Apex Custodian Species
...or Apex Fools?
Humanity is currently the planet’s most effective predator—and we’re killing it. Literally. We’ve built a civilization that works like an apex predator on steroids: top of every food chain, bound by no real limits, and leaving a trail of ecological carnage behind us. But unlike wolves or lions, we’ve somehow forgotten the critical skill of self-regulation. Our version of predation is amplified by technology and unchecked by common sense. We’re not balancing ecosystems—we’re obliterating them.
We’ve crashed through almost every planetary boundary: climate change, biodiversity collapse, freshwater depletion, pollution overload. The Earth’s vital systems are wobbling dangerously. It’s not a drill. This is ecological bankruptcy, and it’s happening in real-time.
Despite all that, it’s not complicated. Beneath layers of distraction, deep down in our Selves, we actually know how to live well on this planet. We’ve done it for most of our 300,000-year history. The industrial age, by comparison, is just a strange blip—a noisy three-century distraction that somehow convinced us to exchange life itself for profit.
Let’s take a breath.
What if instead of apex predators, we started acting like apex custodians? Not owners, not overlords—custodians. Guardians of life, creators of abundance, stewards of planetary health.
Beavers engineer entire wetlands, elephants reshape forests, corals build thriving underwater cities, fungi quietly network nutrients beneath our feet. They don’t ask permission. They don’t accumulate debt or issue bonds. They simply make ecosystems healthier by existing exactly as they are.
Bernard Lietaer—once the brain behind the Euro—got me thinking about this two decades ago. He dreamed of something wild: a "central bank of dreams," where every human’s aspiration backed its own currency. Helping someone realize their dream meant creating value—literally. It was beautifully idealistic and completely unworkable, because Bernard’s vision missed one crucial thing: dreams require atoms.
Atoms matter. (except for the one Atom-denier i met in a conversation recently, but that’s a story for another day) But here’s the good news: the atoms we really need are already all around us, alive, growing, cycling naturally. Eyes, teeth, bones, electricity—nature figured this stuff out ages ago. - If You (your body) can do it, then where is the limit? We’ve just been too busy mining and drilling to notice that the good stuff is literally us and the rest of nature growing.
The future we want isn’t some distant fantasy. It’s already here, hidden in ancient indigenous wisdom and bleeding-edge material science labs alike. Everything we need for mutually assured thriving—without extraction, without waste—is already possible. We just have to weave it together.
Shifting from apex predator to apex custodian isn’t about minor tweaks or half-measures. It’s about completely rethinking what winning looks like. From short-term extraction to long-term restoration. From dominance to reciprocity. From endless growth to regenerative abundance.
This isn’t ideology. It’s biology. It’s intuition. It’s the felt truth we know in our bones. We’re not here to conquer. We’re here to care.
And when we finally ditch the predatory soulset and pick up custodial responsibilities—when we trust ourselves enough to remember what we already know—then we can help each other stand tall, and give this beautiful planet of ours - and us-all - a chance to thrive again - in mutual assurance.