“The tilt towards a new balance is coming”

“Twice a month, I lie down in a dune tray for two hours. Minimal. I live peak experiences, reference moments. I am concerned with the interaction between nature and myself. Thanks to this connection, I achieve better natural contacts with the people around me.

“I wasn’t always like that. I have a business economist background. I worked in the financial sector, busy with business takeovers. I was ambitious, I wanted to make a lot of money, a big detached house, a luxury vacation. I thought it would make me happy, but it turned out that it wasn’t. I left behind such a stressful, money-driven life.

“At the start of 2019, we took a family trip around the world. Our boys were three and six years old. This trip was a turning point in my life. After this trip, I quit the bank where I worked.

effort]

Last name: Jasper Bertels (43)

Works: as a financial specialist for Commonland, a foundation dedicated to landscape restoration

Want to: Developing nature, for and with new generations

“In New Zealand, we took a trip to the Franz Josef Glacier. Along the way, we came across a beacon, in an arid and stony landscape: “Seventeen years ago, the ice came here. Now it was another hour walk to the glacier. At such a time, it hits you hard what is causing climate change.

“Back in the Netherlands, I found a job in a foundation that works worldwide on large-scale nature restoration, in combination with economic and social development. These are long-term, one-generation projects. Funding is a bottleneck here. Most investors want to see financial returns faster, and preferably as high as possible. I am working to develop new ways to finance the restoration of these landscapes.

“We live in a time of drastic changes: in energy and raw materials, agriculture and food production, climate and biodiversity. The shift to a new balance, with sustainable production and consumption patterns, is imminent. Studies indicate that systems change when about 20-30% of people want them to be different. We are now somewhere between 10 and 20%, I think. I think we will have reached the critical threshold before 2030. I want to contribute to this coverage.

“Anyone living today bears the responsibility for the legacy of seven generations of descendants. This rule of life is found in the native tribes. You also come to such insight when you live close to nature.

“My motivation is to pass on a more beautiful world to our children and grandchildren. I want to do that in my personal life too. I would like to create a beautiful nature reserve. Something like a food forest, with sustainable forms of recreation. And then working with my children to achieve this, with our boots in the clay: to live with your head, your heart and your hands.

“It would be nice to find this land in the Netherlands. This can also be done abroad. In any case, I think it would be a great experience to get away from the rushed Dutch society for a while – to live more slowly and closer to nature.

“I hope that I can make my children experience earlier what I have only discovered in recent years. That is to say: live more from your intuition and less from your head.

“When you relax in nature and stop reasoning everything, your brain slows down. Then you get rid of an overstimulated survivalfashion. Then you become free from the compulsion to control. You access your subconscious. You will see and feel more and more. All of your senses are suddenly activated.

“That’s what I take away from nature when I’ve been there alone for a while: spending the night in the great outdoors, lying on a surfboard in the sea for hours, skiing and hiking in the mountains.

“It makes me feel insignificant, which makes me more connected to this world and the people around me. Then I have a clear vision of what I want to live for.