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Satyajit Das - or Das - is a man who's worn many hats. Financier, author, traveller, speaker - a strenuous protagonist for evidence and fact. He's a man who wants to understand and take into account the reality of a situation and to look deeply into the meaning of that information, no matter how confronting, surprising or alarming.

Das came to Australia from India in the late 70s, and a career in banking followed, until he had some unexpected life changing expeditions in nature - one in Zaire, now Congo, and the other Antarctica, which seems to have altered his relationship to work and living. He famously predicted the impending global financial crisis in 2006, before being named as one of finance's most influential thinkers by Bloomberg. He's written a tonne of books along the way, and he's on the show today to talk about his most recent - 'Wild Quests'.

I really enjoyed this book, and I have been affected by its contents as well as Das' previous work, especially that of Banquet of Consequences. Under all of our technological progress are worldviews and stories that we are still above and apart from nature, that we can elevate and innovate our way out of whatever the latest dilemma or disaster is. This book tells of the heart wrenching ways by which eco-tourism is negatively affecting remaining pristine landscapes, continuing to drive up emissions through al the travel time and with uncertain and unclear local social and economic benefits.

Wild Quests is a wake up call for how we think of travel, on the whole notion of bucket lists. It forced me to reckon with my own desires and aspirations for visiting some of the world's most lauded landscapes - Patagonia, Alaska, African plains, and Australia's natural landscapes. There are so many places to go, so many options, perhaps though, we need to contemplate the potential and known harms of these trips. Real action on addressing the climate crisis, reversing land degradation and restoring the habitats and lives of non human species requires more than flawed economic models and possessive incursions into the lives of Indigenous inhabitants. Wild Quests starts with the line - “the animals do not want to see us”. What if we did that - what if we just left nature to be nature, to be wild and precious and to just exist without our incursions. As it has for almost forever, free of humanity and all we bring?

Not an easy idea, but Das is in the business of raising these types of ideas and prosecuting them comprehensively.

Das is generously offering Finding Nature listeners a discount on his book Wild Quests that forms much of this conversation. Head to Monash University publishing website and buy the book, and for 20% off use the code birdlife20 - all one word.

Das's work has quite literally been informed by that of Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, and one of his famous lines is that sooner or later everyone has to sit down to a banquet of consequences - it's fair to say whether or not it's the loss of pristine wilderness, the expanding climate crisis or the disaster that is housing in this country, it might be time to take a seat.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

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