So why is the ecoself important in FiveBecomings projects?

Ensuring Interconnected Human-Ecological Wellbeing Requires Restoring Community-Ecoselves  

As alluded to in the first part of this article series, establishing the ecosymbiotic wellbeing, i.e., interconnected human-ecological wellbeing, of a (beneficiary) Community requires restoring not only the biodiversity and health of the ecoweb the Community inhabits but also the community-ecoself (see Box 1) of the Community.

FiveBecomings projects aim to restore harmony, within and among members of a Community and the living beings and non-living components of their ecoweb. A state of harmony requires peace, within and with oneself and among everyone and everything outside of oneself. Peace, in turn, requires introspection and understanding, and thoughts and actions based on such discernment. 

In other words, to achieve the goal of ecosymbiotic wellbeing, FiveBecomings projects must facilitate both external transformation (e.g., restoring the biodiversity and integrity of ecowebs) and also internal transformation (e.g., increasing the self-confidence and self-worth of marginalized peoples and individuals). Helping members of a Community to understand and express (through action) their individual ecoselves and community-ecoself catalyzes both the external and internal transformations needed to achieve ecosymbiotic wellbeing.

The importance of restoring/establishing the community-ecoself, especially the Ādi-Knowtep, of a Community in every FiveBecomings project cannot be emphasized enough.^[1] A brief analysis follows of why the absence of a community-ecoself is deleterious.

In the Absence of a Community-Ecoself

In the absence of an ecoweb-rooted community-ecoself, the Community have no Ādi-Knowtep, i.e., no ancient Indigenous Knowledge, Technologies, or Practices optimally adapted to the Community’s particular ecoweb. Thus, members of the Community do not know how to use the ecological resources of their ecoweb to produce the C/S (Commodities/ Services) required to fulfill their basic needs. This means that even once their ecoweb has been restored, the Community will not know how to optimally care for and use it.

The lack of an ecoweb-rooted community-ecoself also means that the Community do not have an identity or social/cultural Knowtep linked to the ecoweb they inhabit. In the absence of such an ecoweb-based identity, Community members do not feel connected to their ecoweb, making it less likely that they will care for and about the ecoweb or its wellbeing.

As explained before and elsewhere, each human population evolved by adapting to its specific ancestral ecoweb, meaning that the physiology of each population also became adapted to the foods, water, temperature, climate, pathogens, and other components and conditions of the ecoweb. A community-ecoself comprises the agroecological and medicinal Knowtep that ensures optimal health for a human community adapted to a particular ecoweb. Without such Knowtep, the Community will not know which foods and plant-based medicines are optimally suited to the physiologies of members to optimize their wellbeing.

Supplementing and Restoring Community-Ecoself

Sadly, due to centuries of extractivist (and, often, colonial) practices, widespread jīvacide has destroyed in whole or in part the community-ecoselves of thousands of Indigenous peoples around the world.^[2] However, in selecting the Communities for the FiveBecomings pilot projects, peoples and ecowebs have been selected such that at least some of the ecoweb-rooted Ādi-Knowtep of these Communities is intact. 

In the beginning stages of each FiveBecomings project, much of the focus is on simultaneously restoring both the ecoweb and the Ādi-Knowtep of the Community. What is truly lost is supplemented with the most culturally relevant regenerative Knowtep that has already been developed elsewhere and has been determined to be effective. Generally, the revitalization of Ādi-Knowtep re-invigorates ecoweb-rooted Community identity, which in turn strengthens the bond between the Community and their ecoweb, inspiring them to care for and about their ecoweb. The foregoing is merely a small exposition of how the conceptual-practical tool of the ecoself is vital to and enables the implementation of FiveBecomings projects. 

[1] K. Mitra, Ādi-Knowtep and Their Importance in Ecosymbiotic Resilience of Human Communities, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-008 (4 Sep., 2025).

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