ENJOYING NATURE IN ALL ITS GLORY
WILL OUR APPRECIATION OF NATURE DURING COVID-19 INSPIRE US TO ADOPT A MORE RESPECTFUL AND SUSTAINABLE WAY OF LIVING?
People are seeing nature differently during the pandemic lock-down, according to the Wexford environmentalist Jim Hurley, who is cocooning at his home in Kilmore with his wife Rose.
‘One of the advantages of the pandemic, if you can put it like that, is that it has come at a good time of year, in the spring. It would be appalling if it was in the dark days of winter.’
‘All the plants are starting to bloom, the birds are singing and nesting, leaves are appearing on the trees, there are butterflies and bees around. There is a lot to see, particularly now that we have the time to appreciate it.’
Working remotely or self-isolating at home, is allowing people the time and space to tune in to the natural world while the limit on travel, is keeping them grounded and encouraging them to focus on what is immediately around them.
‘When you are getting up early to drive to work and coming home late in the evenings after a busy day, the opportunity is not there, you are not as receptive to it’, said Jim.
‘When you are confined to home and the few kilometres around you, your focus is entirely on your local area and you look more closely at it. It narrows and intensifies your perception. And there is so much to appreciate.’
‘It’s great for people who are fortunate enough to have a garden where they can enjoy nature. It must be terrible for people who are living in in apartments and don’t have a balcony from which to enjoy the natural world.’
The world has become a quieter place during the pandemic lock-down, allowing the sounds of nature to come to the fore. The Institute for Advanced Studies measures seismic activity caused by traffic and footfall and the level has gone way down since the coronavirus crisis began.
Jim’s advice to everyone who find themselves communing with nature more than they ever did, is to enjoy every moment, free of the usual pressures of modern life.
‘It’s a lovely time of year and it’s not going to last forever. Enjoy it while you can’.
‘A psychiatrist in China was interviewed recently and spoke about the sense of elation that comes when lock-down restrictions are lifted but it is very shortly followed by disappointment when people realise that life is not the same, that there is a new normal of continued social distancing and large events being cancelled. It’s a brave new world and you can’t really talk about things going back to normal.’
Jim hopes we are all learning lessons from this period of quarantine, including new attitudes to work and what is really important.
‘When the worst of the first wave of COVID-19 has passed and the restrictions that were in place during it have been lifted, we won’t be returning to ‘normal’ as we formerly knew it.
‘It will be a new normal, hopefully a more enlightened normal based on both the ongoing threat of a second wave of viral infection and the lessons learned during weeks of lock down, cocooning, social isolation, working from home, and becoming more aware of the natural world around us.
‘It would be great if the new normal could combine greater social awareness, greater care for each other, more respect for nature, and living more sustainably so as to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies that are so urgently in need of attention. We can do it, if the will is there’, he said.
Wexford wildlife artist Dave Daly who spends much of his life observing nature and is upset by the destruction of natural habitats, said if there is one positive development from the current crisis it is that the planet is getting a rest from human overload.
‘Let me preface everything by saying that what is happening is absolutely awful for an awful lot of people who have lost loved ones and then to say that it is possibly one of the most amazing things that has ever occurred.
‘If Greta Thunberg had a wish list, she couldn’t have got a better list of things because all the major damagers of the environment, have been stopped.
‘You have no air travel which is one of the big polluters and our own travel- bumper to bumper cars pumping out C02 into the environment - has been greatly reduced.
‘Another thing that I don’re think a lot of people realise, is all the cruise ships that were causing so much pollution.’
‘I listened to the Marian Finucane show about six months ago and there was a gentleman on talking about the disastrous effects of the flooding in Venice
and it really struck me - there are 40,000 residents in Venice and they get 30 million visitors a year from cruise ships and other tourism.’
‘When I hear economists talking on the radio about when we get back to normal and when air travel returns to normal and I think how is air travel normal. In one 24-hour period, there are 8.2 million people flying. Just think of the amount of C02 you get from that.’
‘Then there’s getting to the airport and all the plastic used at the airport and on the airplane that is just dumped.’
‘You have this extraordinary calm and silence in the world at the moment. That is the way nature should be. We are the ones who disturb it. When did we get the idea that we could ignore it, trample on it and rule over it and not think that it wouldn’t turn around and give us a kick up the arse some day, which is what has happened.’
‘How could it possibly tolerate the abuse it was getting. It’s like the planet has said I’ve had enough. It is now getting a rest and a reprieve.
‘I do worry about when this is over. How quickly will we forget and go back to plundering again. I would hope that what is happening is like the teacher telling us to please hold back.’
‘I would hope people would learn a lesson from it.’
‘Personally, I feel much less stressed because when you witness the amount of destruction of natural habitats that I see, it takes a toll. Unfortunately, it was only a minority of people who were trying to protect them.
‘Now, the roadside grass verges are not being mowed as often and you have an abundance of dandelions and all these plants that bees need.’
‘The victorians have a lot to answer for in promoting the trend for clean straight lines in gardens and particular types of plants and controlling nature.
‘The advice now is to let the grass grow. If you think back to a previous time in Ireland, meadows were mown in late June or early July, when they were flowered and seeded and the seeds had gone back into the soil for the following year.
A rare Green-Winged Orchid was recently found on an unmown grass verge in a housing estate in Portlaoise. ‘If people were to leave a square metre of their lawn unmown, they would be surprised at what would appear’, said Dave.
He hopes young children will be influenced by being closer to nature during the lockdown. ‘If you grow up in a certain environment, you learn from that environment and the people around you. To me, the last generation have sort of missed out on that closeness to nature.
‘All you can do is hope we can get back to that a little but it would take a decade or more.’
‘There is only one planet and if we all have to co-exist on it, why do we think we have to take more.’
‘People are getting back to basics. They’re talking about nature, shopping less and doing more home cooking. The planet is the big winner in this.’
‘I’m of an age where this really doesn’t change me an awful lot. Growing up you lived locally and you didn’t travel much and you lived out of your garden. You were out in the fields, climbing walls and getting stung by nettles’, said Dave who has been carrying a sketch pad with him on his daily rambles and would encourage others to do the same.
‘You see on Facebook now, people talking about wild creatures being seen in cities. It struck me that when you see wild creatures invading our built environment, it emphasises how much we have invaded theirs.
‘At the moment, there is less noise and less traffic and I’m seeing foxes every day where we’re living. There is less noise and vibration and animals are feeling a little more secure in places that are quieter now.’
‘One thing I think that we can learn from this at the end of it all, is that it is time to reflect on what is really important and adjust to a more sustainable way of living’.
IT WOULD BE GREAT IF THE NEW NORMAL COULD COMBINE GREATER SOCIAL AWARENESS, GREATER CARE FOR EACH OTHER