Despite the fact that its origin has been debated immensely by various Latin American and European authors, when in this article I speak of sumak kawsay, I will refer to the principle pertaining to the ancestral Kichwa worldview of Ecuador, without referring to the geographical location of this Ecuadorian indigenous nationality. I will make a history of its translation, globally accepted, “buen vivir” (in different currents) to finally arrive at the indigenous / pachamamista conception that’s the one in which I position myself, putting as emphasis, the information generated and / or debated in Ecuador. The foregoing is intended to make it known not only as an “ideal alternative to development,” as has been innumerable raised, but as a possibility that, more than a decade after it was presented in the Ecuadorian Constitution, reveal the importance of respecting it from its spiritual dimension. I try to present it from the peoples worldview who have practiced it for millennia, to understand it from the qualities, values and notions that allow a life in harmony and fullness among all “the entities of the transcendent sphere of the jungle” (MORALES TORRES, 2009). I try to open a debate from my mestizo perspective and with the tints of an Environmental Education, since I consider that they are linked subjects that could be promoted.
