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those lacking material wealth are best served by environmental and cultural decay, as a price
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that must be paid at the altar of economic development.

The majority of the world’s scientists, however, overwhelmingly crave for a change of
course. The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) pledged huge commitments to defend

nature. ESG (Environment, Society, and Government) frameworks devised to induce green

investor behaviours, are ascribed to by much of global finance. Carbon credits and green
bonds set out to reward protection of the environment. Yet, we suffer a disconnect, a missing

link with what actually happens on the ground. On this basis, the Muscat Call advocates
another Way forward. Rather than enumerating what needs to be done, it takes note of

action under way, of opportunities at hand, and points to ways of leveraging, scaling,

replicating, and doing more by collaborating among us, rather than countering each other.

Progress requires, however, a greater effort to reach out cross-border, link diverse
competences, sectors, disciplines, and the demarcation lines of nation states, geography,

culture, and mindset. We are all humanity in the face of the systemic crisis confronting us –

and we must face it through inclusion and collaboration or perish.

Next, the Muscat Call presents the building blocks and principles behind the approach

that we advocate. The ensuing, third part presents actions. The final calls for leverage
and expanded action.

II: BUILDING BLOCKS

2.1 Taking stock of, and confront, the challenge for what it is

The way forward requires taking stock of the shifting planetary environmental, socio-

economic and geopolitical boundaries of our time. We must confront the fundamental
challenge facing us all; under-investment in nature. The benefits of nature are multifarious,

ever-expanding in all directions, transgressing from our past to the present, into our future,

4 This argument, propelled since long by mainstream economists, ignores that the short-term benefits resulting
from the destruction of nature, disproportionately feed rent-seeking by vested interests who put proceeds into
real estate, luxury items, and bank accounts overseas, while destroying the basis for sustainable communities,
particularly for local and indigenous people, and also damaging long-term prosperity for society as a whole.

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