Living Nature

This Living Nature 2021 session considers what it means to listen to the land and how the insights gained from doing so can be of value to the future of our planet.

As part of the Living Nature 2021 event programme, Satish Kumar, Jolie Booth, Dr. Tero Mustonen, Nii Obodai and Marion A. Osieyo – an inspiring group of pilgrims, activists, and artists – share short stories about how their relationships with nature have been shaped by their experiences of listening to the land.

Listen to the experiences of four individuals who have listened to the land in their own way and used this experience to shape their response to climate and social justice.

Thank you to our inspiring panel:

• Jolie Booth, co-founder of ‘A Pilgrimage For Nature – Listening to the Land, which involved – a group of ‘ordinary people taking an extraordinary odyssey: walking 500 miles along the UK to arrive in Glasgow just as world leaders arrive in the city for the UN Climate Change Conference’ (COP26).
• Satish Kumar, a life-long activist and former monk who in 1962 started a peace pilgrimage to the nuclear capitals of the world – from India to Moscow, London, Paris and the US – walking without money and depending on the hospitality and kindness of strangers. Satish is also the founder of The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity that seeks a just future for all.
• Dr. Tero Mustonen, Chief of the village of Selkie in North Karelia and an advocate of the traditional worldview and cosmology of his people. He is the lead author of a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (AR6) and the current president of Snowchange, a cooperative that works to advance the knowledge and ecosystems of the Circumpolar North.
• Nii Obodai, a Ghanaian photographer whose work explores the urban and rural and celebrates the unseen and the everyday in Africa. Working primarily with black and white photography over the last two decades, his work encompasses portraiture and ethereal landscapes.
• Hosted by Marion Atieno Osieyo, an award-winning strategist and storyteller working to heal humanity’s relationship with nature. Currently the Global Strategist on Nature’s Contributions to People at World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). Marion is soon to launch Black Earth; an interview podcast celebrating nature and the inspirational Black women in the environmental movement. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Marion lives, loves and belongs in South London, UK.

“…I think it’s part of the reason why there’s so much depression and anxiety in western cultures, because our disconnect is from our Mother and from the source. And it means that we feel like there’s no meaning, and our life isn’t sacred. […] Make your whole life a sacred act and make everything you do divine, and put divine beauty at the centre of everything.”

–Jolie Booth