Rewilding: ego is the enemy
Having recently moved house, some of my many house plants are struggling in their new space. It's summer, and we're experiencing a heatwave here in Melbourne, which has led to two of our most established plants getting sunburned. A guest over the other day said they've prune all the sunburn away, and my girlfriend agreed. It's ugly, looks unpleasant, I get that. For me, though, there's an assumption that in choosing to prune those leaves at this time of the year we would necessarily be improving the plant by making it look the way we wanted. None of us, in this conversation, are experts on plants, or even know what species the plants we own are. So why do we think we know better? And, more confrontationally: does wanting something to look a certain way lead us to act in the interests of that thing?
I don't think so.
This is a bit of a tough segue, but this discussion brought up some of the things I've been feeling as I've been reading about rewilding (and the irony of this coming from a chat about houseplants is not lost on me)!
I recently borrowed Feral by George Monbiot from the library, which is considered something of a foundational text (and famous in its own circles), and I was really struck by the lack of ego that just permeated the work. As something who thinks a lot about conservation, stewardship and making space for non-human life, I found myself really captivated.
So, if, like me, you've heard of rewilding, but not really delved in, Monbiot offers the following definition:
'Rewilding recognises that nature consists not just of a collection of species, but also of their ever-shifting relationships with each other and with the physical environment. It understands that to keep ecosystem in a state of arrested development, to preserve it as if it were a jar of pickles, is to protect something which bears little relationship to the natural world.' He goes on to add that rewilding is about 'resisting the urge to control nature and allowing it to find its own way'. You can probably see why I was drawn to this!
So often I find myself wishing more people, and more systems, were able to let nature be what it is on its own terms. Improvement without the need for KPIs, management plans or project templates. There's a significant dis-connect, I feel, between the broad aims of deliberately making space for nature (which is beneficial in lots of ways, and can be measured) and the need to own the process and control the journey. The aims are valuable, as is the observation and measurement of change and improvement, but the cloying, immature, anxious, grasping desire to oversee, direct and own every single step along the way is counter-intuitive at best and harmful more often than not. In the case of my house plants, others in my life want them to be beautiful, ignoring that if we let the plants recover on their own time they will once again flourish, ignoring that if we prune and trim until our hearts are content we may actually harm the plant more.
But, ok, let's move away from two house plants because, like I opened with, I loved the call to step outside our egos when thinking about nature: 'Rewilding has no end points, no view about what a 'right' ecosystem or a 'right' assemblage of species looks like. It does not strive to produce a heath, a meadow, a rainforest, a kelp garden or a coral reef. It lets nature decide.' I love that this is a call to put ourselves (humans) anywhere else but first. And where is this more appropriate than Australia? Australia occupies a unique position globally as we have the 3rd largest (Russia and Canada beat us) tracts of wilderness left in the world, along with substantial land that could be easily rewilded, see this map showing thw wilderness here.
Yet, at the same time, we see large pressure from invasive species (that colonisers introduced) that means we cannot rewind the clock and have everything just as it was before the 1700s. As an island, there aren't accessible remnant populations in less developed countries (as in Europe, which relies on Eastern Europe and Scandanavia for remnant populations of predators). Alongside this, Australia has the worst extinction rates in the world, and we are at genuine risk of losing animals that build the ecosystem, especially non-introduced predators (quolls, devils, etc). This places us in a tricky, but hopeful, position: it's not too late, but we need to get a move on. Here's a map showing 19 environments at risk of collapse: this breaks me. I just sit and imagine each one I've been to and what it means for it to be destroyed. How can it not move us to tears?
The image below it showcases some of the species in (and around) Australia currently being protected (largely) by NGOs. While you may not recognise many of the species, just have a look at the koala. That's not a sub-species - that's the main species. What could be more saddening than an Australia without koalas?
Back to Feral: the broad pattern that Monbiot traces is that if we make space for animals that potentially disrupt humans (especially farmers) we see noticeable improved health in ecosystems which, in turn, benefits us tremendously. I think he does a great job of constantly advocating for the need for high-yield agriculture while identifying specific examples of spaces that can be rewilded. In Australia, I think that there are no shortage of former farms, logged woodland, suburban fringes and, the largest opportunity, ocean spaces, that we could kick start then leave alone. I've been interested to read about kelp forests, oyster reefs and re-introduction programs and can't help but feel hope for these projects. I hope they succeed and continue to grow. There's also a tremendous opportunity in Australia to give power and resources to Indigenous Australians to manage larger swathes of land and rebuild what people like me have destroyed. Humans can play a vital role in seconding space and kick starting the process, then stepping away and letting nature do its thing.
Alongside this, something I keep thinking about is how we, as a global society, could place value on stewardship and "unused" land. A forest, clearly, has a value to the world, so does a reef, so does a grassland. Mitigating climate change, disease, clean air, water, biodiversity, forest bathing, tourism, national selfhood, etc. Wilderness, nature, the environment provide so much materially, psychologically and spiritually, but currently a forest, a thriving reef, a grassland are best understood as an under-used asset. A space not yet open for tourists, a collection of resources we haven't yet extracted, a flat space just waiting for a new housing development. So how can we get to a place where the inherent value of just leaving spaces alone can be advocated for? I feel this is an important (but not necessarily insurmountable) challenge.
When I talk or write about nature, or spend time outdoors, inevitably I start thinking about the bigger issues: climate change and biodiversity loss. I get so worked up about the ineptitude of my country in responding to these things, the deliberate blocking of progress from conservative politicians, the harmful lackadaisical attitude that just seeps into Australia that 'she'll be right'. The passive preference for the status quo: the big ute, the huge house, the ever-expanding road, more mining jobs for entitled high school drop outs, handouts for loggers, handouts for farmers, aggressive Murdoch sponsored anti-greenie sentiment. All us, no them. All now, no tomorrow. All the easy life, none of the good life. Convenience and thoughtlessness first, no matter the cost. Take on no challenges, accept no hard truths, love it or leave it.
Like a lot of people, this shitty cocktail makes me spiral. I found this sentiment summarised really well in Feral. Monbiot is describing who the book is for, he suggests: 'if sometimes you feel that you are scratching at the walls of this life, hoping to find a way into a wider space than this book may be for you'. That's me, in my own small ways, I think that's a lot of people faced by environmental news: how the fuck do we break free? Yet, when I'm on a bushwalk, in a wild space, when I'm away from it all, whether that's in the local park, or somewhere much further away, all that shit melts away a little. Things, the world, everything just feels complete and whole. Nothing is as perfect as walking and seeing the world lit up beautifully by the sun. It feels so simple (but not easy) to say 'more of this, thanks'.
Look, this is long already and, if you're like me, most long newsletters you never finish. So I want to finish with two points from the book (and one from me!), just because they're good ones:
Landscapes that look great are often dead. In describing the rolling hills of sheep farms, Monbiot writes that: 'the land had been flayed. The fur had been peeled off, and every contoured muscle and nub of bone was exposed. Some people claim to love this landscape. I find it dismal, dismaying.' Consider that next time you find yourself looking at barren hills of rolling short grass: what space and life is there for animals and plants? Where are the trees, bushes, birds, and insects? Neatness is not natural.
We fear, in this country, many animals. We fear spiders, snakes, sharks, crocodiles. Farmers fear eagles, foxes, mice, dingoes, 'wild dogs' (dingoes you can legally kill). Yet our expectation that, say, Africans won't allow poachers or the Japanese shouldn't hunt whales, or that Indians should look after Tigers is a bald face double standard. I was electrified by this line: 'We expect the people of other countries to conserve far more dangerous animals (than wolves): lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, hippos, crocodiles and Cape buffalo, for example. Are dangerous (or in this case not very dangerous) wild animals something we choose to impose on other people, but not upon ourselves?'
This energy, this topic, this is what motivates me to make art. When I have the camera in my hand and I'm out looking, finding stuff, researching, meeting people, trying to visually connect history, present, animals, plants, us, this is what I'm thinking about - why aren't we making space for everything else? How much more meaning is there in enabling other species to flourish than just killing everything else on the planet?
Read the book, support charities if you can (email me if you'd like some suggestions), keep the hope alive: leave room for everything else.
Feel free to reply if you'd like to keep the conversation going :)
Also: here's some new stuff I worked on this week
I wrote a review about Chloe Dewe Mathews' River Thames.
My publishing company Tall Poppy Press announced our next book (or two by the time you're reading this) for the year, this is a new business and a fun one :)
I have an upcoming exhibition at Manningham Art Gallery, opening on the 27th of January, will include more information next week :)
Matt