What Could Possibly Go Right? #42 May East: The Need for Regenerative Practitioners at the Edge
May East is a sustainability educator, spatial planner, and social innovator. Her work spans the fields of cultural geography, urban ecology, and women’s studies. Designated one of the 100 Global SustainAbility Leaders three years in a row, she leads a whole generation of regenerative designers and educators in 55 countries working with community-based organizations and intergovernmental agencies in the development of policy guidance and projects strengthening climate resilience, food security, and livelihood action.
May addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” with insights including:
- The importance of edge-work, ”not about the dying of the old world, or the emergence of the new world, but the edge between the two.”
- That edge isn’t marginal, but is actually at the center of change.
- The potential of ”ecotone” areas, the buffer zones in nature where different landscapes meet. These edges of high intensity and diversity provide conditions for new species and life.
- Her coined concept of “sociotone”, recognizing that societies in tension is where new structures will emerge.
- That serendipity happens in the edge and that surprise is not a question of luck, it is a question of alertness and enactment to turn these into something useful.
- That we need to move beyond sustainability to regeneration. “We need to train ourselves to become regenerative practitioners at the edge, because if we maximize edge, we maximize diversity and potential of life.”
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