I had a dream in which a young man asked me if I had “done enough”?
The question saddened me deeply, depressed me, and I was
forced to ask what had I done?
When I woke up, the dream stayed on. Lists were forming.
Driving me awake. I had to grab paper and pencil.
The first list was short and apart from the obvious, like
joining environmental groups, planting native trees and shrubs, pulling
invasive species from native forest areas, picking up rubbish and talking to
the unconvinced, not much.
A bigger list came to me, full of things I had not done.
But first, there was another question: Why can’t most people
hear the trees crying?
I knew the origins of it. On a long drive south to Kinjarling
(Albany) from Walyalup (Fremantle), I listened to an interview with Veronique
Tadjo who wrote a novel - In the Company of Men - from a novel
perspective: Tadjo gives voices to creatures that inhabit West Africa and, in
particular, to an ancient tree.
Between 2014 and 2016, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
suffered the world’s worst Ebola outbreak. Tadjo’s novel covers the events in
brutal detail. In the Company of Men has not yet been released but after
listening to her interview and reading early reviews, it is obvious that a
major thread in the work is that viruses like Ebola and humans have much in
common – both cannot stop their inner drives. They live of their hosts, and at
the same time they destroy them.
She wanted a voice that knew humans longer than humans had
known humans, and it makes sense when you remember that what is left of the
Australian bush is packed with trees, like Huon Pines and Balgas, that have
been around longer than the colonials and those who followed.
And so I thought of the trees I loved, and tried to find
their voices.
And that was when one of them asked: Can’t you hear us
crying?
Don’t
you know we are sick?
Of
the loss of habitat.
The
loss of family.
The
loss of the insects that feed of us and give life to others at the same time.
Of
the decline in bird numbers, even those that you all think are forever birds, like the koorlbardi, the
djitty djitty, the karrak.
Of
invasive species of all types.
Especially
you people.
More
and more often with machines.
And
every year with incendiary devices to set of wildfires that burn us on-mass, to cinders.
And
you, people, you have forgotten that time before when you looked to us, for shelter, for food, and
you prayed to our spirit.
Now we are nothing to you, just
another thing, like plastic, like curios. And one day soon you will house us
like all your curios, behind high walls, with gates, and you will sell tickets
to the curious.
But
then it will be too late and, like the Ebola virus, you will have destroyed everything that sustains you.
And now, here is another list, for further reading.
In the Company of Men
https://www.amazon.com.au/Company-Men-V%C3%A9ronique-Tadjo/dp/1635420954
Gum: The
story of eucalypts & their champions
https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/gum-131849/
The Heartbeat of Trees
https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/heartbeat-trees
The Hidden Life of Trees
https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/hidden-life-trees
