Learning as Nature: Reweaving Education for Regeneration with Luis Camargo S9E10 (130)
🔥 If education disconnects us from nature, is it teaching or unlearning who we are?
🔥 Should economics serve money—or nurture the living systems it’s built upon?
🎙️ Episode Summary
In this deeply moving and expansive episode, Louka Parry is joined by Luis Alberto Camargo, founder of OpEPA and leading voice in nature-based education, to explore what it means to learn as nature, not just about it. Together, they delve into how education systems can move from knowledge transmission to relational, regenerative learning that reawakens our connection to self, others, and the living Earth. Luis shares a vision of education rooted in wonder, silence, and interbeing—where schools become ecosystems, teachers become guides, and learning is life itself. He also challenges the dominant economic narrative, offering instead a pluriversal, multi-capital framework that values vitality, culture, and the health of bioregions. If we realign purpose across education, economics, and community, what might be possible in 10 years? Luis offers a hopeful—and urgent—invitation to remember who we are, reweave our relations, and act in service of life.
👤 About Luis Alberto Camargo
Luis Alberto Camargo is the founder and Director of the Organization for Environmental Education and Protection (OpEPA), a non-profit organization registered in Colombia and the USA, which has worked directly with over 100,000 children and youth and help thousands of educators incorporate nature into their work. OpEPA centres on the advancement of nature-based and regenerative education, heritage interpretation and weaving.
He is also a co-founder of The Weaving Lab, which aims to create thriving learning ecosystems by helping Change Leaders to become more aligned, collaborative and systemic. In addition, he is a climate reality leader for The Climate Reality Project and part of the core team for the Regenerative Communities Network. He has been a speaker on subjects such as social entrepreneurship, social innovation, conservation, climate change, environmental education, environmental peace, wilderness medicine and wilderness expeditions.
I focus my work on reconnecting youth to nature and people to the Earth in order to build more sustainable, regenerative and peaceful communities.
📘 Takeaways
Regenerative education focuses on creating conditions for life to thrive.
Nature-based education brings the natural world into the learning process.
The shift from teaching to learning is essential for effective education.
Learning for regeneration emphasizes experiential and relational learning.
Capital systems need to recognize multiple forms of value beyond financial capital.
Silence and reflection are crucial for deep learning experiences.
Education should foster a sense of interconnectedness with nature.
New narratives in education can inspire transformative change.
Tourism can be reimagined to support regenerative practices.
The future of learning systems must prioritize vitality and well-being.
📘 Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Regenerative Learning and Education
02:54 Nature-Based Education and Its Importance
05:40 The Role of Tourism in Regeneration
08:52 Learning for Regeneration vs. Learning as Regeneration
11:38 The New Narrative in Education
14:34 Connecting with Nature and Inner Learning
17:27 Creating New Stories for a Regenerative Future
27:34 The Importance of Learning Environments
29:21 Teaching vs. Learning: A Paradigm Shift
31:45 The Role of Relationships in Learning
34:41 Understanding Our Place in Nature
38:56 Redefining Economics and Education
43:38 The Future of Learning Systems
🔗 Connect and Resources Mentioned
🔗 Stay Connected with Louka Parry
For the latest learning innovation follow Louka on LinkedIn
Share your thoughts by visiting www.thelearningfuture.com
Tune in to be inspired, challenged, and reminded why love truly is at the heart of learning.
[Transcript Auto-generated]
Louka Parry (00:08)
Hello team and welcome back to the learning feature podcast. I'm Luca Parry, your host. And I'm absolutely delighted because today we have one of my favorite thinkers and doers who is joining us from America Latina. Luis Alberto Camargo. He's the founder and executive director of the Organización Para la Educación y Protección Ambiental, which means the organization for education and nature protection. And he's the co-founder of the weaving lab.
core member of Regenerative Communities Network, founder of Columbia Regenerativa and director of Thunder Outdoors. He's been a global change leader, a young global leader and is a Shokafello. And interestingly, he's held a number of roles, as you'll hear from his vast, vast knowledge that I was just delving into in our pre-conversation. He was an advisor to the vice minister of the environment of Columbia and advisor to the Department of National Planning.
a researcher at the University of Delos Andes and the WWF, and has so much to add along. It's interesting you started Luis as well, kind of with mechanical engineering and computer graphics. And now this conversation that we're about to have, one that no doubt will focus on learning for regeneration, the role of curriculum moving from knowledge to relational.
nature-based education, why does it matter? Why does it matter more now? The role of schools and the role of broadening even our whole construct or thinking around what capital is, what matters most. Luis, great to have you with us for the podcast.
Luis Camargo (01:38)
Hi Luca, it's really great for me to be here, it's a privilege. Thanks again for inviting me.
Louka Parry (01:44)
look, I've been trying to align, we, know, we've been trying to line up this conversation for some time between all of our, our mutual travels. I always start with the same question in this podcast series. And it's simply this, what is something that you are learning right now, Luis, that, that is enlightening you or that you are finding, richness in.
Luis Camargo (02:02)
I'm definitely learning that my inner condition depends on how I respond to my outer environment. So it really is not about what's happening outside, but how I respond to what's happening outside and what I allow to happen. So the outside obviously pushes a lot of the buttons within you.
Louka Parry (02:23)
Hmm.
Luis Camargo (02:23)
but it's actually a real intentional decision to breathe deep, relax and decide how you move the energy to respond. And I think this is something I'm trying to learn throughout, you know, in my relationships, in my work and even in my relationship to myself, because, you know, it's giving that pause, that space between what happens
Louka Parry (02:41)
Mmm.
Luis Camargo (02:47)
and how I react to allow for intentionality and awareness to creep in and be my mentor in response.
Louka Parry (02:56)
That's beautiful. It connects, I think, to so much about that is the only control that we have in our world, in this complex adaptive system that is nature, that is our planet, that are schools and organizations. That how we choose to respond is where our agency really lies. It's a beautiful...
recognition of a deep truth, I feel.
Where are you finding in your work? Because again, you are doing so many different pieces of work, and I'm sure much of it is is also a bit of a challenge when it comes to thinking about nature or climate and the kind of existential nature of it, like how large these challenges might be. Tell us a bit more about what you're seeing and what you're putting your choices towards. What are you choosing to do, Lewis, that you think matters right now?
Luis Camargo (03:41)
Okay, so I'll start with what I'm seeing. Obviously, I'm seeing what many people are seeing. A very complex situation, very challenging moment of our planet and our societies. And that's something that is important. And this is why I mention, if I respond to what I'm seeing, I might become somewhat hopeless and very stressed and I would...
probably become absent of action because I would lose meaning.
What am I focusing on? What am I doing is looking further inside and really connecting with all those experiences that I've lived in nature that allow me to melt into the mountains, melt into the forest and become nature. So really one of the biggest learnings I've had in my life is the capacity to actually be nature.
and start learning how to become nature and be nature, embody nature throughout my life, independently if I'm in the city or in a forest or wherever. Because I think that is the moment where the largeness of the problems becomes you. so you are, the minimal is the same as the large. it's that.
Louka Parry (04:32)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (04:54)
you know, as above, so below type theorem correspondence, correct? So really focusing within, but not within into myself, but within into nature, within me. So being nature, because that actually expands you into what Thich Nhat Hanh would call the interbeing. So...
Louka Parry (04:54)
the lower of correspondence.
Mmm.
Luis Camargo (05:14)
In the search of realizing my interbeing, I realize the whole of the planet. And I realize also the capacity, the potential, the beauty and everything that lies around us. You know, so that strays me away from that hopelessness into hopefulness. And then understanding that if I put my actions to actually start creating or writing
Louka Parry (05:19)
Hmm
Yes.
Luis Camargo (05:38)
the story of that world that I'm seeing with full of potential, then I'm changing the world. That is the way we create new realities, is by creating new narratives and acting them out and reinforcing how those new narratives tell new stories and those new stories are valid. So I think it's breaking away from the scaffolding and the stories that we have created in the past that now we believe are fixed.
Louka Parry (05:45)
Hmm.
Yes.
Luis Camargo (06:03)
And actually realize that we have our capacity. Our true potential is to create new stories. So a feeling that I can create new stories inspired by being nature, you know, so nature is, is our teacher. Definitely it has to be our inspiration. It's our knowledge. If you think we are life and life has been evolving for 3.8 billion years. And it has been evolving like Janine Benyus says.
Louka Parry (06:10)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Luis Camargo (06:29)
You know, really looking to create the conditions for life to thrive all the time. And that's what has allowed life to evolve to the magical world we live in now with the expression of, you know, colors, forms, species, and the diversity and the magic we have around us. So that is the potential. We just need to tap into that flow in order to be able to express our capacity in that potential.
Luis Camargo (06:55)
And that's
what I would call our regenerative capacity, our capacity to create conditions for life.
Louka Parry (06:58)
Louis.
Tell us, I'm still captivated by this narrative piece. And I think it's one of your gifts as well, having met you in a couple of different fora, including through our work at Karanga, Global Lines for Social, Emotional Learning and Life Skills. But tell me what's the new narrative that you're helping create, especially as it pertains to schools or education as a system that's been designed for a particular era and we've inherited it now and here in 2025.
What's the new narrative that you think we need to move towards, especially with this beautifully eloquent placed language around us as nature? And when we've lost connection to nature, we've actually lost connection to ourselves.
Luis Camargo (07:37)
Correct. So I think first of all, you know, the unfortunate part is that education being supposedly, let's say the cornerstone of creating culture and allowing us to evolve as humans, human thinkers, let's say, and doers. I feel it's the institution we've created that is the most static and the most entrenched in a model that doesn't work.
So a lot of the other institutions and, you know, try to expand, try to change a little bit, even though it's hard because as we will explore a bit later, I think part of what we're missing is we're trying to change the building or trying to change, you know, the visible. And we really need to focus on working on in the invisible, in the subtle. But in that process, you know, really what
brought me to OPEPA, to my organization, was starting to see how we strayed away from our connection to nature. You know, we were becoming separated so much that we were no longer considering even ourselves as nature. And this is like the biggest oxymoron thing we can imagine. We are mammals, you know, we are nature. There's, but...
Luis Camargo (08:47)
you know, for the last 200 years, and even a little more depends on how you interpret agriculture and other things, we have started to act as if we are the managers and then act as if we are the owners and act as if we are here and everything is in service to us. And by doing that and reinforcing it through our economic system, through our religious system, through our educational system,
We have created a space where we are feeling really disconnected from nature. So in seeing that process, I remember in 1991, preparing, you know, in preparation talks for Rio de Janeiro 92 in the environmental movement, where really the world started looking at environmental problems from a systemic perspective. I was, I was really thinking, you know, what, what is the root of the issue we're dealing with?
Luis Camargo (09:38)
because we're having havoc, know, climate change was already clean, agriculture and, and, you know, the green revolution in agriculture, pesticides and all that was already a problem, you know, biodiversity loss was a problem. And I was really thinking what is the issue because I, it was difficult for me to understand until I realized that for me, the root cause was that separation between us and nature.
Luis Camargo (10:04)
Because as we separate, we disconnect our capacity to understand, to sense, to realize how we should act in the entanglement of life. And as acting outside of that, we do things that ruin the dynamics and the flows of healthy systems. So that brought me to starting working on
Louka Parry (10:23)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (10:27)
education and outdoor education, environmental education, which then was kind of what was happening. then experiential learning, which was emerging in the, in the late eighties, let's say as a, as a movement. And I try to connect all these things, but it didn't, it worked, but it was still very hard because, you know, every time I moved or spoke with someone, they told me, yeah, but you have to apply the methodology or.
Louka Parry (10:42)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (10:51)
You know, that pedagogy has these rules. And I'm like, what the hell? You know, we're still thinking in cases. Until I realized that really what was critical is to have a combination of, you know, learning environments that allow us to expand as one of it. So that would be the soil, you know. But we would need learning experiences.
Louka Parry (11:10)
mmm
Luis Camargo (11:13)
to understand, to process, to co-create our learning. And that would be in nature, the weather. So if you have good soil, a seed can grow well. And if the weather or the habitat where that soil, that plant is growing is the correct one, it'll thrive. So it's kind of the same. And if you look at the way we learn, we learn in that way also, obviously genetics play a part, but...
You know, our context and our experiences are the two main factors that allow us to learn. So I started connecting that and saying, okay, we need to learn from the mind, obviously the academics, the information. Sure. We need to learn, but we need to learn with our bodies. Our bodies is our bodies and our intuition, you know, our full set of senses are critical. And then we need to understand. And in order to understand, we need to activate our emotions.
and process them and surface them and connect them with our body and our mind in such a way that we can actually move through the world understanding. But beyond that, we need to live in connection to nature because nature provides the windows of opportunities that allow us to discover and realize we are nature, to realize where home is. know, when we arrive at home is
Louka Parry (12:25)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (12:28)
We arrive in nature, we arrive in ourselves. So this process took me to really dive into nature-based education as an approach. And nature-based education as an approach that has a foundation of bringing nature to the center of learning, but also bringing learning out into nature. So it's both. And I say both because you can start.
Louka Parry (12:49)
Mm.
Luis Camargo (12:52)
with nature-based education in a classroom or in your house. It doesn't, it's not environment dependent because nature ultimately is a learning environment, but nature also is a teacher and nature is wisdom and inspiration. So if we use all these facets of nature to inspire and to become, then learning becomes very different. And in this process, my focus has been really understanding how we can activate, you know, this
nature-centered or nature-based learning, but not only in schools, because that's another issue I found is that, you know, as we separated, also parents started working and saying, okay, education is not my thing. Education is school's thing. So I delegate education to the school. And then the school reaches a child and says, that child comes empty. It's an empty vessel that doesn't know anything.
Louka Parry (13:33)
Mmm.
Luis Camargo (13:43)
So I'm a teacher, I have the knowledge and I'm gonna plug all my information into that vessel so they learn. And this is the mechanics of a teacher-centered curriculum-based learning where families actually also separated from the process. They delegated. If something went bad with learning, it was the school's or the teacher's fault. So we started creating all these blocks of separation.
So I went back even to think, when do we start learning? And I think we start learning in our mom's bellies. Because that's the first time we are in a context, in an environment, learning environment. And additionally, we're living experiences, experiences that can be the sounds around us. It can be the treatment and the energy and the heartbeat of our mother. That's part of our experience as we...
Louka Parry (14:14)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Luis Camargo (14:32)
are prepared to be born. And then when we're born, our homes are fundamental. So usually a kid gets born. If they're lucky, they go to a white room, you know, with square walls and they have a color mobile with, you know, these fancy colors and maybe Mozart or Beethoven playing. Wow, that's really, you know, I'm simplifying the idea, but that's what's considered, you know, a high quality learning environment.
Louka Parry (14:52)
Hahaha
Luis Camargo (14:58)
And then you look at the diversity in that learning environment versus a kid sitting on the floor of a forest, listening to the insects, feeling the wind, seeing the sun moving through the moving leaves. You know, it's a dynamic moving alive, know, smells, colors. So there's that contrast just brought me to the idea that, you know, we really have to plug in since we're born all the way up through school.
Louka Parry (15:06)
Yeah.
Luis Camargo (15:25)
and shift the idea of, you know, trying to bring all this information into children, but creating learning environments so children discover and get, you know, amazed and really can learn from experience with the guidance of teachers. So teachers move from being those who teach to being those who guide learning experiences, which is different.
And this is what I've been doing. So working with schools, working with teachers, working with students, trying to create nature-based education networks so cities can start integrating their natural spaces into this type of learning and seeing how we can shift education systems to embrace this type of thing.
Louka Parry (16:07)
Luis, there's so many things in there. I had to bite my tongue as you told us that narrative because I was like, yes, and this. a couple of things I want you to take. One thing, for example, is I don't know, perhaps it's just part of the mental model of the mass educational model, which is the focus is on teaching. It's not necessarily on learning.
And I think there's a distinction there. Because if you ask the question, like, what is good teaching? And this is happening in Australia right now. People are obsessed, systems are obsessed with good teaching. And I think that's, you know, there's merit in that. But a far more powerful question is, what is good learning? What is expansive learning? And if you start with that question, first, then you backwards map, as we like to do in education, and think, well, what kind of inputs, what kind of environments, what kind of experiences?
will lead to this kind of learning taking place. Because when we think about learning, to your point, learning is like the most human thing there is. In fact, it's the most life imbued thing there is. It's adaptation. You know, it's this shifting within the environment, finding out, finding its way like as nature does. Nature doesn't rush, yet everything is accomplished as the wonderful quote goes, you know, this is why. So
Learning is that, and I think what we're trying to do is school young people all the time, which is schooling them. And schooling is an institutional construct that has value, but I just think we lose the essence of the kind of multi-dimensionality of learning, which is where we're born with. And we kind of start to narrow more and more and converge more and more and end up saying, well, this is the hierarchy of value.
What do you, you know, what's your view on kind of the teaching versus learning bit? And I think the other thing related to that, that we spoke about before we went to record was the shift from kind of knowledge system to relational system or experiences. And this has been a theme on this podcast with many different wonderful guests. We're talking about, need to center the relational aspects because just because we know something that doesn't mean we embodied it doesn't mean we become it doesn't mean we're capable of.
in some ways working in these complex systems to try to overcome, choose a new narrative for the way our world could be.
Luis Camargo (18:08)
Correct. I agree with you. think the issue is precisely teaching versus learning. Actually, we're born, we learn, or actually we're not even born. We learn. We're born. We continue learning until we die. So even in the new paradigms, we hear a lot of people speak about unlearning. And for me, that doesn't make sense because learning is a forward motion. There's no backwards in learning.
We can learn something and then learn something that improves our learning, that which we learned that didn't work taught us many things of what works. So we don't need to unlearn. We need to keep on learning. And this is a critical aspect. And in this process, I do think we need to focus on learning and learning, like I said,
What is the role of families in learning of parents? know, parents are the biggest mentors and we've lost that idea. Then what's the role of teachers in learning? Because I do think that educational institutions and schools do have a role and have a place in this whole system. You know, it's not that they're evil or anything like that. They have an important, very important place, but it's a place in learning.
Louka Parry (19:19)
Mm.
Luis Camargo (19:23)
not in teaching, I think. That's maybe a little bit of teaching, a lot of And moving towards the relational piece, I do think that this has to do with purpose. What is the purpose of learning? So why do we go to school? Why should someone, being my family, being my community, being my teachers, help me learn something or educate me?
What is the purpose of that? Is the purpose becoming a piece in a corporate machinery? Or is the purpose becoming an actor in a community that can create well-being? Or, as life does, that creates conditions for life to thrive, all life? So for me, that is where relational comes in. Because if my purpose is actually aligning with the purpose of life,
with the purpose of nature, it has to become learning to create conditions for life to thrive. And if you look at how things, how systems thrive, they don't thrive because of the pieces in the system. They thrive because of the good relations in the system. So relations become fundamental in the construction of healthy systems and healthy environments.
Louka Parry (20:36)
Hmm.
Luis Camargo (20:36)
So when we talk of relations, I've been working with a six-dimensional, relational dimensions framework that has served really well, especially to, not only for education, but also to surface what I call the inner dimensions or the deep qualities of regenerative thinking. Because if we look at the superficial,
We can be changing curriculum. We can be changing agricultural practices. We can be changing systems, practices, and programs, let's say. But if we really look at what needs to change is what I think is the inner, the lower, the, let's say, the invisible, which are our ways of thinking, our ways of relating, and our ways of being.
Louka Parry (21:22)
Hmm.
Luis Camargo (21:22)
And ways of relating are fundamental because they're affected by the way we think and they affect the way we are. So our ways of being are directly affected by our relations, the way we relate. Because if you stand in a room and have no relations with anything, you're no one. You become a person when you start relating. And that's something we need to maybe think about. And in that sense, who do we relate with? We relate with ourselves.
Louka Parry (21:42)
Beautiful.
Yeah.
Luis Camargo (21:48)
Yes, we relate with our families, our kin, we relate with others, with our communities, but we also relate with nature. So those four levels or scales, let's say of our personal identity, I like to think of it as, you know, I have my individual identity that expands into my kin identity, my family identity that expands into my community identity.
Louka Parry (21:56)
Mmm.
Luis Camargo (22:12)
that expands into my nature identity. And when I'm in my nature identity, I am whole because I am nature. That's the subject-subject relational landscape of us as a species. So those four relations are critical. But then there's two other relations that I realize are really fundamental. One is our relationship to time.
Louka Parry (22:23)
Beautiful. Yes.
Luis Camargo (22:34)
You know, in our perspective, from our point of view, our life is huge. You know, it's very important. But if we put it in the context of living systems in the planet, you live for a hundred years if you're lucky, but the planet has lived 3.8 billion years. So we're a fragment of nothing, you know? So time becomes really important because the way we see time and we interact with time really relates of how we understand ourselves.
Louka Parry (23:01)
Yes.
Luis Camargo (23:01)
So
we need to start asking ourselves, how do I relate with ancestrality, with the sacred, with all these other things that are associated with time? And when I think of ancestralities, not only looking at our ancestors that came before us, but it's looking at the future because I have to ask the question, what kind of ancestor will I be? Because I am an ancestor. And we have to embody that. You know, I am the ancestor of
Louka Parry (23:21)
Yes.
Luis Camargo (23:27)
you know, seven generations ahead if we want to use a number used by many indigenous communities around the world. So I need to really reflect and become the best ancestor I can be in my thinking. And then, you know, you can really conceptualize on these relations, but then how do I bring that into action in a very complex and contradictory and conflicted world?
So I have to activate my agency. So that's the last or the sixth dimensional relation is my relationship with agency. How do I activate my capacity to act in coherence with the way I want to relate and the way I want to relate has to move in the direction of being in right relation. And this is an indigenous concept, you know, in throughout the world.
Louka Parry (23:57)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (24:13)
You know, I need to be in right relation with all my relations. So with my relationship to myself, to others, to nature, my relationship to time, my relationship to the living forces. I do believe that when we talk about education and purpose, if educational institutions would shift their focus from standardized testing.
Louka Parry (24:25)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (24:35)
to creating learning experiences and learning environments that allow individuals to learn to come into right relation in all those dimensions, we actually enable the capacity for individuals to be part of the living system in a creative way that can create conditions for life to thrive. So I do think schools need to really build a relational focus into their purpose.
Obviously we can learn math, we can learn art, we can learn things. Those are superficial. Those are the, you know, the visible aspects of it. But the relational is the deeper aspect. That which molds actually the, let's say the connective tissue of the entanglements we will create as human beings. You know, I act and I relate and every time I relate, I create ripples around my interconnections.
Louka Parry (25:07)
hope so.
Luis Camargo (25:27)
and all my relations. And the collective of those ripples is our society and the way our planet is working. So how do we want to thread this weave, let's say, how do we want to bring or add value to the entanglement of life? Do we want to add vitality to it or do we want to learn to reduce vitality? And that's difference between learning for degenerative systems.
Louka Parry (25:47)
Hmm
Luis Camargo (25:51)
or learning for regenerative systems. So for me, learning is relational and learning needs to be for regeneration or to activate our regenerative capacities and allow us to learn how to become actors in creating conditions for life.
Louka Parry (26:08)
Yeah, Louis still so much in that, you know.
And I mean, for me, I just love this kind of conversation because I have had all these experiences also of being, you know, we talk about one with nature, you know, and or self-transcendence, you know, and you talked about the subject-subject relationship or the I-I relationship. And it's, it's, think when, and I think everyone listening at some point in your life, you must have experienced this, this, this moment where you, kind of, you disappear into everything that is.
Somebody might be standing on the edge of a cliff and you're looking at this gorgeous view when you're traveling somewhere. But that idea, think that unity consciousness is, I don't know if there's a silver bullet, Luis, but I think that is, that is, that's the real work for us as, a living species is how do we elevate our awareness and our consciousness in this way to realize that we are all, as you beautifully put it, interwoven in this
one tapestry. mean, this honestly, the self is a self delusion. There is this individualistic worldview that has kind of been promoted and still is through kind of the capitalist model or the economic model. It doesn't. We we don't exist without the relationships. It's just it's something really interesting. And so this idea of.
becoming who we can become through the community. You know, it takes a village, as the saying goes, takes a village to raise a child. And yet, I think we've lost, we've lost a little bit of that essence. And I think for me, I want you to talk a little bit more, because I know we could double click on the good ancestor, the seven generations thing. I think that's really beautiful. Who are we becoming? so much more than knowledge. We're talking really here about character and about vitality, as you say.
I want you to educate us a little bit more about the economic space. Because I'm an educator, and most people listening to this will be educators. But you've really been at this intersection of capital, or capital systems, or the economic systems. And I think they have such a huge influence on our views in education, because often it's economists that are trying to drive education policy. So what would you say about the necessary change in narrative from this idea
of we see right now as mattering or what the incentives are in economic systems and where we might need to take them.
Luis Camargo (28:17)
And in education.
Yeah, I would start first reaffirming that science is showing and proving everything we're speaking about science in terms of quantum physics is clearly telling us that we're even our bodies are not solid. They're they're actually very dynamic. And every time I get close to you and hug you, you become part of me and I become part of you. And this happens every day all the time.
Louka Parry (28:40)
Mm.
Luis Camargo (28:43)
in every contact and every relation I have. And the other thing is that definitely awe is one of the key doorways to realizations or to what we call transcendent experiences. And transcendent experiences become significance. One, we connect, you know, knowledge, body and emotions in a magical place. And nature gives us that to
blend everything together and to realize we are, you know, but anyway, I just wanted to say that, but I do agree the economics, you know, if we go to the definition or to the origin of the word economics, you know, simplifying it really quickly, you know, eco is our home is the earth. Economics is actually the management of the earth. Ecology.
Louka Parry (29:12)
That's beautiful.
Interesting. I didn't know that.
Luis Camargo (29:32)
is the study or the knowledge of the earth. But the eco is actually speaking about our home. And so if we look at the origin of the idea of economics is the approach that humans can have of managing our home. Then again, purpose comes to mind again. Why do we manage our home and for what? So our economic system created the idea that we manage our earth as
Louka Parry (29:32)
Yes.
Luis Camargo (29:56)
humans that are superior to everything else and all the resources in service of us. So we're living from the earth. And the idea is to transform and manage the earth to become richer, you know, to build capital. What type of capital? Financial capital, because it was created to value and create this value of worth, you know? So, so I think this is the trap. The trap is that
You know, first of all, we need to understand that we can live from the earth at separation. We can start maybe living in nature. That gets us a little bit closer, maybe sustainability. We can start thinking of living with or living with nature, living in nature to living as nature. So there's a progression in the way we live in relation.
Louka Parry (30:39)
Mmm, beautiful.
Luis Camargo (30:42)
But also in that process, you know, the way we define capital and value is fundamental. Right now we're in a mono capital economy. So what's valued is money. And if you look at even development is defined by GDP, which is money and transactions. So we're basing all our metrics on something that is mono capital. That means that a whole system will adapt to give
and to provide the best metrics that we can get under the system we have. But realizing financial capital is really not what creates value, and it's in detriment of many of our systems, we came up with the idea of sustainability and started saying, OK, we might create multi-capital, and we added other capitals. So social capital, environmental capital, we added a
infrastructure, we added, you know, intellectual capital, but that's still very functional. If you look at it, it's still things we have, things we build, ideas we have that we're going to put a price on them to sell them. So we're still transactional.
Louka Parry (31:45)
and
Luis Camargo (31:48)
What happens if we start recognizing all the other forms of capital that actually create vitality in a system, in a living system? From the human side, that would include cultural, spiritual, know, creative capitals. From the living system sides, it's quality of soils, quality of water, health of forests. It becomes very different. And those capitals have incredible value because if
We actually look at it without those capitals, financial capital means nothing. And actually, if we only have financial capital, like the saying says, the money, you can't eat. Nonetheless, as we move to recognize the other capitals, we become in an economy that's actually focused at creating or adding value. And adding value is adding vitality.
Louka Parry (32:19)
Yeah.
Yes, I this one.
Luis Camargo (32:37)
So if we look at how systems evolve and living systems evolve, they evolve as the vitality of the system increases, the systems continue. If the vitality of the system degrades, the systems disappear, or the species disappear, whatever. This is the selection process, ultimately, of systems.
Louka Parry (32:46)
Mm.
Luis Camargo (32:58)
So in the same way, we need to start thinking differently. How can we manage our land, our earth, our world, our economics? How do we focus our economics? And obviously in economics, our variables have to be pluri-capital. So it's multiple, not only types of capital, but multiple perspectives of capital. Because the same interpretation of cultural
Louka Parry (33:06)
Yes.
Luis Camargo (33:22)
of a cultural value in your community in Australia might be very different to mine in Colombia, in the Andes. So there has to be pluri capital, pluri, you know, pluri, like a pluri verse type idea. Because that's why, and Daniel, while I think brought that really clear to his book in regenerative cultures. And if you look at, he always puts S and plural everywhere.
Louka Parry (33:35)
Yeah, sure.
Luis Camargo (33:47)
And I loved it because that inspired me to understand that obviously there is not one culture. We are a pluri culture. We need to have cultures for every combination of context, know, weather, environment, et cetera, et cetera. But the same with the economies, the same with capitals. Nonetheless, there is one thread that connects us all and it's the purpose.
Louka Parry (33:55)
Yes.
Hmm.
Luis Camargo (34:10)
the purpose of living systems creating conditions for life to thrive. So that should be the purpose of learning systems. And we go, like we said, to the economy. The economy has a purpose of creating and adding value to create conditions for life to thrive, to add vitality to living systems or to human living systems. Because when I say living systems, obviously humans are embedded.
Louka Parry (34:17)
Hmm.
Yes.
Luis Camargo (34:37)
and understand that economy is not planetary, it's actually bioregional because living systems work at bioregional scales, then you start creating economies that are very different because you start activating bioregions that start optimizing the flow of energies, nutrients, and other resources, both cultural and natural, within the bioregion to create the most vitality possible there.
Luis Camargo (35:02)
If there are excess, that excess flows into the world. But every bio region creates its own vitality. And that's how the system becomes vital. So look at a mycelial network. I know right now, a lot of people are speaking about fungi for many reasons. But obviously, the mushrooms we see in the surface, they're just the fruit of the whole organism that's under the soil. Again, the...
Louka Parry (35:03)
Right.
Luis Camargo (35:28)
you know, superficial and the deep. Under the soil, the mycelium are actually a network full of nodes and filaments and connectors that are woven together. And those filaments and nodes play roles that are really important because they actually transfer nutrients from one site to the other. They help forests communicate and full ecosystems communicate. And in that same manner, a bio region, if we look at it in the surface,
Luis Camargo (35:54)
all the bioregions can become nodes and they're connected to each other. And they actually allow for vitality of one bioregion when there's excess to flow into another bioregion to support it. But it's an economy of abundance, not an economy of scarcity. Because none of the nodes or none of the bioregions should be accumulating what they don't need.
Luis Camargo (36:16)
for many reasons, because nature doesn't accumulate, nature distributes. ⁓ So always asking ourselves what the forest would do, and it's really interesting because it allows us to understand how the economy might shift, but also how education should shift. Because education should act like a micellar network also, and should respond like an evolving and maturing forest. So if we act as nature and become
Louka Parry (36:20)
Yeah, great point. That's interesting.
Luis Camargo (36:43)
you know, as nature and live as nature, then we can really come into resonance with living systems instead of doing what we're doing now, which is becoming into resistance. We resist everything around us and spend our energy destroying, resisting instead of our energy creating, resonating, you know. So that's part of what I think.
Louka Parry (36:45)
Louis, beautiful. Well, it's so beautifully put. And I think as an educator that doesn't have an economics background, that's really shifted my view, even on the way that I would frame economics, which sometimes I say with a bit of judgment in my mouth, know, economic, when really it is just the management of the eco of Earth. That's so such a beautiful insight that I'm taking away from this conversation. I've got a final question for you.
And it really is, if we can realign this purpose across these different aspects of our world and the things that we as humans have constructed that we consider quote our world, where will this take learning systems? If we are having this conversation in 10 years time.
What is possible if this reimagined purpose becomes the new default?
Luis Camargo (37:52)
I would say what is not possible because if we take, know, we have developed technologies and all the new AI stuff and, you know, we have potentials that actually can enable us. If we shift our relational space to really have secrets for quick shifting, you know, we can now in terms of knowledge,
combine things that it would be very difficult to do before. We can analyze stories and knowledge and facts and science in ways we have never been able to do it. Nonetheless, our focus cannot stay there. Our focus needs to shift to the relational. So Richard Louvre, who wrote The Last Child in the Woods, and he's a friend and an inspiration, he actually coined the term nature deficit disorder.
Luis Camargo (38:38)
which actually gave a name to what I was working on, you know, seven years after I started working on it. But he said one thing that was really important, which is the higher tech we become, the more nature we need. So this is important because in 10 years we can use nature tech and we can use everything we know now. But in the future, if we embrace a shift to this nature based relational.
let's say focused learning spaces using the knowledge we have now, we can definitely turn the world around because we can turn the world from a world where scarcity, competition, you know, and always someone on top, someone on the bottom. Philosophy is the truth to really a world where resources are distributed and we co-create
Luis Camargo (39:29)
well-being and well-being not for individuals, well-being for whole communities, including nature obviously, because we are nature, including everything. And if we can imagine that transformation could be huge. And obviously the transformation of the infrastructure we have now won't shift in 10 years. But if we do not change the soil, if we do not foster
quality soil, if we do not change those inner dimensions, the ways of thinking, the ways of relating and our ways of being, know, nothing above the surface will really change. So I do believe that embracing this type of opportunity for emergence and, and, and, you know, reconnecting deeply to nature and learning how to sense both the visible and the invisible in order to act regeneratively.
will enable us to really shift quickly in the way we inhabit our planet. And I'm sure, certain of it, especially after seeing COVID and what happened in many of the ecosystems around the world, if we do that within 10 years, the earth will respond. Because the earth responds as we act. We're entangled. And I'm sure that if we're able to do this,
the earth will thrive and will flourish once again with us. Right now, we're working against because we're not in flow. So we need to enter in resonance, enter in flow, and education is a key player in this process. Obviously, this is the most hopeful or visionary way of thinking it, but if we look at it more transitional,
Luis Camargo (41:01)
I do think we need to inspire and universities really need to look into the way they're teaching and their curriculum because, and ask themselves, what am I teaching that is detracting vitality from life in the planet? Eliminate that. That doesn't work. Start teaching what does work. In schools, start creating the spaces for people to learn how to relate, how to sense the relationships, how to...
Louka Parry (41:15)
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Luis Camargo (41:26)
how to process those, how to understand the connection between knowledge, our body, our senses, and our emotions to create well-being, to create communities of well-being. And if we do that in schools and have universities that are starting to shift the way they approach learning, we'll start creating systems that are fluid into creating conditions for life to thrive.
Louka Parry (41:49)
this beautiful sentence, if we can shift our purpose towards learning systems that add vitality. I just think that is such a beautiful summary. think of our entire conversation to live as nature and maybe just to realize the wondrous things that we're already a part of. You know, it's so much for it. I believe it's just a remembering.
Luis Camargo (42:04)
Totally. And I think...
No, in that, I wanted to add one thing that I have not said that I think is really important and it's silence. You know, in this whole process, what you were saying just now, silence play a huge role in our education system. We're trying to shut down silence in our daily living system, you know, with all the devices and everything we have. We're always occupied. We're not allowing spaces of silence.
And if we look at how nature moves and how species move and us as nomads, how we moved, when we walk in the mountains, we're in silence. And those are the spaces where emergence, where learnings, where those transcendent connections occur. So we really need to embed silence, not only sound silence, but thinking silence, but spaces of just expansion and contemplation.
within or throughout our whole learning experience. So silence becomes relief.
Louka Parry (43:02)
Luis, after this conversation, think some of our listeners might need to sit in silence to process the wonderful and I would say very deep insights that you've shared with us today, the learnings that you're trying to embark upon through many different projects. Thank you for what you do. Gracias amigo mio. And thank you for joining us on the Learning Future podcast.
Luis Camargo (43:20)
Thank you for having me and it's been definitely a beautiful conversation and a lot to bring in and put into my soil to make it richer. Thank you very
Louka Parry (43:33)
Fantastic.
