A message for a divided world

One of the great challenges facing human beings is how to live in harmony with one another, and with other living things.

Humans exhibit love, compassion, loyalty and the other emotions that make possible living together in all manner of social groups, even nations. But we are just as (some might say, more) capable of deploying negative emotions, including fear, hatred, intolerance and prejudice, that set individuals, families, communities, tribes and nations against one another.

If history and the daily news are any guide, division is humanity’s default condition. ‘Us-and- them’ rather than ‘us-together’ competes strongly to be our species’ dominant mode of thinking, feeling and behaving. As Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese said in reflecting on the compounded impact of recent knife attacks in Sydney, “You can’t take community cohesion for granted”.

Divisiveness and division may be a by-product of human evolution. In the interest of individual and species survival, we may have been genetically programmed to affiliate exclusively and tenaciously with the people we depend on and who ‘belong’ to us – family, kin, friends, and ‘tribe’ – and to avoid, suspect, reject and destroy those who are different from us and thus could be competitors, threats or enemies.

The irony is that despite the divided fabric of humanity, every person is connected to every other person and indeed to every other thing in the Universe. We are united in a web of interconnectedness that spans all of time and space.

Contrary as this may seem to our observations, understandings and intuitions, it is scientific fact.

Our familiar, day-to-day world appears to us to consist of countless separate objects, including ourselves. That is the ‘real’ world as we observe it. But this is just one version of reality – the world of ‘big’ things. Every big thing is made up of smaller things. Until the 20^th century, atoms were believed to be the smallest of these things. But now atoms are known to comprise protons, neutrons and electrons, with the protons and neutrons consisting of even smaller particles – quarks.

Along with electrons, quarks are the smallest particles we know.

So, is this the final answer to the age-old question: What are the fundamental building blocks from which we and everything else in the Universe are made?

Well, not quite. As Cambridge Professor David Tong explains in a fascinating Royal Institution lecture, the fundamental building blocks of all things are not particles, but invisible, fluid-like substances that ripple, sway and interact with one another throughout the entire universe. Physicists call these substances, fields. All the quarks and electrons in you and me belong to one or other of these fields. This means that all your electrons are my electrons; all your quarks are my quarks; all your electrons and quarks are the electrons and quarks of your pet cat, the pot plant on your balcony and the moon, and so on.

Even though the world of electron and quarks – the quantum fields – is difficult for everyone (including the brightest scientists) to make sense of, physicists can describe it in great detail and make predictions about it with astonishing accuracy. According to David Tong, the theory physicists now have of quantum fields allows them to predict the result of EVERY scientific observation that has been made and every scientific experiment that has ever been conducted. It is, as he puts it: ‘The theory of everything (so far)’.

The discovery of quantum fields reveals something profoundly important and inspiring about human existence. It tells us that it is an existence we share with every other living and non-living thing. The belief that we are all connected with one another, and with nature is not simply a nice idea dreamed up by poets, philosophers, theologians and mystics. It is literally true.

What this truth means is that, at the foundation of our being, I am you and you are me. We are more than relatives or kin; we are one and the same. We are OF one another, and we are OF everything else on Earth and in the Universe. Indeed, we are of the Universe itself.

The poet John Donne partially captures this reality is his famous lines:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent, 

A part of the main.

The creation stories of Australia’s First Nations people, also acknowledge the unity of humanity with itself and all other living and non-living things. For Australia’s first peoples, they are the country of their origins in a literal, organic as well as symbolic sense.

Time in nature helps me to get my mind around this awesome truth and to make it ‘real’ in my life. Looking at plants, shrubs and trees, for example, can remind me that the oxygen I inhale with every breath comes from some form of green vegetation. It may be coming from the nearby bushes and trees. It may have come from vegetation thousands of kilometres away. It may have come from plants that existed millions of years ago. Or it may have come from single-celled creatures called cyanobacteria, that lived billions of years ago and were the source of the oxygen that made life possible.  

Plants are our ‘breathing partners’ because their green colouring is produced by tiny structures called chloroplasts. These structures are the homes of the descendants of cyanobacteria.

I am also helped to grasp and appreciate the truth of my universal interconnectedness when I see the streaks of rust decorating the sandstone rocks I usually encounter on my nature walks. This rust contains the same iron that, as haemoglobin, is transporting oxygen through my body. This iron was produced in the cataclysmic death of stars billions of years ago reminding me that the connectedness of all things spans time as well as space.

In my book, Connect with Nature, I tell of an experience of awe I had on a trek in the Himalaya of Nepal. The experience was one of transcendence that gave me ‘a sense of oneness with the universe’. Combining an experiences like this with an awareness of my quantum-level connection with everything else persuades me that every human life is a cosmic relationship. As such, it has an identity, significance and value that endure, regardless of how lovingly, hurtfully or otherwise people may choose to relate to one another.  

Do I think that learning about quantum-level interconnectedness could purge the humanity of divisiveness? No. But I believe that learning about it and also experiencing it intuitively and emotionally in nature could be a pathway to a more harmonious planet.

Making good experiences even better

How good are you at making the most of those events in life that trigger ‘feel-good’ emotions such as joy, gratitude, contentment, awe and inspiration?  When you are looking at natural scenes or objects like the ones in the photos, for example, do you ever do anything to increase the emotional impact of the experience?

These may strike you as odd questions, especially if you think that emotions, both positive and negative, are reactions to what happens to us. If someone pays you a compliment, for example, it may seem obvious that you ‘automatically’ react with feelings of pleasure and pride. In the same way, it may seem that the fear you feel when accosted by a snarling dog is a direct reaction to the dog’s behaviour.

But emotions are not hard-wired, automatic or direct reactions. When bad events occur, people do not automatically feel negative emotions and, conversely, good events do not automatically trigger positive emotions. Emotions do not arise from events as they are but as they appear to be to our brains. 

It may seem that what we experience moment-by-moment is the ‘real’ world, the world that is. But what science has discovered is that our brains work on the basis of what they expect or predict the world to be – their version or interpretation of the world. They work this way because they cannot process all the information they receive (11 million bits every second). To avoid being overwhelmed, they make ‘guesses’ about what is happening in the external world. The guesses take the form of expectation and predictions based on models our brains have distilled from past experience. By selecting the models which seem to fit the information that can be processed our brains create their versions of the world. The fit may or may not be a good one, but the versions our brains create are THE world as far as our brains are concerned.

What this means is that the world you are navigating moment-by-moment is one created by your brain and is, therefore, uniquely yours. It may be a world that others appear to share, but that is an illusion. 

It also means that our emotions are not responses to actual events or situations but to our brains’ reading of those events and situations.  So, by giving ourselves experiences that change the mental models our brains use to fashion our expectations and prediction about the world, we can change and regulate our emotions. If you have overcome a fear of water, for example, by gradually extending your water activities, you have applied this principle.

What works for negative emotions, such as fear, works also for positive emotions. We can enhance the joy, gratitude, interest and inspiration, for example we get from situations, including situations that already evoke positive emotions. We can make ‘good’ experiences even better.

A way of doing this is by savouring, a process developed by Professor Paul Bryant. Savouring is attending to, appreciating and enhancing positive experiences. A person savouring a piece of quality chocolate, for example, might roll the piece around in their mouth consciously sensing the different flavours and textures of the chocolate and the filling. They might focus on the feelings they are having – joy, contentment and gratitude, for example. They might break up the piece so that can extend the experience. And they might share their thoughts and feelings about the chocolate with someone else.

In contrast, another person might pop the whole piece into their mouth, give it a quick taste and swallow it. This would not be savouring. Savouring focuses and dwells on the positive feelings that flow from an event as well as the event itself. It also involves strategies that intensify and prolong the experience.  Savouring “involves not just the awareness of pleasure, but also a conscious attention to the experience of pleasure”.

Savouring increases enjoyment of life. It places us in charge of our own happiness, and it can be applied to almost any positive experience – present, past (as captured in a memory or reminiscences) or future (as anticipated or imagined).  

The benefits of savouring have been extensively researched and include:

• promoting happiness
  • reducing the symptoms of depression and anxiety
  • buffering stress
  • reducing the risk of mental health disorders including suicidal ideation
  • controlling pain

Savouring delivers its benefits by changing our brains. It is known to do this in two ways. First, it strengthens our brains’ capacity to produce positive emotions. This is important because evolution has given us brains that are more attentive and responsive to negative events.  It is said that it takes five positive experiences to match the impact of one negative one.

Second, by enriching positive emotions, savouring creates conditions in our brains that lead to sensory, mental and emotional growth. Barbara Fredrickson, a stellar figure in the study of emotions, has conducted many studies showing that positive emotions broaden our sensory, cognitive and social awareness. By fostering curiosity, learning and social engagement, this opening up to world promotes the building of personal resources for survival, happiness and well-being. Having regular doses of positive emotions also increase the odds of having more of the same, thus setting off an upward spiral of broadening and building.

Savouring is easy to learn. It is a matter of following simple guidelines that apply to virtually all positive emotional experiences. But in the outline below, I describe them with nature experiences in mind.

• Start by choosing a nature activity to savour. It is important to choose an activity that attracts and appeals to you and is suited to your needs and circumstances. As nature in some form is virtually everywhere, the activity can be at home, in the neighbourhood or further afield. Chapters 2 and 3 of my book Connect with Nature make choosing a nature activity very easy.
• Whatever the activity, it is important to approach it with the intention of savouring.
• If necessary, calm, declutter and focus your mind in preparation for the experience, by following the SOTI procedure described in my previous post, for example.
• Dwell in the experience. Give yourself time to pay full attention to the natural setting or features that have triggered your positive emotions and to the emotions themselves. Stop or slow you pace occasionally on a nature walk, for example. 
• Open your senses. Take time to cycle through each of your senses, spending several minutes noticing what comes up with each sense: what you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. How many different sounds can you hear? What’s the most distant sound you can perceive? Notice the different visual patterns, shapes, shadows, and colours. Notice what moves and what doesn’t. What does the tree bark smell like? How many different scents can you notice? What does the grass taste like? Take off your shoes and feel the sensation of the bare earth or grass beneath you. Explore the details of the setting or feature that is triggering your emotions. Go with any desire to focus you senses more intently on these details.
• Be aware of your feelings. Label and describe them in ways that are meaningful and helpful to you. Notice how they are playing out in your body: Are they making you feel happier, less tense or thankful? Express them in word and/or action if you desire. Be especially conscious of feelings of joy, wonder, awe, curiosity and openness to other people.    
• Stay with your feelings. Don’t be in a hurry to turn them off by changing focus mentally or moving on physically. Stay focussed on them for as long as it feels good to do so. Gently acknowledge and set aside any distracting thoughts (as when meditating).
• Connect your feelings with the feature or setting. Ask what is the source or trigger of the feelings you are having?
• Make a record of the feature or setting. Close your eyes and make a mental image of it, for example. Take a photo or make an audiovisual recording. Make a drawing or rehearse some thoughts to be written up later.
• Share the experience. The emotions generated by a nature experience can be intensified by sharing the experience with others. This can help preserve the freshness of the experience and consolidate memories of it. Such sharing also promotes feelings of camaraderie and connection.  
• Keep savouring enjoyable. Never let it become a should-, ought- or must-do activity. And don’t expect enduring benefits to come rapidly (short-term benefits, yes). Remember that these enduring benefit accrue incrementally. So, helping yourself to frequent, quality doses of savouring is the way to go.

Helen Keller was a world renowned author and political activist who lost her vision and hearing in early childhood. Despite her disabilities, Keller was able to take in the phenomena and beauty around her.

In one of her essays, she lamented that “those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation”. 

She added:

Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a very long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. ‘Nothing in particular’, she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.

Boosting the benefits of a walk in nature

During the last three months, I have been assisting Bushwalking NSW (BWNSW) develop a leadership training course (Bushwalking’ is an Australian version of walking in nature). My brief was to provide content for the course that would enable bushwalking club leaders boost the mental health benefits they and their companions derive from bushwalking.

The move by BWNSW to increase access to the mental health and well-being benefits of bushwalking is largely driven by:

• the strong medical evidence that walking in nature relieves psychological distress, promotes mental health and reduces the risk of mental disorders
• the alarming incidence of mental disorders, especially depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, in the NSW population (as in many Western societies)
• the emerging recognition that organisations, such as bushwalking clubs, whose activities connect people with nature are capable of providing a valuable, cheap and accessible mental health service.

The mental well-being benefits of bushwalking include:

• mood lifting emotions, especially the ‘beauty buzz’ (aesthetic pleasure) and awe
• relief from depression and anxiety  
• reduced stress
• recovery from mental fatigue
• strengthened resilience  
• enhanced social connections
• lowered susceptibility to (unhealthy) ruminative thinking.

Impressive as the list is, it is NOT telling us what a bushwalk WILL do for our mental well-being, only what it CAN or MAY do. But the evidence leaves no doubt that walking in nature is USUALLY a beneficial thing to do.

There is also evidence that the beneficial impact of bushwalking can be increased by adopting simple practices that enhance nature’s sensory and emotional impact.

The basic of these practices involves stopping or walking slowly from time-to-time during a walk to focus your attention mindfully on the sights, sounds, textures, odours and textures of the natural features around you.

This practice requires no special skill or knowledge to implement. You can manage it yourself and easily make a conventional bushwalk into a ‘noticing nature walk’.

Just follow these simple guidelines.

1. Approach the walk with the intention of engaging with nature; of making ‘being there’ an objective along with getting there’.
2. There are no strict rules about when and where stopping and/or slower walking should take place; it could be:
   • scheduled e.g., every hour or every rest break.
   • prompted by a natural feature or scene – a bush clearing, an inviting log or rock to sit on, a panoramic view, the bank of a creek, a patch of wildflowers.
   • done spontaneously / on a whim.
   • If you are walking with companions, keep conversation to a minimum during the times set aside for noticing nature. But if you and your companions want to talk about the thoughts and feelings you have while ‘noticing nature’, do so. Such sharing can enrich the experience and deepen relationships.
   • To focus attention mindfully, tune your senses, one at a time, into your surroundings; vision or hearing are good ones to start. Engage in some sensory ‘exploration’, looking more closely at a particular feature, for example, or lying down to watch the movement of leaves. 

Click on this link to watch a trained ‘forest bathing’ guide mindfully engaging with nature.  

Not all bushwalks lend themselves to noticing nature practices. Those that do:

• accommodate 30-60 minutes of stopping and/or slow walking. (Note: beyond one to two hours, the mental well-being gains from noticing nature practices tend to diminish).
• involve a small number (fewer than 10) of like-minded people.
• are undertaken in comfortable weather conditions.
• are in attractive natural settings with few or no intrusions from human made sounds

Consider starting a nature engagement walk, with a ‘switching off-tuning in’ (SOTI) exercise. This is an exercise that will help you switch your mind from the ‘busyness’ of ordinary life and turn your attention to the natural environment you are about to visit.

• A SOTI exercise can be as simple as setting aside a couple of minutes at the start of the walk for a relaxation exercise, such as focussing on breathing with eyes closed (if it is safe to do so), followed by another couple of minutes just looking at and listening to the surrounding bushland.
• A SOTI activity is best done on level ground where it is comfortable to stand.

These guidelines can be applied, totally or in part, to walks in urban nature (parks and gardens) as well as to bushwalks.

The new BWNSW leadership training course incorporates these guidelines.  They are there, along with guidelines for increasing bushwalking’s impact on mental resilience and social relationships.

If you are seeking a deeper connection with nature and you have found this post helpful, I would appreciate hearing from you. There is another practical aspect of engagement with nature – to do with emotions – that has a very strong bearing on mental well-being. Your feedback will help me decide whether to discuss this topic in a future post.   You can leave a comment on this site or go to the contact page on the website of my book, Connect with Nature to send me an email.

What is a tree to you – an ‘it’ or a ‘you’?

I was delighted to discover that not far from my suburban home there is a healthy colony of koalas, the cuddly marsupials that are among Australia’s most photogenic but endangered animals. This image of a mother koala and her young was taken by the renowned nature photographer and author, Joel Sartore.

Joel Sartore has set out to photograph every species of animal currently housed in the world’s zoos. With portraits of over 10,000 species already taken, he is well on the way to completing his 25-year project, Photo Ark. His driving quest is to create a photo archive of global diversity with the hope that his portraits will stir in people a deep empathy with animals and an active desire to protect them from extinction.

He is undertaking the project against the background of the calamitous species loss almost everywhere on Earth. It has been estimated that unless massive remedial action is taken, half the animal species currently inhabiting the planet, including koalas, will be gone by the end of the century.

Sartore’s portraits are both beautiful and moving. He tries to take his shots with the animal looking directly into the lens, so creating the impression that the animal is making eye contact and forming a connection with the viewer.

While we are genetically programmed to pay attention to animals, we are more attracted to, and more empathic with, species that have similar features and/or behaviours to us (the ‘similarity principle’).

There are many physical and behavioural differences separating our species from others, but the main features of the human face (especially the eyes) have their counterparts in mammals, birds and other members of the animal kingdom. By focussing on the faces of his animal subjects, Sartore is making use of the similarity principle.

There is still much to learn about the specific attributes that attract us to animals. Beautiful form, colour and movement are obvious candidates. Superior size, strength and physical skill relative to ourselves are others. But arguably the strongest candidates are those features that contribute to the ‘cuteness’ factor.

Cuteness is thought to be bound up with the ‘baby schema’, a set of features including large head, round face, high forehead, large eyes and small nose and mouth. In combination, these features automatically trigger bonding, nurturing, protective and empathic behaviour in both adults and children. Animals displaying these features, are the ones most likely to be patted, cuddled, protected and chosen as pets.

To be a member of a popular species is to be a ‘charismatic’ animal and more likely to receive favourable attention and conservation funding. As my blogging colleague, Josh Goss, remarked in one of his recent posts, this is not a bad thing even though some of the most charismatic animals are apex predators and potentially dangerous to humans, wolves and bears for example. Such predators typically play a vital role in their ecosystems. For that reason alone, protecting them makes good ecological sense.   

But ‘uncharismatic’ creatures warrant our protection just as much, says Josh, because they are also integral to the well-being of their ecosystems. In his post, Josh refers to a bill, currently before the United States legislature, that would explicitly protect certain ugly and uncharismatic species, including the mucous covered hellbender salamander or ‘snot otter’ (pictured).     

It is telling that laws need to be passed to protect species from the potential shallowness of human regard. The grim fact is that we humans struggle to see other species as beings – as alive as we are, occupying an integral place in the web of life as we do, capable of relationships as we are, and linked, like us, with every other life form in one unfolding whole.    

When another creature is regarded as a being, we relate to it as we would to another person, or as a ‘you’. We embrace the creature in ‘I-you’ terms, much as we would a friend or a pet, for example. In contrast, if the creature is viewed as an object, we are relating to it as an ‘it’. Instead of a personal ‘I-you’ bond, we have an impersonal ‘I-it’ connection of the kind we might have with material objects in our environment. The sad history of humanity’s devastating impact on the natural world signals that humans commonly and inappropriately relate to other life forms as objects rather than beings.

The distinction between the I-it and I-you (or thou) modes of connection with others was first proposed by the Jewish theologian/philosopher, Martin Buber (1878-1965). In the I-it mode, says Buber, we experience the other but in the I-you mode we have an encounter. In experience, the ‘other’ is viewed as a thing or object to be used, known or put to some purpose. We see it as a collection of impersonal qualities and quantities. But in encounter, we form a relationship with the ‘other’. We join with the other; we give to the other; we share with the other; we feel with the other; we participate with the other; we value and respect the other. 

Buber proposes that many of the problems, crises and dysfunctional situations facing humanity today arise because I-it connections (experience) are dominating or excluding more valid or appropriate I-you relationships (encounter). I-it connections are not necessarily or intrinsically bad, far from it. They are vital to our survival as human beings. Through them we learn how the world works and how we can make it work better for us. But as Buber observed, I-it modes of connecting dominate and undermine the quality of modern life. We live in a world of its, he says, where it is easy to feel alienated and lonely and where our well-being is jeopardised.

The dominance of I-it connections is also detrimental to the well-being of other creatures. According to the similarity principle, we are more likely to have an I-you relationship with a (charismatic) koala and an I-it engagement with an (uncharismatic) hellbender salamander. It is a safe bet, then, that the plight of the koala (facing extinction) is more likely to attract conservation resources and efforts than the hellbender salamander (endangered in some regions).   

An aim of my book Connect with Nature is to motivate and assist people to form an I-you relationship with the natural world’s plants, animals and other life forms. Such a relationship is best formed by spending time in nature in ways that suit our individual needs, capabilities and circumstances. The book shows that there are ways of doing this for virtually everyone and that having I-you rather than I-it relationships with our fellow creatures and the environments they inhabit is enormously beneficial for them and us alike.

I am confident that Peter Wohlleben, forest ecologist and author of The Hidden Life of Trees has an I-you connection with nature. He does not relate to trees as inanimate ‘its’. He is convinced by a wealth of scientific evidence that trees are ‘living beings’ that ‘feel’, remember, communicate, co-operate and form nurturing communities. In these very important ways, trees are like us. He acknowledges that it is much easier for most of us to see animals as beings rather than objects. The ‘aliveness’ of animals is readily observed. But as Wohlleben reveals trees and indeed all plants (and fungi) have ‘hidden lives’ that are every bit as vital as our own.  

What is it about trees?

The largest and oldest living things are trees. The ecosystems made possible by trees are among the most diverse and important on the planet. Even a single tree can be an ecosystem, a home to birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, other plants, lichen and fungi.Trees also create some of nature’s most beautiful, awesome and restorative places.

But humanity’s indebtedness to trees goes way beyond the powerful and beneficial emotional experiences they provide. Our survival depends on them. Trees liberate the oxygen we breathe and play a vital role in the Earth’s water recycling system. Much of the water vapour in the Earth’s atmosphere comes from forests. Apart from supporting rainfall locally, forests also contribute massively to the ‘rivers in the sky’ that stream water vapour around the planet. And trees are, of course, crucial to the mitigation of climate change. Approximately 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, one-third of the CO₂ released from burning fossil fuels, is absorbed by forests every year.

We need trees, not only in vast tracts like the Amazon Jungle, but also in our neighbourhoods and our day-to-day lives. Trees promote health and losing them can be deadly. 

Meet a killer, the Emerald Ash Borer. This highly destructive forest pest has killed more than 100 million trees since it was first detected in the USA in 2002. In the 20 years since its appearance, the borer has made its way across numerous US states destroying both urban and forest trees. Once leafy neighbourhoods were left denuded of their trees.

This invasion created the conditions for a natural experiment to assess the impact of tree loss on people’s health. A team of researchers led by Dr Geoffrey Donovan, gathered health data from residents in 15 states before and after the destructive passage of the borer. After controlling for other determinants of health and illness, such as socio-economic status and level of education, the researchers found that the destruction caused by the borer increased death rates – 6,113 additional deaths related to respiratory illness and 15,080 additional cardiovascular-related deaths.

Just how trees protect cardiovascular and respiratory health is not clear. But there is no shortage of plausible explanations including by reducing stress, improving air quality, fostering physical activity and cooling the environment.  

Professor Roger Ulrich, a leading authority on the greening of health facilities, believes that stress reduction is a major factor. During his adolescence, Ulrich suffered from kidney disease. He spent many months at home in bed looking out of a window at a big pine tree. “I think seeing that tree helped my emotional state”, he later recalled. As a researcher later in life, Ulrich demonstrated that a view of trees reduced surgical patients’ time in hospital, their need for painkillers and setbacks to recovery. Subsequent research supports his view that the view of trees accelerated recovery by reducing stress.

Since Ulrich’s pioneering work, which began over 40 years ago, evidence of the healing and health promoting power of trees, and especially ‘communities’ of trees (forests), has proliferated. The practice of spending time among trees, ‘forest bathing’ or shinrin-yoku as it is called in Japan, is gradually becoming a mainstream therapy and a recognised adjunct to a healthy lifestyle. In addition to the mechanisms mentioned earlier, the health benefits of being in forests may stem from beneficial chemicals (phytoncides) that are liberated by many species of trees. Some of these chemicals stimulate immune functioning.

Like the young Roger Ulrich, the Australian radio presenter, Indira Naidoo, also found solace in the companionship of a tree. The suicide of a younger sister left Indira stricken with grief and guilt. In the early days of her anguish, she set out on a walk that took her to a strip of parkland bordering the Sydney Botanic Gardens and overlooking Sydney Harbour. As she occupied this iconic space, she found her senses tuning into the sounds of the trees and their embracing presence.

Pausing to dwell in the quiet of the place, she became aware that she was under the canopy of a massive Moreton Bay Fig tree. The many sturdy limbs of the tree are clothed in waxy deep green leaves. Its prominent surface roots looked to Indira like the “claws of a giant slumbering dinosaur”.

As she marvelled in the tree’s durability and steadfastness, Indira suddenly became aware of the significance of the encounter. She realised that she was where she was meant to be – in the protective shade of her ancestral home.  “Trees were our first refuge from danger”, she reminds us. “They were where we sought safety from predators and the elements”.        

Indira also reminds us of our deep affinity with trees.

We are earthly cousins this tree and I. We may be arranged a little differently, but we are composed of the same molecular elements: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, metals and minerals. Its branches are my limbs, its bark my skin, its sap my blood. We resuscitate each other with the gift of our breath. I supply its carbon dioxide; it gives me my oxygen. Can two beings be in deeper symbiosis?

Hugging a tree may not be such an odd thing to do after all.

For like us, trees are social beings. They have vibrant social networks that operate on one basic principle, harmony. These networks are sustained by communication or ‘talk’ as Professor Suzanne Simard, a world authority on forest ecology likes to say. Some of this talk is above ground, mainly via chemicals. When some species of trees are attacked by insects, for example, they release volatile chemicals that spur neighbouring trees to take steps to protect themselves – by adding toxins to their leaves or sending out pheromones to attract predators to deal with the attackers.

But trees mainly communicate underground via their roots and fungi. While mushrooms and toadstools are the familiar parts of fungi, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads called mycelia. Under a forest floor there could be several hundreds of kilometres of mycelia right beneath your feet. These fibres and tree roots exchange nutrients, phosphorous and nitrogen from the fungi and sugars from the trees. The fibres act as a kind of underground internet, the ‘wood wide web’ linking trees and plants of different as well as the same species.   

Old tree

Trees use the wood wide web to look after one another. Professor Simard has discovered, for example, that nutrient rich trees can share some of their abundance with trees that are ill or struggling. She has also found that in some forest there are ‘mother trees’ that use their extensive fungal networks to deliver nutrients and water to young offspring.

Forest scientist Peter Wohlleben believes that living in a forest community makes it possible for trees to survive to a great age. Forests themselves create optimal growing conditions – a consistent local climate, an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water and generates a great deal of humidity. Also in forests, the reduced light forces younger trees to grow slowly and slow growth makes them stronger and better able to stay healthy.

Is there a lesson in the ‘altruism’ of trees for how human can live? I believe so and it is simply that an essential way to achieve our own health and well-being is take great care of our communities – by helping one another, in other words. Individuality, independence and self reliance are all very well, but in the final analysis, we cannot manage life and living on our own. We humans evolved to be sociable (or disposed to care for one another) for very good reasons – survival and optimal individual and collective well-being.    

Yes, trekking CAN make the world a better place

Commenting on my last blog post about trekking and grief, Monsoonwendy, wrote: “The world would be a better place if more of us trekked”. As Monsoonwendy’s life, especially as an artist and humanitarian, has been greatly influenced by trekking, you might well suspect that hers is a biased and starry-eyed view. But her perspective is widely shared and supported by research.

Basically, a trek is a long (ish), typically demanding, journey mainly on foot. But treks vary enormously in all manner of ways: duration, distance, number of companions, types of terrain visited, landscape features, wildlife encountered, cultural contacts, unanticipated happenings and physical demands.

People’s trekking experiences also vary widely depending on the nature of the trek itself and the characteristics and capabilities of the trekker, such as their level of fitness, state of physical and mental health, attitudes, values, expectations, and openness to experience. People who are already deeply nature connected, for example, tend to benefit most from nature experiences including trekking. But, in my experience (including as an honorary trek leader for a commercial trekking company), trekking has something of value for almost everyone, even those who find themselves seriously physically and mentally challenged by the activity. 

My own trekking has varied from a relatively easy four-day walk across farmland in the North Island of New Zealand, with nights spent in farmhouses, to 28-days of demanding walking, much of it at high altitude, in the Annapurna region of Central Nepal. A memorable variation on the theme was a six-day camel trek in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, sleeping in swags under the stars with days spent alternately walking and riding a camel.

Monsoonwendy’s trekking, like mine (and Rosie Batty’s, as described in my previous post), has been in natural regions of spectacular scenic beauty, wonder and diversity. This is the kind of trekking that she believes makes the world a better place. It can be physically and mentally challenging, for sure, but this is a big factor in making trekking so beneficial.   

In what ways does trekking in nature’s grand places makes the world a better place? My answer to this question is based on research as well as experience.

Trekking makes us healthier and fitter

Health and fitness are resources for life. The stronger they are the better equipped we are to cope with the demands of daily life and to have reserves of energy to invest in promoting the ‘greater good’.

Trekking improves aerobic fitness, muscle strength, bone density, balance, agility, and proprioception (the brain’s awareness of the position and movement of the body in relation to its surroundings) and sleep. It helps to lower blood pressure, combat bad cholesterol and improve glucose tolerance – all important for heart health. It may also strengthen immune function.   

Spending time on a trek is an ideal way of reducing stress, combating anxiety, alleviating depression and keeping our brains in good repair and functioning well.

 Trekking boosts mental well-being

A trek is a retreat. It is both a retreat from and a retreat to  – from (for most of us) an urban environment that is biologically speaking alien to our senses and our brains, to a natural world where our senses and our brains feel much more at home.      

Trekking provides a restorative and therapeutic respite from modern urban environments and lifestyles. On a trek you are unplugged from technology, for example. But more than just unburdening our senses and our brains, a trek also nurtures our mental well-being in ways that make us smarter, kinder, more spiritually aware and more likely to seek ways to make the world a better place.

• Treks commonly stir powerful positive emotions, notably aesthetic pleasure (the beauty buzz), awe, wonder and empathy. These emotions are known to broaden and build us. They broaden us mentally by increasing awareness, awakening interest, exciting curiosity, promoting learning, stimulating thinking, fostering creativity and generally making us more responsive to experience. Additionally, they broaden us emotionally and socially by inclining us to be more socially sensitive, generous, altruistic and caring. The positive emotions build us by motivating us to engage with the world in ways that extend our knowledge, understanding and abilities.

• Treks offer valuable ‘me’ times when we can be alone with our thoughts. These are times for mind wandering, reverie and reflection. This ‘inner journeying’ can be very rewarding and productive. It can increase our self-awareness and our understanding of the person we want to be and the life we want to live; it can lead us to new ways of thinking about our problems, relationships and goals. Especially when stirred by natural beauty and awe, inner journeying on a trek can have us thinking about the “big picture” issues of life, the things that really matter.

Trekking builds self-esteem, confidence and resilience

Treks can teach us about ourselves. As we cope with a trek’s physical and mental challenges, we stand to gain a better appreciation of, respect for and confidence in, our own capabilities. There is a story in my book about Michael, an adolescent boy who had serious learning and behavioural issues. But following a 62 km, four-day, full pack hike in a scenic coastal wilderness in the company of similarly burdened classmates and two of their teachers, he emerged a changed lad. Although he often found himself well beyond his comfort zone during the walk, he grew in self-respect, confidence and resilience. It made him, in his own words, ‘a better person’. His subsequent academic success and appointment as sub-school captain indicated that the transformation was genuine and enduring.

Trekking can foster unselfish values  

Extended periods in nature, as on a trek, are known to promote environment friendly values and practices. They also appear to foster intrinsic (having to do with personal growth, relationships and community) rather than extrinsic (pertaining to wealth, possessions, image and status) values. The world is a better place for having people with inward oriented values like these.  

Trekking nurtures friendship

For most people, a trek is somewhat like the hero’s journey of legend – a venture into a different and unknown world involving physical and mental challenges, but delivering a fulfilling reward at the end. Sharing such a journey can forge close, supportive and enduring friendships because there is time to have on-on-one conversations as well as opportunities to assist and encourage other party members. I am still in touch with folk I trekked with nearly 50 years ago. These friendships are refreshingly egalitarian and unaffected by social, educational and cultural differences.

Trekking fosters cultural empathy and understanding

Treks can be setting in which your mind and heart can be opened to people from different cultural backgrounds to our own. The tempo of a trek is especially conducive to observing the social as well as the physical landscape.  In many countries, trekking involves sharing accommodation and meals with local folk. In some countries, Nepal and India for example, local folk accompany trekking parties as guides and in supporting roles. It is usually possible to engage with at least some of these folk to learn about them and their world.  

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A trek that affects us very deeply may be difficult to leave behind. The return to ordinary life can be a massive letdown. It can trigger a reaction called re-entry depression. This can range in intensity from feelings of regret to a sense of having left part of oneself behind. But a temporary sense of loss and sadness is a small price to pay for the mental and spiritual capital that is built up during a trek. This is evident from the way such experiences are often recalled by people as life-changing, and sometimes as the best thing they had done in their lives.  

Would you like to try trekking? If so, please leave a comment letting me know and giving me a contact email address. Your privacy will be protected as your comment will not be published. I would be delighted to put you in touch with Himalayan Sunrise, a top-drawer Nepalese trekking company with an excellent reputation for quality of service and integrity.

Nature and grief: Rosie Batty’s experience

Most people in Australia would recognise Rosie Batty. In recent years, she has become an admired and influential public figure. She was named Australian of the Year in 2015 in recognition of her efforts to raise awareness of the extent, ubiquity and horror of domestic violence.

Less than a year earlier she had suffered the loss of her only child, Luke, at the hands of her estranged and mentally ill husband.  On the morning after Luke’s murder, she somehow found the courage and strength to make an impromptu and impassioned speech (to a media pack outside her home) that captured the attention of a nation and ignited a landmark and snowballing conversation about domestic and family violence.

In the months and indeed years that followed, she was a leading voice in that socially transforming conversation, despite the unremitting and profound grief she was feeling.

Her continuing and powerful advocacy led ultimately to the Royal Commission into Family Violence. In 2019, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of her “distinguished service to the community as a campaigner and advocate for the prevention of family violence”.

But behind her brave public persona, there was a woman in the depths of grief. She admits to wanting to die so as to escape her anguish and profound sense of loss. She was feeling pain for which there seemed no relief or end.

She is finding healing, however, not complete healing – the loss of a child creates a wound that can never fully heal. But, as reported by award winning journalist and author, Sue Smethurst, in a recent Women’s Weekly article, Rosie is now experiencing joy and contentment in between times of painful grief.

Rosie’s main source of healing is trekking – walking for long distances over extended periods in wilderness and other natural areas.  Among the treks she has done are: Cradle Mountain to Lake St Claire in Tasmania, sections of the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory, Scotland’s West Highlands Way and Coast to Coast in the United Kingdom.

Rosie described trekking to Sue Smethurst this way: “You’re in spectacular scenery, you’ve got the camaraderie of like-minded people, and all you are doing every day is getting up, having a hearty breakfast and walking, whether it’s 10 kilometres or 20, or whatever”. As Rosie suggests, there is a grounding and relaxing rhythm to life on a trek.

Feeling challenged and fatigued are part of a trek’s rhythmic pattern. So too are the joys of rest breaks and the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes when camp is reached at the end of the day with its promise of food and an evening of relaxing companionship.

As Rosie also reported “[A trek is] …challenging in a physical and mental way and it’s very meditative, it’s a safe challenge. It’s one you can do with people, but have your own space and be on your own journey too, so I think there’s lots of healing elements to it”.      

I agree with Rosie. I have enjoyed many treks in Australia, New Zealand and the Himalaya of Nepal and India. My wife, daughters and other members of my family, including granddaughters, have shared several of my treks. My wife, Margaret, especially valued the simple routine and rhythm of a trekking day. It is a wonderful way of ‘getting away from it all’, of taking time out from the persistent demands, concerns and responsibilities of life in contemporary Western societies. Trekking can be thought of as a retreat on foot.

But as much as it is an escape, a trekking day is usually a journey to a whole new world, typically one of beauty, wonder and discovery. It can also be a world that challenges us physically and emotionally but often in ways that are ultimately satisfying, rewarding and strengthening.

A trekking journey can also be one of self-reflection, a journey into the highways and by-ways of our inner selves. As Rosie says, a trek provides the ‘space’ to be with oneself. The space she refers to is a psychological one. Even in the company of others, hazard-free walking in natural settings frees our minds to wander, to meander from thought to thought, topic to topic, idea to idea, memory to memory. Such mind-wandering can be very productive and beneficial, enabling us to reframe perspectives, free-up ways of thinking, foster creativity and enhance self-awareness.

Trekking helped Rosie to realise that she can still enjoy life and experience moments of wonder. It awakened in her the realization that she didn’t want to reach old age regretting not doing things. “I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and do things” was how she put it.

My first trek was in the company of my family and people we met for the first time at Kathmandu airport. It was a 14-day circuit in the Annapurna region of Nepal. At the time, trekking in Nepal was still something of a novelty and widely thought of as ‘adventurous’ (which it needn’t and shouldn’t be). All four of us certainly accepted that the trek would push us out of our comfort zones. Our two daughters, then 14 and 12 years of age, later recalled that facing and preparing for the challenges of the trek along with their parents was a very empowering experience in learning how to ‘push the envelope’ and the benefits of doing so.   

The trek had a massively enriching influence of each of our lives. It spawned life-long interests, passions and ultimately close and precious relationships with many Nepalese people. For us as a family, it was an enduring bonding experience and source of precious memories.    

I see in that first trek the foundations of my love of, and sense of unity with, nature, my passion for bushwalking and other nature activities, and my desire to share that love and passion with others.   

That trek and the many others I have done since has brought home to me the power of nature experiences to connect us with ourselves, others and the cosmos. I call tell numerous stories of people who have returned from treks with a more valid appreciation of their capabilities, a deeper understanding of what they want from, and value in, life, and greater insight into their family, work and wider social relationships. In my book, Connect with Nature, I tell a little of the story of Irene Gleeson, which illustrates the point.   

Connect with Nature also contains an account of how another grieving mother found comfort and restoration in nature – not by trekking but simply by being or ‘dwelling’ in it. Maureen Hunter lost her son in a car accident after her husband had also died accidentally. Somewhat like Rosie Batty, Maureen reached a point when she said to herself: “No, I will not become a victim of my circumstance. I will not let pain be all I know”. Maureen turned to nature simply by spending times of quietness and reflection out-of-doors. “Nature connected me to life, to life and simple pleasures again”, she recalls.   

Eco-worriers can become eco-warriors

Chances are that you are concerned, even alarmed, about climate change and the deteriorating state of the natural environment. Surveys consistently report that most people are worried about the future of Earth’s climate and ecosystems. Indeed, researchers are finding that this worry poses a serious and growing risk to mental health, especially that of children, adolescents and young adults. Very likely, we are in an epidemic of ‘eco-anxiety’.

It is also possible that, although your mind is telling you that you ought to do more to help save the planet, you’re finding it difficult to get moving. This could be for all sorts of justifiable reasons including a sense that the environmental problems are just too big and complex for you, as an individual, to deal with. Even if you know that taking part in collective action is a viable option, you still might feel unmotivated and discouraged. You may be finding that you can’t get emotionally involved with the problems, even if you know that they are real and requiring urgent action. If this is where you find yourself, you are in the common situation of the elephant and rider in your brain being out of step.   

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt introduced the elephant-rider analogy as a useful way of thinking about how and why we humans behave as we do. He argues that human behaviour (apart from reflex and automatic action) is determined by our rational brain (the ‘rider’) and our emotional brain (the ‘elephant’). Much more than we might think, the elephant is the major player. The rider might be the planner or ‘intender’ but the elephant is the source of motivation and energy; it is the doer in other words. While the rider may appear to be in control, it is really the much larger elephant that is the boss.  

The analogy helps us to understand why adopting new behaviour, that related to saving the planet included, can be difficult. But the analogy also tells us how, in broad terms, we can successfully address these difficulties. In short, the message is: If you want to change your (or anyone else’s) behaviour, be sure to target both the elephant and the rider.

Here are some key guidelines for implementing this strategy.

Targeting the rider

The intended actions should be:

• explicit
• clear (unambiguous)
• concrete
• practicable
• seen by the person as appropriate for them, convenient and relevant

Targeting the elephant

The intended actions should:

• be seen by the person as easily ‘doable’ (involving ‘tiny’ steps and little time if necessary)
• be experienced by the person as rewarding (makes them feel good – especially about themselves)
• provide a sense of progress (which the person can easily recognise and acknowledge)
• align with the person’s image of who they are and/or who they would like to be   

Applying the strategy to environmental action calls for a critically important second strategy: connecting with nature in order to cultivate a sense of identity with, and obligation to, the natural world. I explain what this means and why it is so important in my book, Connect with Nature (final chapter).

In summary, the point I make is that connecting with nature is vital because it changes us in ways that motivates us to take care of the environment. As we connect with nature, our valuing of the natural world and our capacity to empathise with it grows. This, in turn, fosters what I call an ‘environmental conscience’. An environmental conscience guides us to value nature for itself, to see beyond what nature can do for us to what we can (and should) do for it. It obliges us to accept that all life forms have a right to exist and to flourish. It reinforces the disposition to love, appreciate and be inspired by nature rather than the inclination to exploit, dominate and even shun it. An environmental conscience makes protecting the planet a deeply personal matter, something that we expect of ourselves and, hence, something in which we are invested emotionally.

When it comes to acting on behalf of the environment, the importance of having a moral commitment and an emotional drive to do so cannot be overstated – think ‘elephant’!.

I am not alone in emphasising this point. No lesser a scientific body than the Royal Society, for example, includes this statement in its online pamphlet entitled, ‘What can I do as an individual to protect biodiversity?’:

Spending more time in nature can help improve our relationship with it and attach greater value to the habitats around us. Educating children about wildlife and local ecosystems can help to make our connection to the natural world clearer and bring about long-term behavioural changes in future generations.

If you think I can help you, your family or friends to become more actively engaged in connecting with nature and doing more to care for planet Earth in ways that suit you, please ‘drop me a line’. I have ideas and suggestions I would like to share, and I am sure there’s plenty I can learn in the process as well.  

You can do this by popping a comment on my Facebook page, or more privately, by using the contact facility on my book’s website, www.connectwithnatureguide.com.  

A memorable and mystifying encounter

It is an experience that left a lasting impression on me.

My wife, Margaret, and I had walked up to the rounded peak of the volcanic remnant we knew then as Mt Dromedary. At 800 metres above sea-level, the mountain overlooks part of the celebrated ‘Sapphire Coast’ of south-east Australia. Although just the core of its former majestic self, the mountain is very interesting geologically. Its humped profile prompted Captain James Cook to name it Dromedary when he saw it on his 1770 journey up Australia’s east coast.

Art by Cheryl Davison

But it already had a name, Gulaga – meaning mother mountain, given to it by people of the Yuin nation. What the Yuin people see is not a resemblance but an actual mother figure to which they trace their individual and collective origins. Without Gulaga, they would not exist. This recognition of a landscape feature as the embodiment of an ancestral (spiritual) being is universal across all of Australia’s First Nations peoples. After the creation, the ‘Dreaming’, the ancestral spirits became part of the landscape. So, for the Yuin people, Gulaga IS their mother spirit, as sacred to them as Uluru (formerly known as Ayres Rock) is to the people of the Anangu Nation. Their values, identity, spirituality and lifestyle are all intimately bound up with Gulaga. Many of their sacred sites and exclusively women or men’s places are on Gulaga. She lies at the heart of their ‘country’, the land that has been and always will be theirs.

Margaret and I knew nothing of this when we made our way up Gulaga (Mt Dromedary). After reaching the summit, we set about retracing our steps. Not far into our return journey, we reached a saddle where we spotted an unmarked narrow side-track, which we had not noticed on the ascent.

Intrigued, I set off to investigate the track with Margaret following. Quite suddenly, I came upon a cluster of extraordinary figure-like boulders. Superficially they resembled granite tors, but there was a character about them that was completely new to me.

I now know that I had stumbled onto one of Australia’s seven most significant rock formations, as recognised by Geoscience Australia (The other six include Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Wave Rock.).

Excited and awed, I reached for my camera, but stopped when I heard Margaret say something like, “Don’t take photos; this is a sacred site”. Rather than being excited by the place, Margaret was clearly apprehensive and anxious. She later told me that she felt as though she was trespassing. I had no trouble empathising with her distress, so we left, somewhat mystified by the experience.

Our perplexity increased when we learned from a brochure we obtained in the nearby town of Tilba Tilba that ‘Mt Dromedary’, was indeed sacred to the local Aboriginal (Yuin) people.   

Perhaps we had been given the privilege of sharing just a little of the Yuin people’s sense of sacredness. I am reluctant, however, to make such a presumptuous claim. But I am confident to say that Margaret and I had a deeply affecting experience of awe. Awe is evoked by the unexpected, by an encounter with something that challenges an understanding or ‘model’ we have of how the world is. Such an encounter can be stimulating and exciting, as it was in my case, but it can also be threatening and frightening, as it was for Margaret. Either way, awe is powerful emotion that can make us wiser, more sociable and spiritually aware (You can read more about awe in my book, ‘Connect with Nature’).       

Note: Although I refrained from taking photos of the rock formation on Gulaga, such photos are freely available – from sources that include the Museum of Australia and locally produced tourist publications. Evidently, taking and reproducing photos of the site does not cause offence or distress to Yuin people. But if you visit Gulaga, you are asked to remain on the tracks, as there are sites elsewhere on the mountain that should be visited only in the company of a Yuin person.

Seen by few but destroying it matters

This magnificent place lies on a stretch of the Kowmung River, one of the few remaining wild rivers in New South Wales and part of the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park. But it is under threat.

Why? Because the Kowmung is part of a river system that could be drowned if a plan to increase the depth of the Warragamba Dam goes ahead.

Built originally to safeguard Sydney’s water supply, the dam is now seen by some in power as having flood mitigation potential. The NSW State Government is proposing to raise the wall of the dam by 14 metres so as to reduce the impact of flooding downstream on the floodplains of the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers. Avaricious, irresponsible and short-sighted planning over (relatively dry) decades has permitted wholesale residential development on the floodplains. Now, with the incidence and severity of floods increasing, in large part because of climate change, the community and government are scrambling to mitigate the inevitable.

The proposal to raise the dam wall is controversial. For one thing, there can be no guarantee that it will work. The catchment of the Nepean-Hawkesbury system includes several rivers apart for the Warragamba. These other rivers are entirely capable of flooding the floodplains on a grand scale. It may well be that the strategic release of water from Warragamba and the other five dams supplying water to Greater Sydney would be as effective in mitigating floods or even more so. And there is, of course, the ultimate solution – stopping and even winding back development on the floodplains.

Raising the dam wall would mean that rivers and creeks feeding the Warragamba River, including the Kowmung, would be subject to periodic inundation. The loss of pristine wilderness would be only one of the costs. The flooding would damage and destroy ‘country’, including irreplaceable sites of immense indigenous cultural and spiritual significance and importance.

Why would such loss and destruction matter? Clearly, for some politicians, developers and rank-and-file citizens, the loss and destruction would be justified, typically on the grounds of saving lives and property, fostering commercial and agricultural development, and preserving lifestyles. When viewed through material, commercial, utilitarian and political lenses, these are compelling justifications.

But these are not the only lenses through which the potential loss and destruction can be viewed. In the final analysis, they may not even be the most important or most valid lenses.  

Raising the wall would be yet another example of the exploitative attitude to nature that has accompanied the industrialisation of Western societies in the past 250 years. This attitude has inflicted on humanity the twin existential threats of global warming and loss of biodiversity. At the core of this attitude is the view that nature matters primarily as a resource; nature is something we live FROM.

A very different view is that we are physically, mentally and spiritually part of nature; we are OF nature. According to this view we make up the natural world equally with all other living and non-living things. We are part of all that exists, has existed and will exist. Each of our lives is not a separate existence but as a cosmic relationship; we are part of an unimaginably vast and incomprehensibly complex whole. This means quite simply that all of nature is our kin and entitled, just as we are, to exist.

The natural world has value in and of itself, independent of its value to humans. Everything in the natural world is worthy of respect and indeed affection.  Just as it is incumbent on us to relate to one another morally and ethically, so we should relate to nature in the same way. The ‘Golden Rule’ applies equally to nature. There is a Maori proverb: ‘When the land, river and sea creatures are in distress then I have nothing to be proud of’.  In India, it is common for animals to be slaughtered ceremonially (rather than expediently as is the case in Australian abattoirs). And in Ancient Greece, it was customary to throw the knife used to slaughter an animal into the sea as punishment for its part in the killing.    

The cultures of Australia’s First Nations peoples are founded on the belief that people and nature are created as one. Indigenous Australians feel a profound connection with nature or ‘country’. This kinship is fundamental to their identity and central to their existence. They have a holistic engagement with a physical place that is both real and symbolic. For them, all living things are interdependent so that there can be no separation of person and country, no separation of culture and nature. So, to desecrate or destroy country is to strike at the heart of indigenous identity, lore, culture, relationships and values.

Unless it can be demonstrated scientifically (not just politically or economically) that there is no alternative, raising the wall of Warragamba would be morally and ethically bankrupt on three counts. First, it would be to disregard nature’s intrinsic value and right to existence. Second, it would be a rejection of our kinship obligation to take care of nature; and third, it would be an act of desecration, the wanton disregard of the centrality of ‘country’ to the health and well-being of our indigenous citizens.