In this enlightening episode with Caroline, Cindy gives the context of post-colonial geopolitics based on continuing control of resources and ideology, and the devastating environmental consequences of the corruption and under-development that ensued from the puppet governments set up to replace direct colonial rule. Cindy outlines how the extraction continues today and how economic colonisation is accelerating in Africa with, alongside the West, countries such as Korea, Saudi Arabia and China buying land and assets well below their worth from some of the most impoverished countries with devastating climatic and social effects for all.

This conversation looks at green colonisation, where land is bought and people displaced for, for example carbon offsets, and corporate colonisation where the new global empires in the form of transnational corporates, continue the practice of dispossessing indigenous and marginalised populations of their land for minerals, oil, gas and other resources, further destabilising native economies and cultures.

This illuminating discussion explores how colonialism has ravaged indigenous peoples through dispossession of traditional lands, systemic racism, poverty, overincarceration. As exploitation of their remaining territories escalates, indigenous environmental rights defenders suffer appalling rates of murder, and further critical wisdom from our human family is lost.

We hear Caroline explain the importance of understanding this legacy of underdevelopment and the ensuing migration in terms of diversity, inclusion what the history is behind majority world communities living in the global north. She gives extraordinary insight into the richness we gain with inclusion and how this can authentically be implemented by organisations. From her immense experience as an international environmental lawyer and representative of indigenous communities at the UN, she outlines why protecting indigenous lands and knowledge is critical to our effective stewardship of Earth, how this can be done at local, organisational and international policy level.

Here, in conversation with Mamta, Cindy highlights how the exclusion of women was entrenched in the patriarchal world view that authorised the pillage of Mother Earth. The continued absence of a balanced place for a female world view/ divine feminine has led to the accelerated breakdown of our climate and biodiversity. The lack of representation of women in decision making on climate impedes us in finding the solutions we so desperately need. This episode highlights how women in the global south and marginalised communities bear the brunt of climate change and yet are the most excluded in national and international climate decision making. Even though they often are the most resourceful and have already innovated effective solutions in their local context.

In this powerful podcast, Mamta shares from her work, where she is dedicated to ensuring women, in all their diversity, are included as active participants in climate leadership and policy making processes. She explores how this necessarily extends to the full inclusion of women at all levels of corporate and political infrastructure. As someone who actively campaigns for inclusion and diversity by working closely with governments and collaborating with like-minded organisations, Mamta gives us insight into what these organisations and companies gain from this cooperation and how the full inclusion of women strengthens and advantages the whole organisational eco-system.

Here Cindy talks with Paula Kensington to explore the roots of a global financial system that was shaped to serve the colonial project and carries that in the DNA ofits design.From the Bank of England’s role in enabling the UK to become the most powerful slave trading nation to the IMF and the World Bank that now perpetrate a system of debt bondage and economic dependency. 

Strictures that make it almost financially impossible for many global south countries to adapt to or to mitigate climate breakdown. Yet the iron grip these institutions hold both on the global financial architecture and in our psyches mean debt jubilees, loss and damage and reparations remain outliers instead of the crucial solutions they represent.  

This intriguing episode questions the effects of GDP as the only measure of a country’s progress regardless of how that wealth is generated. How from the corporate laws and economic structures instituted during the colonial project, the ‘greed economy’ has gone viral, giving legitimacy at board level to the statement “our primary responsibility is to our shareholders”, regardless of the state of the life support system on which the generation of these profits depends.

Welcome to Awakenings, a podcast that delves into the interconnectedness of colonization, climate change, and our path forward. In this episode, we explore the troubled roots of colonization and its impact on Earth's natural systems and indigenous cultures. We discuss the link between colonization and climate change, recognizing that the pursuit of resource extraction for the benefit of one group has led to the disruption of ecosystems and the exploitation of people.

Our guest, Christine McDougall, the founder of Syntropic World, shares her work in creating businesses for a world with a future. She emphasizes the need to shift our mindset from domination to stewardship and to value all forms of life. Christine discusses the principles of syntropic practice and how it can help organizations navigate the necessary systemic shift towards valuing all stakeholders, including the natural world.

She highlights the urgency of this work in light of our current model's misalignment with planetary boundaries and the need to create enterprises where all stakeholders can thrive. Christine invites listeners to engage in Syntropic World's teachings and community of practice, offering scholarships to those who genuinely want to participate.

Join us on this journey to confront our troubled past, recognize the interconnectedness of colonization and climate change.

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In our first inspiring episode in Awakenings, Cindy is in conversation with Christine McDougall, exploring colonisation as a deep root of our environmental, social, racial and economic challenges.

How can this knowledge help us understand the systemic shifts necessary to help us build organizational resilience and success?

As context for the series, Cindy shares an overview of the devasting effects of widespread colonisation on the Earth’s ecosystems and of the genocides, and massacres that accompanied this acquisition of ‘new worlds’. She will explore the philosophy and dominant world view that was constructed to support the colonising project by the imperial powers e.g. such as the racial hierarchy of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and the mechanistic cartesian paradigm which characterised nature as a machine. How have the objectives and methods that garnered such wealth in the colonising project shaped our corporate codes and purpose as well as our financial system, embedded at such a structural depth, we no longer see them as they now drive our demise.

In fascinating conversation with Christine, this episode explores an alternative model to structures designed to extract to extinction.

Can the existing structures be remodelled, or do we need new ones to do the entirely different job of ensuring Earth and all the creatures and the business she supports will thrive?

Christine gives extraordinary insight into Syntropic organisations and operations, and to systems expressly designed for the purpose of supporting a world with a future.