Academic Research International ISSN-L: 2223-9553, ISSN: 2223-9944 Vol. 3, No. 1, July 2012 Copyright © 2012 SAVAP International www.savap.org.pk www.journals.savap.org.pk 254 UNDERSTANDING NATURE AND UN-UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENT: A NON-WESTERN CONCEPTION OF SUSTAINABILITY Suneel Kumar Department of Anthropology & Archaeology, University of Sindh Jamshoro, PAKISTAN. suneel82@hotmail.com ABSTRACT Arturo Escobar in his book Encountering Development (1995), draws attention of the world on the special formation of development discourse and how this formation changes the world view of third world countries towards development, sustainability and growth. Based on works of Foucault, analyzed discourse of development that how “dynamics of discourse and power in the representation of social reality, in particular, has been instrumental in unveiling the mechanisms by which certain order of discourse produces permissible modes of being and thinking while disqualifying and even making others impossible” (Escobar 1995: 15). In this context, this paper discusses how by emphasizing on the discourse of environment, the west had made the other discourse, the discourse of Nature impossible thus changing the whole worldview towards sustainability of life. This paper first discusses how the very concept of development, growth itself is unsustainable, second, how the western discourse of development has changed the concept of Nature to environment, thus changing the whole worldview towards sustainability, and finally, some recommendations that how once can by reversing the concept of Nature from environment can make the life more sustainable. My final arguments would be based on indigenous knowledge of sustainability. Keywords: Discourse, Development, Nature, Environment, Indigenous knowledge. INTRODUCTION In modern period, world competes in quantitative terms, not in qualitative. It is the GNP, GDP, per capita income that determines the „growth‟ of people and countries. Therefore, underdeveloped, developing and developed or first world and third world countries have become the common notion of measuring the growth rate. Thus, it is not the basic needs that determine the production, but on the contrary, it is GNP and GDP ratios that determine the production. In this context, countries rush to exploit „Natural resources‟ to expand their growth rate and increase GNP, but “third world government‟s compulsion to drive up the GNP, turn many into cheerful enemies of nature”. (Sachs 2010: 26). In this economization of world, nature have become key target and victim of countries thus natural resources is not any more for human survival, rather than as an indicator of country‟s growth. Developed countries are developed because they possess technology to exploit the natural resources more than underdeveloped countries and lesson for underdeveloped countries are to use that western led technology more and more to exploit their natural resources so as to be termed as developed. And for that underdeveloped countries unleash their environmental programs on nature, at the level that nature remains only for exploitation, not for survival or sustainable. For modern economics non-monetary measures of well-being are not important. For example, “UN lists Bhuttan as one of the world‟s most improvised countries, even though almost all of its people have adequate food, clothing and shelter…..and more time for families and friends than most western countries (NorbergHdge and Goering 1995: 12). The only things Bhuttan perhaps lack is industrialization and high-tech society, that is must in modern sense. What matters for modern economics is GDP and per capita income, even on the cost of basic human needs. This is because; modern economic system is a reductionist science. It is reductionist because it views the whole world in economic terms only. The following pages are the story of that modern economic development that has changed the concept of nature into environment, thus nature remains only for exploitation. For that