Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures

This book is about sustainability in its broadest sense. It argues that the ongoing science-policy dialogue on sustainable development (as framed by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals) is insufficient to drive the planet to desired sustainable futures. This conversation, followed by transformative action, must be inclusive of other forms of interpretation of reality (arts, spirituality, and ancestral knowledge) and non-modern cosmovisions. This is more a book about dialogues than about the common dualism problem/solution, and such dialogues are approached as an essential trigger of regeneration. The book takes the reader from a historical perspective of the human-nature relationship through to a discussion on sustainable futures as utopias. The optimism conveyed by the book is justified by a plethora of global examples of such regenerative dialogues.

Fabio Rubio Scarano was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he is Professor of Ecology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, since 1993, and Chairholder of the Unesco Chair on Futures Literacy at the Museum of Tomorrow (Instituto de Desenvolvimento e Gestão), since 2023. He has a degree in Forestry from the University of Brasília and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He has worked for private companies in the forestry sector in Brazil (1986-1988), and for the Brazilian government he held positions in the Ministry of Education (2005-2011) and Ministry of Environment (2007-2009), when he was Science Director of the Botanical Gardens of Rio de Janeiro. He has also been a Senior Vice-President at the NGO Conservation International (2009-2015) and Executive Director of the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (2015-2018). He has been a lead author in the United Nations’ panels on climate change (IPCC) and biodiversity (IPBES), and in Brazil’s climate change panel (PBMC). He has founded and coordinated the Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BPBES). His scientific publications and books are related to sustainability science, science-policy interface, climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and futures studies. He has won twice the prestigious Brazilian Jabuti Prize for Literature, in the field of natural sciences.