Background & news - The Nature Connection

In quiet moments, I cannot help wondering what life will be like one day if we can no longer hear owls calling from the filigree shadows at dusk or the loud bark of baboons echoing deep in the mountains. I sense that we will experience a profound and lasting loneliness of spirit if nature’s magic and diversity slowly disappear…

Living in the beautiful fairest Cape, I have always been drawn to wild places where my soul resonates with the earth, where I can walk barefoot along dusty trails, where I feel integrated and in touch with the wider world around me. For years I have worked for wildlife and wild places, from protecting Cape Town’s baboons and unravelling the porcupine quill trade for IFAW, to publishing a local eco magazine Cape Envirolink. In more recent years I have launched an urban wildlife initiative called ‘Wild Neighbours’ and with my husband Noel, I have worked to conserve whales and dolphins and their fragile marine habitats.

Over the years, my path has been influenced by many of the wilderness thinkers of our time, men and women who have cared deeply about the protection of wilderness and have understood the profound value of wilderness within the context of mankind’s spiritual and psychological well-being. Through my work, I frequently pay tribute to these people and remember them with gratitude, as it was through their visionary thinking that today, we have small pockets of land set aside as wilderness, so that in the years to come, when so much of our open space has been denuded through development, there are still places where we can escape to, where we can leave the cares of civilisation behind and camp out in the open, with only the moon and stars and the secretive, nocturnal animals, as our nightly companions. As it all once was.

Could it be that in wilderness, we are able to connect not only with the memory of wild living, but also with a truth that spoke of living in harmony with the greater whole, so that the sand and the stars and the trees and the beasts, were just there, as we were? Do we somehow remember this all, when we walk freely in the wilds or camp out under the southern constellation, with the eerie whoop-whoop of the hyena calling out from the darkness…..threatening, evoking, reminding?

Foreword to my book | connecting_with_wilderness.pdf

Sharing thoughts | seeking_the_wilderness_without.pdf

In November 2011, the first of my RECONNECTING WITH NATURE DISPLAYS was installed in a forested glade in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The display has been created to inspire a deeper connection with wildlife and wild places and the growing imperative to live more consciously and considerately alongside nature in our increasingly fragmented world.

This initiative was made possible through a partnership with the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and with support from the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, Managed by BoE Private Clients.

Download a PDF - reconnecting_with_nature_-_press_release_2011.pdf

http://www.sanbi.org/news/visit-our-gardens-and-reconnect-nature-2012

As a trustee of the BABOON MATTERS TRUST (http://www.baboonmatters.org.za) I am deeply commited to the conservation of baboons and their right to live free and unhampered within the ever-changing, ever-challenging landscapes of the Peninsula.

As stewards of Cape Town’s unique natural environment, how will we feel one day when we slowly awaken to the fact that the mountains no longer echo with the bark of baboons, and that we, fellow sentient beings, stood aside and made so little effort to change our ways to prevent their gradual elimination on the Peninsula…

CONSERVATION IS ABOUT LISTENING TO THE HEART AND DOING WHAT’S RIGHT

Sharing thoughts | living_with_baboons_in_cape_town_-_2011.pdf

Many years ago I produced the publication CAPE ENVIROLINK which was sponsored by WWF-SA, with support from the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Management. The magazine touched on a broad range of local environmental issues, ranging from waste and water management to local flora and fauna and the ecology of our mountainous areas. Through this publication I met fascinating people working with great passion for the environment, who engaged tirelessly to protect our natural areas and the many creatures great and small that lived alongside us. The legacy left by pioneering naturalists like Douglas Hey and S.H. Skaife endure as a guiding light in an ever-complex world where progress and development, human needs and an ever-increasing population spread out determinedly across the fragile vestiges of our natural world.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE | Become the change you would like to see

Arne Naess, Norwegian philosopher and founder of the Deep Ecology movement, wrote that personal philosophies of life can be consciously articulated to aim for ecological harmony and wisdom; and that a mature person knows what their life philosophy is, what they stand for, and what their priorities are. Through my daily life, I strive to live and work purposefully, so that I am mindful of my ecological footprint, considerate of my wild neighbours and prudent when it comes to getting and spending and being part of the consumer treadmill that is wreaking such havoc on the earth and on our physical and psychological selves.

Sharing thoughts by Arne Naess

Making a difference | Getting involved

One of my lifelong interests is urban wildlife and working to engender a more caring, integrated relationship with our natural world and the many lives that live alongside us.

In November 2010 I launched the WILD NEIGHBOURS URBAN WILDLIFE INITIATIVE with support and sponsorship from Andrew N. Rowan and John Hadidian of The Humane Society International in the United States. The Wild Neighbours booklet featured as an insert in the Dec/Jan 2011 issue of Africa Geographic and Africa Birds & Birding magazines.

The Wild Neighbours website is now up - http://wildneighbours.co.za

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO BE COMPASSIONATE, WE MUST ACT

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you…
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. (John Muir, Nature philosopher)

In November 2009 I created an inspirational awareness exhibition called WILDERNESS VISIONARIES with Vance G. Martin of The WILD Foundation in the United States, which was launched at the WILD9 World Wilderness Congress in Merida, Mexico.

To find out more about this initiative, please view wilderness_visionaries_low_res.pdf or visit The Wild Foundation website at http://www.wild.org/main/how-wild-works-publishing-and-the-arts/

If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singulary generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most important challenge of our times. (Wade Davis, Cultural Anthropologist)

An organisation I support is Survival International, who do incredible work defending tribal peoples’ rights around the world. Please feel free to email me if you would like one of their brochures or visit http://survivalinternational.org

In May 2011 we launched Noel’s new Blog initiative 52-ARWORKS - A YEAR IN NATURE. For the period of a year Noel is sharing a journey of his encounters with nature through paintings and sculpture, and by posting a new artwork each week he offers the opportunity to share this journey as well as his thoughts around each work. Visit the Blog at http://52artworks.wordpress.com

The implications of losing biodiversity are difficult to imagine, but I would suggest that we will ultimately experience a profound emptiness, knowing that the delicate magic of life - the call of a nightjar in the soft shadows of dusk, or the gurgling of a mountain stream as it tumbles over mossy rocks - has been altered, perhaps forever.

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu launched our SACRED OCEAN ANTI-WHALING CAMPAIGN, which we created in 2008 in partnership with IFAW and the Two Oceans Aquarium, he shared a poignant insight when he said “Are we surprised that we can gun down innocent people in hotels and bomb innocent children when we can behave so barbarically towards God’s creatures?” and more recently, conservationist George Schaller wrote that “our task is to endow all species with intrinsic worth, the right to exist…our moral responsibility is to help protect what one studies”, each message reaching out into the world with a plea that we consider our shared place on earth and the many lives who live perilously alongside us.
Visit Noel’s website at http://www.noelashton.com to read more about our marine work.

Watch our videos | IFAW Message and Launch of Sacred Ocean

Divestyle magazine are supporting our Great Whaling Debate - please go online and cast your vote.
http://www.thedivesite.co.za/pages/52/the-great-whaling-debate

I am still campaigning against the exploitation of CAPE PORCUPINES for the retail trade in their quills - if you want to read more about the trade, visit the link above or download my article in Africa Geographic magazine at africa_geographic_april_2007.pdf. Michelle Garforth produced a television documentary ‘The Porcupine Report’ for SABC3, where we discussed the quill trade and filmed on location in the Nieuwoudville farmlands with porcupine specialist Christy Bragg. See the Porcupine Report that I compiled with Nick Chevallier for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

“…getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,
little we see in Nature that is ours…” (William Wordsworth)

A brief overview of my | Latest news and views 2012

Remember to tread lightly…