Swati thiyagarajan biography of alberta

She is the author of the book Born Wild: Journeys into the wild hearts of India and Africa which is in its second print run. At present she lives in Cape Town with her husband Craig Foster and works at the Sea Change Project a not for profit organisation working towards the long term conservation of the Great African Seaforest. We need to have hope for a world, what we would like it to be, instead of only fighting for a world that we think is falling apart.

With media in the iron fist of corporates, can public opinion ever be altered in line with biospheric imperatives? The amount of money pumped in to keep this flawed hyper-capitalistic system running is staggering. In the 80s and even the 90s, when big tobacco companies had suppressed the studies that conclusively proved that smoking caused cancer, they employed amazing spin doctors who encouraged people to smoke.

Sadly, to raise funds for environment and conservation action issues, one needs to seek out sources — like a philanthropic foundation — and fight for every cent. The notion that protecting the environment is anti-development, antipeople and now anti-national has been spun with serious power and intent and to counter these powerful narratives, we need to create our own powerful narratives.

We need to encourage people to build a fundamental connection with nature, make them understand that every breath, every drop of water, every morsel of food, all come from the natural world. Even our mental and spiritual well-being is nourished by the natural world — we know this from the Japanese concept of Shinrin-yokuor forest therapy. There is a reason that the world is dealing with unprecedented cases of mental health issues today.

The further we urbanise and turn away from our original design which is to be connected to nature, the more the cracks in our psyche.

Swati thiyagarajan biography of alberta

We live at a time where we can, with some effort, disseminate information beyond the news channels. The need of the hour is to organise our cases and our calls to action as thoroughly as the relentless corporations that we fight. It comes down to the stories we tell and how well we can tell them. We are wired to listen to stories. We need to tell the right stories and find different avenues through which to tell them.

Yes, quite often. A luxury hotel with no regard for the environment around it, or people piling into a jeep and careening around to see a tiger, or if it is for that selfie or a check on a list with no heart, with no actual listening and seeing — tourism can go wrong in so many ways. If the permanent water supply is from pumping out ground water in the resorts, and the hot water is coming from an electric geyser, and the pool is chlorinated, non-recycled water, and the waste generated is not segregated, and the people employed are not from local communities with a stake in the enterprise Conscious tourism should focus on renewables and recycling and conservancies and actual education, only then tourism can be for conservation.

There are times I feel it and it absolutely paralyses me. But then I am in the ocean and I see my kelp forest and I feel the life of the planet pulsing around me. Then I know, where there is life, there is hope. Where we can understand the consequences of our choices, there is hope. Where we look at our children with true love — which means leaving them not material things but an actual viable world to live in, there is hope.

Just a few days ago, I watched killer whales in my bay right in front of my house. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Indian conservationist, documentary filmmaker, and environmental journalist. Conservationist documentary filmmaker environmental journalist.

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