Whoever travels without meeting the other does not travel, but merely moves: that phrase of Alexandra David-Néel opens a work in which the other is one of the cardinal points, alongside the relation of mutual assistance and respectful coexistence that native peoples have established with the earth.

Since his earlier work his approach has been marked by an intimate connection with the natural world and by an ethical, denunciatory drive. In this new undertaking, made in the Seychelles, far from the chaos of a predatory and endlessly conflicted west, he found what he was looking for.