Wild world is disappearing, warns artist
ACORNISH painter has shared his fears for the future of Cornwall’s wilderness as the consequences of excessive tourism and development gradually encroach on its remaining wild spaces.
Watercolourist Tony Foster has spent much of his artistic career exploring the Earth’s wilderness in a celebration of remote places far from the touch of human society.
However, from the Amazon and Arctic to the Atacama desert and Great Barrier Reef, it has become increasingly obvious that such remote places are harder to find.
With Cornish landscape at his doorstep, he has been struck by both its extraordinary nature, as well as the tragic toll that excessive tourism and development are taking.
Fragile Planet: Watercolour Journeys into Wild Places is Tony’s current exhibition that is showcasing at Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. It includes 161 paintings of nature found in Cornwall, celebrating the county’s wilderness and portraying the landscape’s vulnerability.
Tony comments on how the post-pandemic staycation movement and rise of social media culture has made Cornwall even more of a popular destination for UK holidaymakers, putting it on the map for those who would typically travel abroad.
He said: “People have been caught by surprise by the interest and speed with which people have fled to Cornwall.
“I don’t want to sound like I want to turn back the clock 200 years. I think there is a need to develop, but it must be done properly”.
The influx has led to development decisions that Tony views as shortsighted and lacking in joined-up thinking.
Tony uses both housing development and renewable energy farms as examples of necessary change, but with detrimental effects if they are not done appropriately.
While he says he supports building homes for local people, he argues that new housing is already being built, with millionaire second homes or Airbnb properties in mind.
Tony added: “This ruins the social fabric of a town and it’s not just about the houses, but the facilities and services that must then support these greater numbers of people.”
Similarly, Tony said that, on a recent hike to the top of Brown Willy on Bodmin Moor, there was no view in any direction that did not have a solar or wind farm.
While he is a strong supporter of renewable energy, he thinks it is “absurd” that our finest wilderness is being used instead of making the most of the enormous sites where supermarkets or warehouses or transit centres already exist.
He comments on the irony of renewable energy being environmentally friendly but then being put in locations that impact the natural wilderness.
In other parts of the world, Tony reports that there is a disparaging sense that too much damage has been done and that environmentalists are up against impossibly corrupt, dangerous powers.
Whereas in Cornwall, Tony feels that it is not too late and that there is simply a need to “rebalance” and reflect on the “society we want”.
He comments on the “inventive, fighting spirit” amongst the Cornish populations and how there are many Cornwall-based initiatives that can provide hope, including Surfers Against Sewage and Shelter Box.
He said: “We can harness our power as consumers to demand change and apply pressure. The world community can bring about change”.
At Tony’s exhibition, there is an interactive installation that encourages each individual to consider one small action that they can do to mitigate the destruction of wild spaces, both locally and overseas. Their entries are collected together on a blossoming tree to visually reflect his belief in the collective power of community and society to protect the environment.
‘It’s absurd our finest wilderness is used for wind farms’ TONY FOSTER