Satish Kumar

I was excited to meet Satish at the E4E (Event for the Environment - organised by WestDen, Tavistock, Devon) after having read his book No Destination many years back. In the book he narrates his story of walking 8000 miles in 2.5 years from India to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington (boats included!). I suppose this was the seed that has become waterpilgrim so I owe alot of it to him:


“We have to have knowledge of our home planet in order to manage it properly. But industry, business, government and universities only focus on economy and largely ignore ecology – this is a great mistake. Common-sense tells us that we cannot manage our home if we don’t know it. Economy without ecology means managing the human nature relationship without knowing the delicate balance between humankind and the natural world. In my view ecology, or the knowledge, should come before economy or the management. It has been said by many wise people that economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. Without the land, the rivers, the oceans, the forests, the sunshine, the minerals and thousands of natural resources we would have no economy whatsoever. Nature is our true home and our true capital. That is why I call ecology primary, and economy secondary.

In the face of the world’s environmental ills, how then do we move forward as Earth Pilgrims? The first step is to be true to Gandhi’s wise saying – ‘be the change that you want to see’: no preaching without practising. The second step is to communicate the blessings of this new relationship. And the third is to organise with others to achieve change more effectively. Take heart – being an Earth Pilgrim requires no training, no university courses and no books, simply the realisation once again of connectedness.”

See more from Satish at http://www.resurgence.org/