It appears that in lutruwitaTASMANIA the very suggestion that bamboo might be a viable consideration in THEgreening going forward is unwelcome and the cause of derision. When thinking ahead and thinking strategically and about how bamboo could contribute to the development of a sustainable ecology and economy, status quoism makes itself quite evident. It is in the lines of defence against change and it is deeply entrenched and formidable.
There is a Zen proverb that tells us to look to pine trees to learn of the pine tree and to look to bamboo to learn of the bamboo. Likewise, it is said that if it cannot be done with bamboo it probably should not be be done at all.
We belong to places, and in all reality places cannot belong to us. We owe places a great deal, places owe us nothing. In their substance places provide our sustenance, our shelter, our safety and they welcome us despite all that we take from them.
Curiously, the status quo that is defended cannot imagine a lutruwitaTASMANIA differently, albeit at the same time, talking about a very long list of introduced food and fibre plants that need to be called out. Then there is an almost equally long list of animals and birds that are a part of a defendable status quo.
The status quo is conflicted as are Tasmania's histories!
And, when all this gets to be articulated, enter stage left the very long list of INVASIVE PLANTS and FERAL ANIMALS that need to be eradicated in order that AUSTRALIAN AND TASMANIA NATIVE SPECIES might flourish.
Embedded in all this there is a class of rhetoric that verges on
the surreal spiked as it is with
warped memories and rationales that are founded upon the bureaucratic imperatives of elsewhere – some imaginary globalised precinct far away.
A poignant symbol of lutruwita sustainability and ecological balance is the TASMANIANemu. For 30,000 years this flightless bird cohabited the island and arguably did so while being 'husbanded' by the palawa and pakana people. Thinking about this and the fate of flightless birds elsewhere, once discovered the Dodo went extinct very quickly. Likewise when the Maori people arrived in Aotearoa the extinction of the islands' Moa took but a few centuries of human arrival, possibly less, mainly to do with human predation – and arguably to do with it being focused on their eggs.
The TASMANIANemu went extinct within two generations after European colonisation [reference] and by-and-large for the same reason as the Moa went extinct in Aotearoa. Colonial expansion is depleting by necessity.
Somewhere in the midst of the rhetoric that hinges upon a kind of defence for a lutruwitaTASMANIA placedness where 'exotics' are called out for their undesirability, it turns out that there are more disconnects than connects evident in all this – and thus in the CULTURALlandscaping.
In this lutruwitaTASMANIA status quoism there is without doubt a PhD thesis or two yet to be written about CULTURALrealities and placedness.
In Northern Australia in Aboriginal communities there is a euphemism for the time before colonisation. It is BT (beforeTROUSERS) and it is as eloquent as it might be quirky and quaint. Interestingly, it is sometimes used to assert cultural authority, precedence and placedness – an it is very effective.
lutruwitaTASMANIA's placedness is blighted by recent history as much as it might be the colonial histories that have shaped 'place'. Oftentimes "premeditated ignorance" (Michael Mobbs) that comes into play in the struggles and tussles to do with CIVICprecedence is also a factor.
In December 2019 Launceston declared a CLIMATE EMERGENCY but fundamentally ever since, and under various administrations, very little of significance has changed.
Arguably more trees have been removed than planted in recent times. Many have been important from heritage and environmental perspectives. Thinking about the realities of our time lutruwitaTASMANIA might do well to look to our geographic neighbourhood for insights into wisdom.
There is a Zen proverb that tells us to look to pine trees to learn of the pine tree and to look to bamboo to learn of the bamboo. Likewise, it is said that if it cannot be done with bamboo it probably should not be be done at all.
When it comes to Placemaking, it is not Placemade. It is a process, the placedness is invested in the doing, it is cultural, it is landscaping and it is never finished!
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