Individual efforts building collective successes

Abstract

Along with a range of features, formal reports, short notes and abstracts, this issue contains the first of a series of interviews with an individual researcher or practitioner; in this case, the researcher Hugh Possingham. The intention of these interviews is not to put individuals on pedestals but to bring more of a human element into the social and environmental change discourse that Ecological Management & Restoration attempts to foster. Yes, Hugh's contribution is exceptional, probably because his gifts and opportunities are exceptional; but what perhaps strikes a common chord is his continued commitment to the principles of his youth and to doing what he can as a scientist to make a difference. It is actually not that unusual for highly motivated researchers to dedicate substantial portions of their time to unpaid work associated with improving natural areas management. In the process of editing this journal and working with the research-based organizations who have breathed life into it, I have found that many researchers are just as committed to actions that will make a difference on the ground as are practitioners and landholders. It is very likely that those of us committed to on-ground outcomes, whether researchers or practitioners, have probably all started with at least one important place in childhood where we were able to form some sort of bond with an actual natural area: that patch of bush ‘down the creek’, ‘up the hill’, ‘out the back’ (or through the man-proof fence – see Possingham interview and Weston et al. this issue). Perhaps, like the children in the Weston et al. story, we have not had the benefit of a natural place but yearn for it; or, like Hugh, we witnessed such places damaged or destroyed and are driven by an unwillingness to see it happen again to similar places of beauty and meaning elsewhere. The authors of this issue's two features are also good examples of individuals who, working with others, sought opportunities to tackle some seemingly intractable problems to avoid loss of local ecosystems (see Lymburner et al. and Barrett & Mallen-Cooper this issue). Neither the Brockley rainforest restoration project nor the Murray Fishways project are finished by any means; but results so far are exciting and have vindicated the actions of those who commenced the projects. To these individuals, the option of losing the subtropical rainforests of the Alstonville Plateau or the fish communities of the Lower Murray was clearly an unacceptable price to pay. It is an interesting emotion; not being prepared to say goodbye to natural places. Saying goodbye to childhood things and loved ones (or even life itself when our time comes) is hard but we eventually adjust, consoled by the fact that it is natural; part of nature's profound cycles. But the possibility that we humans may have to say goodbye to nature at a grander scale is the sort of goodbye that many of us are simply not ready for. And that is good as this level of goodbye makes no sense. It is not alarmist or pessimistic to gently remind each other that if we do not start to talk about and tackle some of the problems we are turning a blind eye to, we are not merely at risk of losing a ‘sense’ of place but of losing the very places themselves, and on a much larger scale than ever before. Poets and philosophers have been warning us for many centuries, since the first whistles of the industrial revolution, that we are capable of extirpating nature to a point where we ourselves become terminally diminished. But now it is not just poets and philosophers talking about this but also many highly respected and rigorous scientists. It is not irrational romanticism to observe that there is something amiss, even if we do not know the exact nature of the problem, its fundamental cause or how to fix it. It is simply common sense; and common sense is a good basis from which to start applying rigorous logic and models to analyse the complex patterns that currently exist. It is also common sense to hope that, from those analyses, we can extract some clear models for preferred futures before the option of cultures and economies woven into natural places is lost irreversibly. The whole juggernaut of industrial development started with and has flourished on the cult of ‘individualism’ as distinct from ‘individuality’. Where the former is largely an ‘ism’, an illusion, the latter arises from genuine rootedness in one's community and ‘place’ whatever and wherever that may be. Educated individuals all over the globe are now, ironically perhaps, very strongly playing key roles in devising genuinely collective solutions. Individual conservation biologists, ecologists, teachers, planners, statisticians, seed collectors or bushcare workers, unlike institutions, can be flexible enough to be true to their own values, acquire and share knowledge and hone skills in ways we have never been able to before. We can form partnerships and networks of choice, and freely communicate knowledge and solutions to others. Individuals, when thinking for ourselves without fear, are ironically likely to be the most reliable key to building collective success. If all the individuals of the world looked after our own special places rather than feeding them to the juggernaut, the juggernaut may slow down sufficiently for us to fashion it, stepwise, into a system that serves human needs rather than merely mimicking and endlessly amplifying human wants.