A/77/290 humans and nature. It is important that indigenous approaches be respected and that indigenous communities be allowed to continue as joint custodians of the natural world to ensure their survival. It is equally important that their knowledge be shared through intercultural dialogue and that it can contribute to global sustainable development solutions. The Special Rapporteur has been surprised that this knowledge-sharing was not done with regard to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The world could have learned a lot from indigenous knowledge about the best ways to quarantine and lock down to prevent the further spread of the virus, as several indigenous communities have mastered the practice of shielding, an indigenous technique, for centuries. Unfortunately, indigenous peoples were not consulted; rather, they were only seen as possible victims of the spread of the virus. 33. In communities throughout the world, peasants also bear cultural id entities and practices that are conducive to sustainable development – development that is selfdetermined, self-defined, shared and at one with the natural world. 28 The dynamic nature of culture has meant that indigenous models have at times been superbly intertwined with peasant and/or local cultural identities. A notable example of the successful transposition of community cultural norms onto national policies of sustainable development is the South American model of buen vivir (good living) that has been incorporated into the constitutions of Ecuador and the Plurinational State of Bolivia. 34. Sometimes inspired by indigenous and local outlooks, several alternative visions focus on putting the planet at the centre of development. Some decouple growth and well-being from resource use. A notable example is ecological swaraj (radical ecological democracy), emerging from the Indian subcontinent, which translates as self-rule or self-reliance in balance with nature. 29 Regenerative models in general emphasize development as a continuous process based on a co-evolutionary partnership between ecological and sociocultural systems. 30 Regenerative models are less about minimizing negative impacts on nature and more about creating holistic approaches that maximize positive impact for better planetary health. 31 Central to such models is the concept of reliability, which expresses the ability of products and processes in the built environment to be adaptive, resilient and regenerative. 35. Commoning is an alternative model focusing on a collective stewardship approach to the management of natural resources. It enables local people to share the benefits of resources that are not privately owned but that they collectively manage and protect by drawing upon local cultural practices through self-organized participatory structures. The “common” is both shared and non-commodified and sits outside market forces to protect local cultural practices that offer equitable ways of managing the fair distribution of resources. 36. One cannot escape the importance of the informal economy in alternative visions, as it includes over 60 per cent of the world ’s workers. 32 Many of these work in the informal creative industries or the artisan economy. 33 It is a sustainable __________________ 28 29 30 31 32 33 10/24 Margot E. Salomon, “Culture as an alternative to ‘Sustainable De velopment’”. Ashish Kothari, Federico Demaria and Alberto Acosta, “Buen vivir, degrowth and ecological swaraj: alternatives to sustainable development and the green economy”, Development, vol. 57, No. 3 (2014). Chrisna du Plessis, “Towards a regenerative paradigm for the built environment”, Building Research and Information, vol. 40, No. 1 (2012). Leah V. Gibbons and others, cited in Leah V. Gibbons, “Regenerative – the new sustainable?”, Sustainability, vol. 12, No. 13 (2020). International Labour Office, Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture , 3rd ed. (n.p., 2018). Priya Krishnamoorthy, Anandana Kapur and Aparna Subramanyam, Business of Handmade Report: The Role of Craft-based Enterprises in (Formalising) India’s Artisan Economy (2021). 22-12659