A lament for the decline of wild spaces and a celebration of the animals who roam them
Thirty years ago, two trips to iconic destinations, Africa and the Antarctic, profoundly changed Satyajit Das’s life. Ecotourism – watching wildlife in nature – became his gravitational centre. Wild Quests: Journeys into Ecotourism and the Future for Animals is a literal and metaphorical record of these travels.
Over time, during his encounters with remarkable wild animals in continents across the world, he came to question the underlying preoccupations and tensions in humans’ complex and troubled relationship with nature. What lies at the heart of our fascination with wild animals and our attempts to pursue an ‘experience’? During a time of ecological emergency and habitat destruction, what responsibility does the ecotourist have to the natural world?
About the author
Satyajit Das is a financier who was named in 2014 by Bloomberg as among the fifty most influential people in financial markets. He has held senior positions in banks and industry and now works as a consultant to investors and corporations globally.
He has published several key reference works on finance and wrote Traders, Guns & Money (2006), Extreme Money (2011) and A Banquet of Consequences (2015, updated 2021; published in North America as Age of Stagnation). He is also the author (with Jade Novakovic) of In Search of the Pangolin: The Accidental Eco-Tourist (2006). Satyajit Das appeared in Charles Ferguson’s 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job. He has spoken at the Sydney and Melbourne writers festivals, Adelaide Festival of Ideas and Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
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