 Welcome to the future of cities by Finnish Flow. Finnish Flow is coordinating the Finnish business community for participation at Davos side events, the World Economic Forum side events. Finland has a lot to offer in the global context and this is what we are shining a light on as Finnish Flow community with our amazing partners. This is our first year and this is our great big opening for the Finnish Flow. Thank you very much for all coming here. And now when we're entering the flow, I would love to introduce our dear partner, future of cities, Tony Cho. Thank you, Janna. Thank you, esteemed guests. Thank you, Deepak. Thank you, Elena. Thank you, Satguru. What a phenomenal experience today of transformation, aligned thinkers, working on global transition to a more regenerative future. At the future of cities we are aiming to impact the lives of a billion people through innovations in the built environment. And today I'm hopeful and so grateful to my partners from Finnish Flow and to be part of this beautiful Finnish community of innovators and impact investors and technologists and visionaries. It's a true honor and I can only imagine and dream together with you guys what the future will hold. Thank you so much. Thank you. And then we move into this very, very special wisdom panel. On this panel our panelists will offer a mix of spiritual leadership and next generation indigenous wisdom. Helena Gualinga is an environmental and human rights activist from Ecuador. Her activism includes exposing the conflict between her community and oil companies by carrying and empowering message among the youth in local schools in Ecuador and also globally. She's a youth ambassador of the Arctic Base Camp here in Davos and they have facilitated her attendance to Davos. Dr. Deepak Chopra is the founder of Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism. And Global also founder of Chopra Global, a modern day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality. Satguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary who has founded the Global Isha Foundation launching large ecological initiatives. Satguru is currently also on a solo tour driving a motorcycle from London to India advocating the conscious planet movement to save the planet's soil. And tonight we'll have a wonderful moderator, Vera Futorianski, a CEO at Veritas Ventures, a woman in tech and VC and a global speaker. That being said, over to you Vera. Thank you so much, my microphone. Thank you so much, Janna and Risto. Welcome everyone. I might be biased of course but I don't think there's a more interesting, more exciting, more mind-expanding panel in all of Davos 2022 than this one. So you definitely are in the right place. Welcome. Welcome also to everyone who's watching live. Is it this camera? So welcome everyone. Let's dive right in. We only have 35 minutes unfortunately because Satguru will have to travel so we'll go right in. As we all know our planet is facing a lot of global challenges. This week we all and the leaders gather here. We're also leaders to find solutions for a more sustainable future. In this discussion we'll cover three critical points. The soil crisis. As we all know it's a big issue. So the economists covered today we'll talk about food crisis. If we don't make any changes in the next 10 years, if I got it right, the next 100 years there will be a food crisis on the planet. Already 52% of agricultural soil is degraded. In 20 years 40% less food is expected to be produced for the 9.3 billion people who will be living on our planet. Then we'll talk about the loss of biodiversity. Global loss of biodiversity is at its worst as you know. And only 5% of indigenous people, I mean there are only 5% of indigenous people and they are the stewards of 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity. Alina is here with us who will talk about it. And of course not many of us touch soil on a daily basis or not many of us live in the jungle, in the forest. So we will also talk about anxiety and depression and without also about this shift, this conscious shift we need to understand the world better and how we can become more aware conscious metahumans and for that we'll have Dr. Deepak Chopra inviting us into it. But we'll start with Sadguru. It's such a pleasure to be sitting next to you. I mean it's such an honor really. You are now on a motorcycle from London to India. You've been to many places, you have this extraordinary campaign, you're meeting so many people, you also created a catchy song around it. We're wonder singing it, but could you please share why you do it and maybe most importantly also share a couple of tangible projects that have manifested along the way already. Good evening to everyone. Is it okay? Well, the last 30 years I've been talking about soil at various levels and we have launched projects. What I see is when I talk about the nature of soil and where it is going, everybody says, Sadguru, this is great, fantastic and they go to sleep. And as I speak to various agricultural ministries all over the world everybody seems to know the problem. Everybody knows the general direction of the solution. But when I observed this, I saw after all they're just waiting for an idiot to build a cat. So here I am. We started this journey at the age of sixty-five, riding thirty thousand kilometers is an insane project. But we have completed sixty-five days and I'm still here and I have done four hundred and sixty-seven events in the sixty-five days. The social media metrics is showing that about 2.1 billion people have addressed soil in the last sixty-five days since we started the movement. The idea of this movement is to move at least sixty percent of the adult population on the planet to be concerned about soil, to say something about soil. Because in a democracy the only currency is numbers. If the numbers are there every government will move. At the same time we have to understand this that not in a single nation has ever, sixty percent of the population has stood up and expressed their concern for some long-term well-being of their nation or their children or anything like this. They're asking for trinkets. They want one percent tax reduction and they're getting it. Nobody has ever asked. So this is what we're trying to do now. We want sixty percent of the population, adult population to express concern for long-term well-beings. Why this is important is we elect governments for four to five-year terms. So we give them a four-year mandate and naturally they are focusing to fulfill that in four years, whatever they can do. Nobody wants to invest in something which will bear fruit after fifteen, twenty years because whenever political leaders make an attempt to address long-term well-being of their nation they lose their election next time. This has been the history of political life on this planet. This changing this is very important. That large number of people over sixty percent when they say that they are concerned about it now governments feel comfortable to invest long-term. We have written to seven hundred and thirty political parties on the planet to include soil as a part of their manifestos, soil ecology as a part of their manifestos because all the manifestos are only about tax cuts, this rebate, that rebate, never really long-term well-being. Why soil is such an important thing? This is the first time in the history of humanity we are addressing soil as soil extinction. The UN agencies are using the term soil extinction. Extinction means you always thought it's either a dinosaur or a dodo but we are talking about soil extinction and in eighty-five percent of the nations that I have spoken to still agriculture ministries are addressing soil as an inert substance. It is very important that first of all we recognize soil as the largest living system, not just on this planet in the known universe. A handful of soil has over eighty-five percent of life for us. We are just a consequence of what is happening in the fifteen to eighteen inches of soil. If we have to bring this to context in some way, see before photosynthesis started nearly a billion years ago the oxygen content in our atmosphere was just one percent. Today it is twenty-one percent. It is because of this we have evolved this way, it is because of this we are breathing and alive right now. But in the last thousand years we have removed eighty-five percent of the photosynthesis on the planet. What is the plan really? Everybody is busy talking about carbon dioxide. I know it is an issue, I'm not saying it's not an issue. That is also a significant issue but if we put fair measuring mechanisms over forty percent of the global warming and climate change is happening because of plowed lands. Fifty-four percent of the earth's land is plowed, seriously plowed. Another eighteen to twenty percent is partially done. So nearly seventy-one percent of the land is under agriculture. This largest piece of geography where men and women are every day tending to it, we can't fix that. But everybody is talking about fixing the ocean, rain forest. Cheese comes from there, but most other people who are living in cities they have never seen what's a rain forest. As far as the rain forest is concerned, if you just stay out of it, it will be doing great. There is no need for anybody to have a project for that. Forest is something that's managed itself for millions of years. It can last for millions of more years. It doesn't need our help, it just needs some respite from us. But agricultural land is part of our nourishment process. It is part of our economic process. And this is where the real problem is and that's not been addressed. This is why the safe soil movement, as I said, sixty-five days, we are on. Another thirty-plus days are there. So we want to get this to four billion people so that every government on the planet responds to this. What is the way out? This will always be the thing. I can leave the, you know, the simple policy we have done. One important thing we need to do with soil is we need to separate soil from the rest of the issues that we are trying to handle. Right now I've looked at the European Common Agricultural Policy. It's too complex. By the time you implement this, there will be debates and debates for another ten to fifteen years' time before actual application comes because this involves major industries, major lobbies in the world. It's not going to work like that. But if you talk about enhancing soil organic content, there is nobody on the planet who is against it. Not fertilizer industries, not pesticide industries. Nobody is against it. Everybody is for it because rich soil is the fundamental of rich life and good life for us. A healthy soil and healthy life are inextricably connected. There is no way about it. This is very simple. This does not need any great amount of technology. This doesn't need any great amount of financial outlays. It just needs that right now we are facing a wall. If we face the door and we are committed to going through the door in the next ten to fifteen years, we can make a significant turnaround. We have prepared 193 soil policy handbooks for 193 different nations considering their latitudinal position, their soil types, their economic conditions and their agricultural traditions because even if you have all the signs, you cannot turn the agricultural traditions around. Overnight it takes a certain amount of time. You have to work with this. These things have been presented to the nations. I addressed COP 15 just last week in Kodi War and the response has been great. Seventy-four nations have signed up for save soil policy right now and it is a way forward. We need all of you to enhance the message. Do not think this is my project. This is not my project. You don't have to talk about me. Talk about soil. Make sure everybody talks about soil because this is where our future is. There are many other issues in the world. I'm not saying they are not important. They are important, but first we have to be alive to handle other issues. If soil starts degenerating right now, twenty-seven thousand species per year are going extinct organisms. It is a slide. It is expected in twenty-five to forty years we will get to a place where even if we want to regenerate the soil we will not be able to do it because that will be the level of biodiversity loss. In my gut feeling, I don't have any signs for this, in my gut feeling, this slide will not remain a slide. At some point it will be a tumble. Before it goes into a tumble we have to push the slide backwards. Otherwise we will be a very regretful generation. So much and without soil we won't have nutritious food. I think even now ninety percent of food has lost its nutrition and I would like before all those hundred-fifty leaders leave this room I would like for them to have almost like a call to action. What can everyone do on an individual basis? Because many of us think our individual actions don't matter and something big has to be done. But as little as for the climate change not leaving your flower on the floor in the hotel and not having a clean towel every day. So maybe about the soil we can also speak what can an individual do on an individual basis? What can we do each one of us to save soil? Say the moment, hello. The moment you say that everybody want to roll up their sleeves and go and fix their kitchen garden. That's very cute. But that is not a solution. We've passed that stage. We've passed that stage where I do something wonderful you do something wonderful and there will be a solution. We have well passed that stage we should have done this in seventies. You can't be talking about this in twenty twenty-two. Let's do something little and be happy. If you're doing this for your personal satisfaction that's different. If you're doing it for a solution right now unless this is enshrined in the policy of the world there will be no solution because you're addressing seventy-one percent of Earth's geography. This is not going to be fixed by me doing something cute in my house and you doing wonderful things. Even if you have ten thousand acres of land if you fix it it's still not a solution because there is no guarantee the next generation will do the same thing for you unless it is made a law. When I say a law see in urban lands there are laws if you have ten thousand square feet of land you cannot build a ten thousand square feet of building. They will allow you to build six, seven, eight thousand square feet but if you have ten thousand square ten thousand acres of land you can plow every inch of it turn it into a desert in ten, fifteen years time nobody will ask you why have you done it should this change or not? Thank you. Helena thank you so much for flying all the way from Ecuador. It's really a pleasure to have you here with the beautiful earrings. I was just checking if she used those feathers to fly here. Beautiful though. Thank you. I know we don't bring enough I mean we're here in Davos and its history has been pretty much people of one color making decisions wouldn't bring enough indigenous people to the table I think it's so important to have people at the table whose lives would decide upon. They're not at the table now so it's a really big pleasure to have you here. I think it's really important also for the audience to know that. For the little girl come on. Yeah, wonderful. Helena and I did use fossil fuels to fly. Well, but we need to hear her voice. Just kidding. She's representing indigenous women I'd like for you to speak about indigenous women in a second about roles you play. I think important for everyone to know and Helena will speak more about it that only one of few groups were able to protect the forest. The indigenous people are one of the few groups that can protect it and Helena's tribe, if that's correct, took the Ecuadorian government to court in 2011 and won that battle. I mean that that's again to win the battle. It's a first of its kind. Could you please tell us a little bit more about it and especially what role the indigenous women play in it? Yeah, of course. Hi everyone. Thank you for being here. It's a pleasure to share this panel with you. I come from a community called Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian rainforest. I grew up there and I also partly grew up in Finland. But when I was the year I was born, which is in 2002 an oil company entered my community without my people's consent. And there was this immediate response to this which was, no, we don't want you here. We had already seen the devastating impacts that the oil industry would have in the Amazon rainforest. What it would do to our health, what it would do to our water. We have really horrible examples of what the oil industry's activities lead to in the Amazon. So we had this very clear idea of we don't want the oil industry here. And this is 20 years ago when no one knew what the Amazon rainforest was basically. There was no media covering this. There were no international NGOs, governments, nothing working in the Amazon or to protect the Amazon. So we were a community of a thousand people facing two of the biggest powers of my country, which is the government and the oil company. My people knocked on every door they could find, which was taking them to a small court in the region. When that didn't work, they didn't accept the case. They took it to the national court. They did not accept the case. And 10 years later, in 2012, we were able to take the Ecuadorian state to international court for violating our human rights and for not respecting our rights to our territory. This was the first one of its kind in not just the Amazon, not just in Ecuador, but in Latin America. So this changed the entire future of indigenous peoples' rights and our right to our territory across Latin America, not just in my country. The indigenous women. And of course, I mean, that is those 10 years. I was really, really young when all of this was happening. I come from a family who's been very involved in this process. My aunt, my mother, my uncles, they've all been leaders in my community. So I was always kind of running around. My mom was a leader at the time. I was someone who would never leave my mom's side. So I was attending all her meetings from the age of four until now, whenever I can. And, you know, yeah, we had a really strong leadership from the women in the community. And the women were actually the first ones to say no. When the proposal of the oil companies came, they were the first one to say, no, we don't want this for our children. We don't want our children bathing in oil. That's what they said. So it's really important to understand this relationship with that women have not only to land, but the entire rainforest, the entire ecosystem. And as you were saying before, we indigenous people, we only make up 5% of the world's population, but we have 80% of the world's biodiversity in our territories. But inside of this statistic, these numbers, those territories are taken care mostly by women. So it's really, really important when we're talking about these things in these spaces that we actually have a gender lens, climate change impacts women more in so many ways. And the violence that comes from the oil companies and the state is always going to affect women more. But women are also the custodians of these lands. And my sister always says this. She says, we have an experience as indigenous people when we're facing extractivism, when we're facing racism. But indigenous women have one specific experience of all of this. And that is something that is really important to be aware of. Thank you. We're protecting all Mother Earth. Thank you. And going back to this landmark victory that we had 10 years ago now, we've been able to see many, many more victories in the Amazon to protect the Amazon rainforest because it created this really important legal president. And now just a year ago, two years ago, we had a really important victory in the equator in Amazon where thousands of hectares of land were protected. And this is because this really, really small community, which I come from, took the state to court and won. So yeah, it's really important. Thank you so much. I'm just being told that the guru has to leave in five minutes already. Dr. Chopra, do you mind if we let the guru speak for five minutes, a few minutes and then... Absolutely. I don't have to say anything. No, we have so many questions. You have to. The whole net is human. Everybody wants to know about it. But yes, then... Because this is about cities, I thought I shouldn't go without saying anything about it. This happened to me. I was to speak in the San Francisco Union Club, San Francisco Club for a group of business people. I was driving about an hour. We were driving an electric car, but I saw both sides of the road were packed with cars. So this person who's a large-scale business there, I asked, what is the problem that people who work... live here, work there, those who live there work here, what is this problem we have? You live in one place, work in the opposite direction, those who live there work in the opposite direction. Why can't we at least rejig this a little bit? So as a part of that, I came up with the concept of one building city that today these proposals are still floating around with the South Indian governments. It should become a reality in the next few years. That is outside the city, go 30, 40, 50 kilometers away from the city, 50-acre land, only one acre you build, you can build 50 to 100 floors if you want. These remaining 49 acres will be completely eco-friendly, enough forest, enough agriculture. If you wish to do, you can grow enough fruits and vegetables that you need for this community. Up to 10,000 people can live in the city. We cap the city as 10,000 is a limit for a city. Don't have to be 10 million. It's such a mess, these 10 million cities. 10,000. The major cities that we have could be slowly converted into really cultural attractions where people can come once in a week, in the weekend or whatever. Whole week you don't have to start your car, completely no wastage going out. We have designed cities like this. I feel this should be the future because if you do not urbanize rural areas, the urban centers are becoming more and more chaotic and senseless and the amount of power and the amount of requirement that is there, the ecological footprint of an urban center is too heavy. This will not happen unless investment shift. Right now the number somebody was telling me here that 72% of the world's investment is in 31 cities on the planet. With this, how do you expect people to be farming in another 30 years? We did a survey in India out of 63% of Indian population which is in farming right now. Not even 2% of the farmers want their children to become farmers. This is where food security problem is. Unless we create urbanized villages, unless we make it attractive for people to live on the land, most people as they get qualified, they will all pile up into the cities. I think this is something we must avoid. Those of you who are looking at the future cities must definitely address this issue. I'm extremely sorry. I'm never known to do this leaving halfway through the meeting. This is not me but I have a tomorrow 11 o'clock, I have a big event in Muscat. I need to be there and I have to fly now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just move closer to you and we'll continue.