Dubai: Indian spiritual leader and yogi Sadhguru will arrive in the UAE on May 17 as part of his global campaign Save Soil to create awareness on preserving soil, sources close to the campaign said. He will be spending three days in the emirates.
Sadhguru is currently in Europe as part of the campaign, interacting with the public, political leaders, and policymakers, explaining the catastrophe humanity faces if we continue to ignore soil health.
He took time off his busy schedule to speak to Gulf News CEO and Editor-in-Chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad, from Berlin.
See the Zoom session below, where he talks on a range of topics: from his environmental concerns to faith in the young generation and technology.
The campaign
The Save Soil campaign was flagged off on March 21 in London and the journey will culminate in India after traversing more than 25 countries and tens of thousands of kilometres. An avid biker himself, at ease with modern technology and gadgets as much as he is with ancient texts and Indian spirituality, Sadhguru is the lone biker in the campaign while his enthusiastic supporters and followers gather at every stopping point in major cities to cheer on him in his mission.
Soil is a legacy we have received from previous generations, we must pass it on as a living entity for future generations.
Because it is paramount to life on this planet. The degradation of the soil is fast reaching levels that could threaten food production, climate stability and even the presence of life on this planet, says Sadhguru. More than half of the world’s agricultural soil is already degraded and in the next 60 years, we will run out of cultivable soil, the campaign says.
Save Soil is a global movement launched by him to address the soil crisis by bringing together people from around the world to urge and support their leaders to design national policies and action plans toward increasing the organic content in topsoil. It has been active for the last two years.
What is new in the campaign?
Sadhguru has been at the forefront of efforts to save the environment, actively creating awareness and mobilizing thousands of people through his organisations Isha Foundation and Conscious Planet. The present campaign is the culmination of efforts that began way back in 1995, he said. It is born out of the realisation that while individual projects, like what he did and other people do, are good, small steps for the environment, the real game-changer would be when governments are involved and acts with proper policies in place to safeguard the interests of people, livelihoods and the living systems. The present campaign tries to bring people and policymakers under one umbrella.
Without the living systems being active in the soil, this life, or any other life cannot exist for 87% of the lives on the planet. The whole source [of life] is in the first 15 to 18 inches of the soil
“I thought we must awaken ourselves, and as a generation of people, we can do it, because we are on that cusp of time right now, that if we act now, in the next 10 to 15 years or a maximum of 20 years, we can make a significant turnaround in the soil condition,” he said.
60 years
timeframe for the world to run out of cultivable soil, Save Soil campaign saysLiving on borrowed soil
Soil is a legacy we have received from previous generations, we must pass it on as a living entity for future generations, he said. “If we don't do that, we are failing in a fundamental responsibility. But right now every scientist is pointing out that what we are consuming in the form of food is actually the food of the unborn child,” Sadhguru said.
