by a FiveBecomings project form a community.

The objectives of a FiveBecomings project include the following:

• Serve as the center of an ecoself- and ecoweb-rooted integrated community self-reliance system that anchors and connects surrounding villages
• Use the quantitative principles of the FiveBecomings framework to transform the land into a mostly (if not fully) regenerative biodiverse ecoweb-based system for optimizing integrated self-reliant community wellbeing
• Use the qualitative principles of the FiveBecomings framework to set up modules on the land that enable community members to understand and express all aspects of their ecoselves in a manner that progressively leads to optimized community wellbeing
• Revitalize and implement ancestral Indigenous ecoliving systems (including restoring biodiverse ecowebs) of the community where possible, and if/when these are not available supplement with the nearest culturally relevant modern regenerative ecoliving systems
• Implement innovative ecoliving systems that approach economics, law, governance, and education (ELGE) in ways that are ecoweb- and ecoself-rooted, including creating a novel model, LivingConfluence, i.e., an income-generating, resource-sharing, co-working, co-learning ELGE entity involving village households, NPOs, and outside investors
• Ensure that intergenerational, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learning for children and adults is naturally woven into every aspect of a FiveBecomings project

A FiveBecomings project is spatially divided into five Establishings, each corresponding to one of the Five Great Evolvers, namely Earth (differentiation), Water (cohesion), Fire (transformation), Air (agitation), and Ākāś (potential). To optimize progressive ecoself-rooting of individuals and the community, the physical nature of and activities undertaken in each Establishing are generally based on both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of each Great Evolver.

Each FiveBecomings project is customized to the ecoweb in which it is anchored and the community that it serves. In other words, while the general principles underlying the concept of all FiveBecomings projects are the same, each project is implemented in a manner that caters to the particular cultural, ecological, and socioeconomic context and needs of a specific community and its ecoweb.

If you or your organization are/is interested in creating a FiveBecomings project for your community or a community near you, please contact us.