Language shapes the way societies think, plan and ultimately act. When a word carries deep ecological meaning, it becomes part of our collective understanding of how life on Earth works. But when that same word is appropriated by business, the government, NGOs and even well-meaning professionals, its meaning can be diluted, distorted or quietly co-opted. Few terms illustrate this problem more clearly than “ecosystem”.
Originally, an ecosystem referred to a self-regulating, interdependent, biophysical system governed by energy flows, nutrient cycles and evolutionary dynamics. It described the delicate, life-supporting relationships that make the planet habitable. Today, however, the term is routinely applied to corporate supply chains, digital platforms, policy frameworks, donor networks and market arrangements. These human-designed systems are often extractive, fragile and dependent on externalised costs – the very opposite of the natural systems the term was meant to describe.
Linguistic capture
Business has been the most enthusiastic driver of this linguistic capture. When companies describe their operations as “ecosystems”, they borrow the legitimacy of nature while ignoring the responsibilities that come with ecological thinking. The metaphor subtly implies that these systems are natural, self-balancing and benign. In reality, many are none of those things. They are engineered, growth-driven and frequently destructive to the actual ecosystems on which all life depends.
But business is not alone. Government departments now speak of “innovation ecosystems”, “transport ecosystems” and “entrepreneurial ecosystems”, often without recognising that these are policy constructs, not natural systems. NGOs and development agencies have adopted the same language, sometimes uncritically, because it sounds modern, holistic and funder-friendly. Even academics and consultants – people who should know better – routinely use the term to describe institutional arrangements that have nothing to do with ecology.
In southern Africa, this misuse is everywhere. Financial companies speak of “innovation ecosystems” while relying on data centres powered by coal-heavy electricity. Mining houses refer to “mineral ecosystems” to describe supply chains that degrade real ecosystems from the Waterberg to the Okavango catchment. Government policy documents describe the informal economy as an “entrepreneurial ecosystem”, despite the fact that it is shaped not by natural interdependence but by regulatory gaps, structural unemployment and survivalist necessity. NGOs talk about “civil society ecosystems”, even when the relationships they describe are competitive, donor-driven, and anything but regenerative.
Confusing the natural with the normalised
The danger is that we begin to confuse what is natural with what is merely normalised. If a platform economy is an “ecosystem”, then its expansion appears inevitable. If a supply chain is an “ecosystem”, then its impacts seem organic. If a donor network is an “ecosystem”, then its power dynamics can be framed as natural rather than designed.
This is more than a semantic quibble. It is a conceptual capture that weakens our ability to think clearly about the polycrisis, which includes ecosystems collapse, that is facing humanity. In a region where climate change is already intensifying droughts, collapsing fisheries and destabilising food systems, we cannot afford to let the term “ecosystem” be diluted into a business cliché. South Africa’s real ecosystems – from the fynbos biome to the Drakensberg grasslands – are under immense pressure. They need the full weight of our attention, not competition from metaphorical “ecosystems” that exist only in PowerPoint decks and donor proposals.
And this is where the challenge becomes personal. Every time we use the word “ecosystem” to describe a human-made arrangement, we participate – however unintentionally – in the erosion of ecological literacy. We help normalise a metaphor that obscures responsibility and masks harm. We make it harder to distinguish between the systems that sustain life and the systems that extract from it.
We need language that restores clarity. Human-made systems are not ecosystems. They are networks, value chains, institutional landscapes, stakeholder concepts, governance architectures, market systems or production lines, among so many others. These terms are more accurate, more honest, and free of the “ecological legitimacy” that the metaphor smuggles in.
Reclaiming ‘ecosystem’
Reclaiming “ecosystem” is not about pedantry. It is about preserving a word that should anchor our understanding of planetary limits. If we continue to allow it to be co-opted by the very systems contributing to ecological degradation, we risk losing one of the conceptual tools most essential to navigating the century ahead.
The first step towards ecological literacy is linguistic integrity. If we want to avoid collapse – in southern Africa and beyond – we must stop calling everything an ecosystem, and start recognising which systems truly sustain life, and which merely extract from it. That responsibility belongs not only to institutions, but to each of us. DM
