BULURRU
Bulurru
and the
Essential Role of Small Places
in
Understanding Nature and her Conservation
19th March 2022
Saving the Amazon rainforest or the habitat of Australia’s bilby needs large tracts of land. But sometimes nature conservation is equally well served by intensely studied small places. For example, in terms of area Bulurru’s 58 hectares is small, but its biodiversity is huge. The area of the Simpson Desert is huge but its biodiversity is small. Bulurru probably protects more species than the entire Simpson Desert. Also, because it has been closely observed, written about and photographed Bulurru has contributed to the knowledge of the rainforest as well as the feelings it evokes. Knowledge and feelings together are more effective in nature conservation than either by itself is not.
In the late 20th century science and emotional attachment parted company to the detriment of nature conservation. They need to be reunited if we are to survive the age of climate change. Bulurru, and other places like it, could have a vital role to play in this reunification.
The way we perceive and appreciate nature today is based on the study of small to very small places. It began modestly in southern England and is currently defined by a new understanding of the life of plants, particularly forest trees. Along the way there were remarkable milestones.
Gilbert White
(1720-1793)
Alexander von Humboldt
(1769-1859)
Charles Darwin
(1809-1889)
Henri David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
Jean Henri Fabre
(1823-1915)
Aldo Leopold
(1887-1948)
Peter Wohlleben
(1964 - )
Gilbert White lived almost his entire life in a small village in Hampshire, England. For forty years he studied and wrote about nature around his house. He published his writing in The Natural History of Selborne in 1789. It was the first widely published nature writing of its kind. White’s book has never been out of print. You can buy a copy today. The place where he made his observations is now a museum.
Alexander von Humboldt is credited with inventing natural history as we know it today. He was the first European scientist to explore the natural history of South America. He got his greatest insight not from the grand sweep of rainforest, but by studying a single mountain. This insight was the interrelatedness of all living beings. His Personal Narrative is one of the most influential works ever published. Its influence stretches from Charles Darwin to the present. Von Humboldt emphasised that nature had to be experienced through feelings.
Charles Darwin travelled the world on the exploration ship HMS Beagle, gaining the biggest of big pictures of the natural world. But his great discovery took root while visiting an archipelago of small islands. These discoveries were tested and refined at Down House, a small place he lived most of his life. There he wrote On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859. It isacknowledged as one of the greatest and most influential books ever written. It too is still in print.
Henri David Thoreau's Walden was published in 1854. It is his account of living the simple life close to nature. For more than a year he lived in a cabin in a small piece of bush, or woods as he called it, in the northeast of the USA. It was a year of contemplation and observation on nature, our relationship with her and the philosophy of life. Science, feelings, philosophy were his strengths and to this day influence how we think about nature.
Jean Henri Fabre lived for the last 35 years of his life on a small abandoned farm with infertile soils in the South of France. To him it was a piece of paradise. Here he studied mostly insects – closely, creatively, scientifically. In the process he invented a new branch of science; that of animal behaviour. His ten volume Souvenirs Entomologiques was published between 1879 and 1909. It continues to influence how we look at insects and other invertebrates.
Aldo Leopold was one of the most perceptive nature writers and with Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring) the founder of the conservation movement we know today. After travels throughout the USA, Leopold, like Fabre, aquired a small, run-down farm with infertile soils. In his case in the State of Wisconsin. It was there, at what he called “The Shack”, that he wrote so brilliantly about nature and formulated his idea of The Land Ethic, a major catalyst in nature conservation. “The Shack” is now a much visited conservation reference point.
Peter Wahlleben in Germany and Suzanne Simard in Canada made revolutionary discoveries about trees in studies in small forests. They reveal them in The Hidden Life of Trees - What they Feel, How they Communicate (Wohlleben – 2015) and in Finding the Mother Tree – Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest (Simard – 2021). In time these works will be as far reaching in our perception of nature as the milestones mentioned above.
These milestones, as well as others, formulate how we think about nature. They are enduring and influential. All these ideas and insights were discovered in small places.
A new milestone is needed now more than ever and, I believe, is in the process of being formed. It has to do with re-connecting with nature through our feelings on one level and the scourge of climate change on another. What shape it will eventually take is difficult to say. But to achieve it, we’ll need the wisdom bestowed by small holdings.
I do not pretend to be in the same league as those who created the above milestones. Bulurru, however, could play a part. Having been observed and documented for more than 30 years, the foundation has been laid.