stewardship

Rings of Reciprocity

~ Jim Hindle ~ Leave a comment

A tree planting initiative activating children’s imagination and sense of stewardship is seeking supporters

It’s a muggy summer’s afternoon on a farm in rural Sussex and thirty children and several adults have gathered in a newly-mown circle round a central hearth, surrounded by rings of young trees.  When prompted, little offerings are made, the children are encouraged to come forward with silent or vocalised wishes for the forest they hope these young trees to be a part of.  There’s an air of excitement around the circle – these children have been here before.

What distinguishes this group from any other engaged in tree planting is that they are being co-ordinated and led by the Children’s Forest project – an initiative that has much more to it than simply putting the trees in the ground.  The project takes the children on a four-step journey of experiencing actual living woods, imagining how a future forest may look, articulating this with artwork, plays or poetry and letting this inform their wishes as they do the actual planting.

The act of imagining in particular is crucial for the project’s ethos – in this time of climate anxiety, children are encouraged to picture a healthy, abundant natural world and work towards it practically, in the knowledge that a strong mental image of an outcome helps to make its realisation all the stronger and more likely to transpire.  This approach also allows for creative imagination to activate future generational thinking.

Children’s Forest has been running for a few years now and is going from strength to strength, with a grant from an ITV fundraiser competition in particular helping fund the set-up of tree nurseries using seeds gathered locally.  There are now thirteen Children’s Forests throughout the land, from Cumbria to Cornwall, with most centred in the South East and Sussex in particular.

The project was instigated by Forest School teacherAnna Richardson who has spent the last twenty years working with children and as a teacher of bushcraft skills, specialising in the uses of plants for medicine and food, mentored by archaeobotanist Gordon Hillman. As a Forest School teacher she has worked with children of all ages from toddlers to teens, often in Steiner-based settings.  In these sessions there was always a great emphasis on getting to know a place and its trees; their uses for food, shelter, medicine, fire.

But the question kept on coming back to her: how could she and the children give back to the forest that gave them so much?  There was the obvious boon of helping children and participants value and connect with the natural world and thereby be that much more disposed to look after it, but what more could they give in a tangible sense?  After all, she noticed the effect on the land that they used – issues of wear of the vegetative life, compaction of the woodland soil.  Where was the reciprocity?

Coupled with this was the issue of land access.  It was not always easy to find land to run forest school sessions on.  But there were plenty of landowners – why might they not want to have children accompanied by adults on their land?  What was stopping them?

These were the practical considerations from which Children’s Forest was established.  But there was a philosophical element too.  Anna’s studies of ancestral skills informed her that all indigenous peoples carried a sense of belonging to nature and the need to care for it on a daily basis – it was in their interests to look after and to some extent help propagate the plants they relied on.  All this was built into their way of relating to the natural world.  It’s something she believes we consciously need to bring back into our culture today.

As part of this cultural shift, the Children’s Forest wants children to have experience of themselves as guardians and caretakers.  It provides an opportunity for a lived experience of sacred reciprocity – combining the need for not only ecological restoration but also cultural restoration as part of the process. It is quite clear that if we don’t restore our culture to one of nature connection we are going to carry on making the same mistakes – the two have to be worked on in tandem.

One element of cultural restoration the project incorporates is the concept of the Children’s Fire.  When each of these special hearths are inaugurated they are done with a pledge to consider future generations.  The first circle of each Children’s Forest is planted round one of these fires, the children making wishes for future generations as the fire is lit.  It helps to dedicate both the space and the participants’ purpose, adding a much deeper element that helps with the intention to work with the spirit of the place and keep clear the aim to serve the children and the forests yet to be.

As the Children’s Forest began to work with children to plant trees in the ground, a committed team have gathered to bring this project to fruition. This has enabled the vision and breadth of the project to grow with the hearts and skillsets of those involved, including permaculture teachers, nature educators, health care professionals, artists and woodland specialists.

To return to the role of landowners, CF actively seeks their participation in the process, asking of them an honourable pledge that they will protect the planted trees on their land and ensure the next owners agree to do the same should the land be sold.  In return, the forests are cared for by the children and their mentors, with aftercare such as watering, mulching, weeding and removing tree guards.  The children get a place in which they can be taught in and potentially return to in the future with their own children and grandchildren.  The landowners can be involved in the ensuing community which also includes the children’s mentors and parents who can return to the Children’s Forests on a regular basis.

The project is actively looking for landowners to host forests.  Suitable land is generally a minimum of an acre and surveyed to be shown as suitable for the tree planting, which takes place around a central hearth.  This area can be expanded over time.  As a diverse example, Leasowe Farm in Leamington has planted over 3000 trees with several local schools and adult mental health groups.Children’s Forest then brings together a Forest School leader and group of children either from a local school or local community group to help plant the trees.  Forest School leaders can also train with Children’s Forest at Facilitator’s courses.

There is great scope for working with sympathetic landowners and other individuals.  Biodynamic farms are great examples of this with two local Children’s Forestsin Sussex being run on such land: Sacred Earth in Horam and Colin Godman’s Farm in Nutley.  Biodynamic cattle are raised and the training courses are held on the latter.  Most forests are so far on private farms that have heard of the initiative through word of mouth.  There are now many independent projects working under their own volition and in their own way.

Biodynamic farms are the perfect environment for the forests.  As well as the farms’ emphasis on meeting the needs of their wider community in a way that encompasses more than just the provision of food, the intention of working with the spirit of the land and other influences are very much in line with Children’s Forest’s ethos, working as they do with an awareness of weather patterns and blessing the land and trees with offerings and song.  If that sounds abstract, such activities have a profound effect on the children, who come away energised and inspired.

Lulu Guinness of The Heugh in Lannercost put it like this: “I’m really lucky as a landowner to have an opportunity to care, to give something back and also to give to the future. It’s so much more than just planting trees, having this whole educational element where the children are really understanding the importance of tending and maintaining and being in relationship with the woodland is such a wider vision for bringing this land back into balance.”

Biodynamic principles of working with open-pollinated, heirloom and non-GMO seeds are also reflected in CF’s work, with a key element of their activities being the establishment of tree nurseries seeking to use local seeds that are inherently more resilient and suited to their immediate environment. Set up by permaculture teacher and nature mentor Pippa Johns, these nurseries can also be key elements in the involvement in schools – the planting of forests on school land can be problematic in terms of granting access to visiting participants in future years.  Any school can set up a tree nursery and they can be a wonderful focus for the children with the obvious opportunities to learn about the trees augmented by the element of lending practical help and engagement.

The establishment of such nurseries – CF’s ‘Forest from Seed’ funding drive mentioned above was one aspect of this – is an excellent example of the reciprocity at the heart of the project.  Early propagation and care of saplings holds huge potential for how humans can help foster tree life.  Accounting for grazing and pestilence, one oak will often produce very few other mature trees in its lifetime whereas, with the help of nurseries, trees that reach maturity can be expanded at the very least a thousand-fold.

Children’s Forest are looking for people who feel sympathetic to its principles to approach landowners, schools, home-education groups and nature-based educators to establish new forests and their supportive communities.  They are also reaching out to businesses and philanthropists with a passion for the welfare of children and the environment to help make new forests possible.  Also contact from those who can raise the profile of the organisation through media work or approaching high profile individuals and being sought.

Back in Sussex, the children mulch the trees.  It’s kind of a party; people play fiddles, flutes and the kids are in their element, splitting off into little groups to fill wheelbarrows of wet woodchip to place around each tree guard.  They planted this forest a year ago and this is one of many return visits to the site where they build up some sense of connection, some sense of their own instrumentality in the welfare of these saplings.  And they know that in the days after they leave school they can return here.  It fosters a sense of constancy that takes its cue from nature herself; a reminder that, in our care for her, we are living up to how we’re meant to be.

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This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Star and Furrow magazine.

Service

~ Jim Hindle ~ Leave a comment

If you can say one thing about the last ten days it’s that much of the world has been united by attention towards the passing away of the late Queen.  Amid the grief and sadness there has been gratitude for and celebration of her life.  We’ve heard it said so many times and yet it still rings true; this was the knowledge and acknowledgement of what a life well lived is meant to look like. 

There’s fatigue undoubtably too, not least that lined in the face of Charles and not only in the miles trekked so studiously, with such care and unnegotiable precision from the Abbey, along the crowds and carnations of the Long Walk.  It’s been a kind of marathon for us all, and not just those queueing for the lying in of state – the saturated coverage in the news, so often strangely soothing, was an attempt at making sense of what had seemed unthinkable – the loss of such a constant servant, an intermediary between the people and the politicians, between us all and something instinctively higher; if nothing else a bastion of what old decency is meant to look like.  Anywhere else in the world it might all look archaic, here some sense of continuity seems settled in our blood.

We know this is the finest show of, if not an old guard, then something with an ancient precedent.  The degree to which its qualities are carried into this dawning era will perhaps be a reflection of how relevant the monarchy is to be seen to us all as we navigate the times ahead.  It is to be seen what lessons, what themes and instruction, can be drawn from a family, not to be envied, and everything they represent – not as some national distraction or soap opera if not always exactly an actual fairy tale but as ultimate servants to us all.  They must sacrifice opinions and overt leverage over issues they undoubtedly hold dear.  They represent us at our best, for the most part, but just as we may appreciate their quiet stewardship, the well-being of the nation rests in every one of us – to use our influence, our voice, to serve that which we value; aware that, at times, the meek may inherit very little and common good often has to be strived for.

The establishment, whatever that is, is only as good as its constituent parts – the public polity is the foundation on which everything must be built.  We can start with ourselves then as we seek to build a better world just as surely as we can hold those elected to account.  But some things, fortunately, are above such striving; service, even our own sovereignty as individuals, form part of the traffic on a two-way street.  It’s probably as good a time as ever to consider social contracts – that the state is there to guarantee the well-being of its citizens; a thing always wise to reflect on.

For now at least we can take comfort, if we wish, in the ancient rituals, the final gleam and glamour of a reign inaugurated in an age of empire as we face a new world we must strive to do right by, whose challenges need no rehearsal, proclamation or lament.  None of us need telling that the world today is utterly changed from seventy years ago and yet something of – or something borne out from – that older world in some respects can serve us.  The generation during and after the last world war sought to build a new society, where we sheltered the weak and vulnerable while the mighty paid their way.  We shouldn’t forget the then controversy of that, of that which had to be fought for or the clear realisation then of those who held the reins that this was our best defence against descent into a repeat of the domestic strife that had fuelled the conflagrations which had so pitted that century up to that point.

Such times as these call for forbearance as well as well as a greater sense of our responsibilities. We know the gifts we have inherited, the way in which, as Newton put it, we stand upon the shoulders of giants.  We can still avoid populism, factionalism while keeping our – and the – peace; joining a great effort to speak as with one voice for the things we should cherish – fraternity, our living earth, seeking to look after the poor while challenging the ones who’d do them down.

We can do so while still seeking unity, consensus, while honouring the power of debate.  But we should not forget we have agency too – that while we now have a new king, we all have it in us to serve our country, our very world, in ways that some of the apparently powerful, whatever their station, may not.  Right now, we have just this – the sombre reflection of what true service can look like; a great dedication to the people and the land, passing up and over, passing on, a gravitas reminding us that very little lasts forever, that we must all do all we can with what time – that fleeting agent, sometimes guarantor – can still potentially grant us.

The Children’s Forest – Planting a Vision

~ Jim Hindle ~ Leave a comment

A new initiative seeks to inspire the next generation to take a practical  environmental role and harness the power of the imagination

It seems there’s never been a better time to plant trees. As the realities of the climate crisis become more undeniable by the day, efforts to mitigate its effects only grow ever more urgent. The crisis plays upon all of our minds, not least those of the children who, untrammelled by the myriad distractions and seeming justifications of work and the adult world, see the problem all the clearer. But not all children are old enough, or of a disposition to join school climate strikes let alone begin to grapple with the complexities that should be occupying all our minds. It’s vital they are given active roles to help tackle the crisis. And tree planting fits this bill ideally.

That is the thinking behind a new initiative affiliated with the Forest School Association. ‘The Children’s Forest’ project seeks to give children an opportunity to plant trees and tend them in future, offering a sanctuary for both those planting trees and the children of all species. Positive envisioning is key to the scheme. As part of the initiative, children are given the opportunity to play in and observe existing woods around them, really coming to experience the outdoor world in all its depth and beauty. From there they are encouraged to form an inner picture of woodland in their imaginations, to picture woodland in all its richness that they can then utilise to inform their vision of the future forests they will help create. They then bring it to life with art, poetry, writing and theatre. The actual planting and tending, with an emphasis to also restore and protect existing forests, follows on from these key creative processes; what has already taken shape in the mind’s eye is given added impetus on its path towards physical embodiment.

Growing up as Protectors

The benefits for children in all of this are numerous. The Children’s Forest gives a structured means by which children of all ages can engage with engendering hope and creating a better future in a very tangible way. It roots them in the reality of living woodland and gives them a clear stewardship role, empowering them to grow up with a perspective and identity of caretakers and protectors. It also gives them the mindset of respect for all species, be they animal, plant or those of the trees themselves.

The initiative gives children the opportunity to come together in their role as creators and protectors, not just with their immediate peers but with those of all ages and backgrounds and as part of a global network, working together with a unified vision and goal. In the same way it also gives landowners and Forest School practitioners opportunities to meet and work together as it does for any others wishing to be affiliated with the project; helping young and old alike improve their ‘social capital’. And it gives everyone the chance to learn about and build relationships with those other cultures; those of the trees themselves and the myriad of creatures they support.

A report by English Nature; ‘Nature and psychological well-being’i, helps confirm what we may already feel about spending time outdoors. Indicators of mental well-being such as trust, tolerance, participation and feelings of safety are boosted by less stressful environmental factors. In an article entitled ‘Are cities bad for your mental health?’ for ‘Psychological Medicine’ in 1994, Glyn Lewis and Margaret Booth state that mental disorder is far less prevalent among those in urban areas with access to gardens or green spaces than those withoutii. Just as levels of mental disequilibrium are lower in children and young adults living in rural areas as opposed to urban ones, we can only extrapolate the benefits for all children of spending time in the woods; and not only ‘passively’ appreciating them but playing an active role in their welfare. For example, Dr. Roger Ulrich of Sweden’s University of Technology cites immediate psychological benefits derived from contact with natureiii just as Professors Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in ‘The Experience of Nature: a psychological perspective’iv and ‘The restorative effects of nature: towards an integrative framework’v helped show that time outdoors helps with ‘attention restoration’.

It takes on an added dimension of course with the state of the climate. A report by The Health Education Authority in 1997 states that positive mental health helps us endure pain and sadnessvi. It also affects our ability to deal with change, transition and life events. Time spent in nature and caring for it help all of us deal with new horizons, just as the psychological benefits of engaging to pragmatically address any issue, rather than simply worrying about it, are well attested by anyone involved in engendering practical change.

Duty to Future Generations

As with other efforts to improve the wider psychological health of our societies, prevention of problems is better than their cure. Time spent in the woods, and actively helping address the environmental crisis, can be seen as a collective ‘immunisation’, helping to propagate positive mindsets. If we are serious about continuing to engage with the climate crisis and going forward as part of a robust and healthy culture, we need such inoculations as much as ever. Picking up the pieces further down the line is at best a false economy and a dereliction of duty to future generations, just as Iroquois culture so famously calls us to consider the impacts on our actions on the ‘seventh generation’ down the line.

Perhaps the initiative’s emphasis of ‘positive envisioning’ holds more potential than might at first appear. As the great writer on traditional culture R.J. Stewart reminds us, we have imagined our way into the ecological crisis, changing the reality of the perfect planet into one shaped by our own mindsvii. Centuries of pollution and denigration took their root first and foremost in a shift in consciousness, from the conception that ourselves and the land are separate entities. Just as they are responsible for our collective plight today, our minds may also be able to help steer us towards a better future, informed by a vision of a restored world, rich in everything it once was and could still be. Perhaps, first and foremost, we have to be willing to simply imagine potential. Realising it remains the true task of our time.

 

i ‘Nature and psychological well-being.’ English Nature Research Reports, 2003.

ii ‘Are cities bad for your mental health?’ Psychological Medicine, 24: 913-915. LEWIS G. & BOOTH, M., 1994

iii ‘Visual landscapes and psychological well being.’ Landscape Research, 4: 17-23. ULRICH, R.S. 1979.

iv ‘The Experience of Nature: a psychological perspective.’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. KAPLAN, R. & KAPLAN, S., 1989.

v ‘The restorative effects of nature: toward an integrative framework.’ Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16:169-82. KAPLAN, S., 1995.

vi ‘Mental Health Promotion: a quality framework.’ London. HEALTH EDUCATION AUTHORITY, 1997.

vii ‘Earth Light.’ Mercury Publishing, 1992. R.J. STEWART.

This article was first published in the Autumn 2021 issue of ‘Permaculture’.

“Our Richest and Most Fragile Habitat”

~ Jim Hindle ~ Leave a comment

At first there was the by now usual sense of stunned disbelief: the government – not content with dispatching any public body with a goal of serving the greater public good or attempting to provide some kind of environmental balance from on high – was coming for the Forestry Commission. But beyond the justified chorus of concern, the petition that has already gathered 150,000 signatories, the score of campaign groups that has sprung up, is the idea really as bad as it sounds?

After all, The Forestry Commission itself was set up after the First World War during which the importance of a domestic supply of timber had been made acutely relevant by the interfering effect of German u-boats. Our previous habit, formed in the previous century, had been to simply strip other unsuspecting countries of their wildwood. In a short space of time after the founding of the Commission in 1919, vast tracts of upland hillsides, moorlands and heaths had been planted up.

The effect on these habitats in our backyards was obviously less than brilliant but at least we weren’t denuding the pristine forests from so much of the rest of the empire. And here, even at this first inception of the Commission, there lies the rub of how we provide for our appetite of timber without undue damage to the natural environment. Is it so bad if so much of the Commission land has now come up for sale? Weren’t these trees planted to be harvested at some stage down the line? With our current deficit isn’t now as good a time as any to call in our debts? We might even stand to reclaim some of those moors and heaths and barren but beautiful hillsides that were lost beneath the blanket of dark spruce.

One very large problem with this is that large areas of ancient woodland have been cut down and grubbed up and planted with conifers this century, seen as they were after the collapse of their age-old management pattern as somehow extraneous, unproductive patches to be tidied up. About half of our ancient woodland has been lost since the end of the Second World War and replanting with conifers accounts for by far the largest share of this. At least, such a proportion would have been lost if these woodlands had not proved so unexpectedly durable – they can revive after a considerable time with the right conditions and even decades of the heavy shade of conifers have not removed them entirely.

Infact, since the 80’s there has been a growing recognition of the need to thin out conifers where they have been planted over ancient woodland and revive the latter in all its beautiful and species-enriched glory. Which is exactly what stands to make the proposed sell off so tragic – the Commission was planning to pursue such restoration on a massive scale. A vast amount of recoverable ancient woodland stands at risk of being lost, forever.

So even if the concept of selling off an asset once held firmly for the public does not raise hackles in and of itself, even if the thought of tracts of forest losing the excellent level of upkeep of paths and rides that the Commission currently provides does not sit uncomfortably then perhaps the proposed pawning of this most precious asset – the 20,000 hectares of woodland as close to wildwood as anything we are ever likely to possess might just wake us up to what we stand to lose in this proposed sell off.

The sorry star upon a proposal which has long since shed its needles and should be removed from both houses with all speed is that the mechanism drafted to facilitate the sell off is not even constitutional. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re glibly told that this is an opportunity for community groups to acquire their local woodland – even if such groups gather the money, where exactly do their members hope to find the time to manage forests with any thing like the level of dedication the Commission currently provides?

There will always be a need for sustainable forestry. But brokerages as hasty as this one appears to be, running the risk of selling off to firms who only have profits in mind and little or no sense of what husbandry can look like don’t do the country any favours by any yardstick. The Commission maintains 100% of its woodland to Forestry Stewardship standard – there will be no such requirement for future owners. To make a former point again, even the economics is dubious; the FC making sizeable returns on their estates to the point where the body costs the public only 30 pence per taxpayer per year. But this government has no sense of value, of what a thing is worth, of what generations past have held dear and fought for. They paint themselves as bitter medicine, as the cruel but kindly short sharp shock. Really though they are just libertarians, about as respecting of institutions as their far left mirror images. Whether semi-crazed by ideology, or simply guilty of an amauterish gambling in the face of the crisis we face, they seem set to discover the limits of the population’s tolerance.

A Very Basic Thing

~ Jim Hindle ~ Leave a comment

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was created in 1961 partly out of the heightened awareness of the region’s people and wildlife brought about by Laurens van der Post’s descriptions in ‘The Lost World of The Kalahari.’ Today, his name has been invoked by those very people he described – the Gana, Ghi and Tsila Bushmen – whose continued existence in that place is still very much under threat. Partly evicted in the nineties, the process was completed in 2002 as the entire population was forcibly removed to settlement camps at the edge of the park where the depression so common with people removed from their lands was compounded by alcoholism and the spread of HIV.

Restored to their territory by a ruling of the Botswana High Court in 2006, their one borehole – that was capped upon their expulsion four years previously – remains sealed and the government seem determined for this state of affairs to continue. A second court case has just taken place to assert this most basic human right of the Bushmen of access to water. The region is one of the planet’s driest and the Bushmen are having to take an arduous 300 mile trip to gather water from the nearest available source. At least one woman has died of dehydration and the conditions in general are described as harsh and dangerous. Hundreds of the tribe are languishing in the resettlement camps, too afraid to return to their ancestral lands without such a vital resource. Meanwhile numerous boreholes have been drilled for the reserve’s wildlife and a Safari Lodge within the reserve has been allowed to build a swimming pool. Many Bushmen, especially the old and young, are sufferring from lack of water. In an effort at intimidation, the government sent in truckloads of troops to the region in the run up to the court case. When it came to it, the Court reserved judgement. It is not clear when the final decision will be made. “It pains us that the animals and tourists on our land can drink our water to their heart’s content yet we go thirsty” said Jumanda Gakelebone, a Bushman in the reserve.

That Botswana’s government wants the Bushmen off the land, there can be no doubt. One very obvious reason is the diamonds found within the reserves – a further deposit of which is supposed to be under a Bushman settlement. It is perhaps convenient then that there are those who claim there can be no place for people – any people – within a wildlife reserve. Chief among such exponents is John Terbough, author of ‘Requiem for Nature’, an advocate of ‘fortress’ conservation. His feeling that “a park should be a park and it shouldn’t have any resident people in it” is echoed by Botswana’s Director of Wildlife and National Parks, Trevor Mmopelwa, who claims that allowing people to live in the reserve would “make the management of CKGR extremely difficult in that there will be two conflicting rights existing side by side.”

Is this really then a story of the contrasting needs of people and the animals they happen to share land with? Are efforts to defend the Bushmen placing human rights over that of the local wildlife? The issue has certainly been divisive but attempts to override the rights of people living on the land are at best simplistic and at worst fall victim to a mindset that is seeing indigenous people evicted from their lands across the globe at an unprecedented rate.

Their power boosted by various sponsors, no small proportion of them corporate, various big international nongovernmental conservation organisations (or BINGOs) have embarked on a huge global push to increase the number of ‘protected areas’. In 1962 there were some 1000 official such ‘PA’s’ worldwide. By 2005 there were 108,000 with more being added every day. A land mass the size of Africa itself – more than 12% of all land globally – has been ringfenced in this way.

And all too often, if these PA’s have happened to have been occupied by indigenous people, they have been moved on, either through force, through ‘soft evictions’ or the contestably phrased ‘voluntary resettlement.’ In Chad, a tenfold increase in protected land resulted in an estimated 600,000 conservation refugees during the nineties. India, the only other country even bothering to count, admitted to 1.6 million five years ago. Globally the figure could be anywhere from five to tens of millions. The figure in Africa alone may well exceed 14 million.

What should be obvious but which flies in the face of the logic of the various BINGOs is that many of the places deemed worthy of protection are so valuable precisely because of the knowledge and practices of the people living there. In Africa, where indigenous evictions from protected areas are highest, 90% of biodiversity now lies outside their boundaries. History is showing us that, for the sake of biodiversity alone, where indigenous people live in ways that are ecologically sustainable (and for that, read the vast majority), their eviction is the most counterproductive thing we can do.

Perhaps the real nub of the issue is our conception of wilderness, of the wild and our place upon it. A very real problem is our notion of nature as separate, as ‘out there’, a thing which can be visited but which sits apart from our modern lives, from the ever mounting effects of our daily actions. Tribal peoples here are seen as throwbacks, ‘archaic fantasists’ as Botswana’s President Khama has said, removed from the realities of 21st Century life, a people to be educated and absorbed.

But in reality of course they hold so much that we can learn from; often enhancing their environments through a sophisticated knowledge of biological diversity without any formal schooling in ecology, botany or zoology. The world that they inhabit holds the key to how life – far from the environmentally dystopic state of affairs most of us have grown accustomed to – can be far less intrusive on the natural world and, at its best, can approach something genuinely harmonious. How tragic then that the Bushmen and others like them should be brushed aside while we are still allowed to visit what has become a semi-artificial, pristine natural world we only ever tend to reach by jetting through the skies our planes have wounded.

The aims of international conservation are wholly noble but suffer from this trap of dual realities. Its sponsors include the World Bank as well as a host of bilateral and multilateral banks and transnational corporations. The Nature Conservancy has around 2000 corporate sponsors while Conservation International has 250 corporate ‘partners’. Often, there is a ‘debt for nature’ swap, with PAs created in return for annulment of part of that country’s national debt. So perhaps there is a kind of logic as well as more than a hint of the perverse at President Khama’s membership of Conservation International.

Perhaps, in contemplating the Kalahari, we could do worse than remember the creation of the first nature reserve ever created – Yellowstone Park – which was ‘set aside’ at the expense of the Miwok, Shosone, Lakota, Bannock, Crow, Nez Perce, Flathead and Blackfeet peoples who had all existed there benignly for so long. Laurens van der Post bought the Bushmen’s existence to a global audience and it was explicitly for their benefit – as well as that of the wildlife around them – that the Kalahari Game Reserve was created. Today the Bushmen call out to van der Post’s godson – Prince William – who is visiting the country this month. His response will perhaps indicate the kind of figureheads we can expect in the years ahead of us, it will determine whether, as a culture, we have in any way moved on from the days of evicting whole peoples whose outlook can teach us so much.

Botswana’s government’s actions are undoubtedly driven by money, by a complete disregard for both their own constitution and the basic human rights of their countrymen. At their root these actions stem perhaps from a contempt for a way of life they think we should move on from. And it is the messages we all send out, deliberately or otherwise, than help determine such perceptions. We cherish our lifestyles, the thousand little things that make them easier and often let ourselves forget our sense of what is really vital. A certain level of development undoubtedly has served us well, but perhaps we have for too long lost the very precious thing which is so vital; the sense of being part of that which lies beneath our feet. Without it we are all at sea and seek to plug the gap with things which only compound our feelings of emptiness; we are often like ghosts or children pushing at a wheel we cannot see nor understand. There has to be a greater balance, some sense of what is valid and what we need to get beyond. The Bushmen here can help to lead us back, remind us that when we live in greater harmony with the land we are all the richer for it. Don’t let us forget them and their right to such a very basic thing.