Forty years of Sanctuary. From a magazine that has inspired thousands of bright-eyed youngsters to become leaders, changemakers, and hope-bringers for the planet, to one of India's most dedicated organisations working at the tri-junction of biodiversity, economics and climate change.
The Sanctuary Nature Foundation is determined in its quest to protect wild nature and create a more equitable world.As we roll up our sleeves and get to work in our 41st year and our fifth decade as the "Grand Central Station" of biodiversity conservation and climate action in India, we look at our milestones, large and small, put together in our Sanctuary 2021 Impact Report.
In the words of our founder, Bittu Sahgal:
We at Sanctuary are working at the difficult task of conflict resolution between Homo sapiens and the rest of the biosphere. From our core, we believe that consuming our biosphere today, to the point where it begins to tatter, is not the best way to secure better lives for ourselves, nor guarantee our children, in whose name we do almost all we do, better, more secure lives. That said, we are sworn to sow seeds of hope for our young… even as we are sworn to tell them the truth about the state of their world. Walking that tightrope is the most difficult part of our mission. Every project outlined on these pages has been founded on the hope that Homo sapiens, the wise man, will live up to his name. That we will use our complex brains to avoid pushing our biosphere over its tipping point.
For four decades, Sanctuary’s primary constituency has remained young. And our unshakeable belief that ‘nature knows best’ has remained our North Star. But, generation after generation of powerful forces – governments, corporates, political parties, even some well-intentioned social leaders – effectively convinced us naked apes that the endless accumulation and control of the fruit of the biosphere was the the ticket to survival for our families, clans, nations… indeed the planet itself. Sanctuary’s take is different. We absolutely believe that in this eat-or-be-eaten world, every species on Earth including Homo sapiens must look out for its own interests. Where we diverge from those who have declared war on our biosphere is that wounding the biosphere is not in our own interests. Like every other species, humans are wholly subservient to the biosphere. Put in the language of economists, dismantling nature’s infrastructures (seas, lands, atmosphere), in ham handed attempts to ‘improve’ is
poor planet management.
