Addressing Environmental Challenges Through Intercultural Dialogue

Based on continuous production and consumption, Western development models are environmentally unsustainable. In the last decades, Western attempts to create a sustainable development model have failed since they were thought exclusively from a Global North logic resulting from industrialization and competition. What is needed is a more collective perspective of global leadership that fosters multilateralism and cooperation and equitable distribution of power. Furthermore, sustainable environmental solutions need to go beyond Western development models, establishing an intercultural dialogue with epistemologies and models of development from the Global-South. This book chapter describes an example of dialogue between the Global North and South analyzing collective leadership approaches from Indigenous communities. More specifically, this book chapter is centered on the concept of Indigenous spirituality and its key role in the Latin American region in implementing the sustainable model of development known as “Good Living” or “Buen Vivir.”