|
 |
|
| |
Script of Mr. Brookes's Lecture, #3 |
|
Reporter admin ,
Date 20040405
|
A local example. The Lyell Forest.
To consider the question of what the implications might be of different ways of knowing the Australian, or even the Victorian, bush, it is necessary to be more specific. There is considerable environmental and social diversity even within Victoria. The bush is not one thing, or one place, but many.
I live on the edge of the Lyell forest. For my children this is ¡Èour bush¡É, where we ride bicycles on our ¡Èsecret track¡Ç, and visit places such as the goanna tree, the climbing tree, or the-place-where-mum-fell-off-her-bike-when-Laura-was-little. The forests are also nearly perfect for technical navigation training. The vegetation is not too thick to prevent running, the topography has just the right complexity and subtlety, and there are boundaries that prevent any person from becoming really lost. I first encountered this forest many years ago as a site where I set navigation tests for university students.
The Lyell forest is not the kind that would attract bushwalkers. It is small, and has no water. Bushwalking has tended to favour some landscapes over others. Measured against the standards of beauty often applied to the bush by bushwalkers, the Lyell forest would seem drab and uninteresting. Moreover, the forest bears the scars of many different uses and abuses since the 1850¡Çs, so does not fit the imported American ideal of untouched wilderness which has found favour in Australia, in spite of the fact, or perhaps because of the fact, that it conveniently ignores aboriginal occupation of the land.
The Lyell forest is part of the ¡ÈBox-Ironbark¡É forest region. ¡ÈBox-Ironbark¡É is a group of forest types found mostly inland of the mountain range along the east coast of Australia. Between 3% and 45% of the different types of Box-Ironbark vegetation remain compared to 1750, and the forests that remain have been altered a great deal since 1750 [13]. Much of the remaining forest is along ridgelines, and is fragmented.
Different outdoor activities provide lenses to see the forests through [14]. Orienteering, as I have mentioned, favours certain topographic qualities, mapped features (but usually not cultural features such as names), and terrain where running is possible. Orienteers prefer an area that is not familiar to them. Once an area has been mapped the map may be used many times, but symbolically at least orienteering resembles the search for new land ¡Èbeyond the frontier¡É. Fossickers (amateur gold-seekers) have a different perception; they see a historical landscape, and concentrate on where gold was found in the gold rushes of the nineteenth century. But they also look for ¡Ènew ground¡É in a way, because they hope to find places where other modern fossickers have not used their metal-detectors (Each piece of gold can be found only once!) Bee-keepers develop particular local knowledge, especially about the trees; different species produce different honey, at different times; particular stands of trees (particularly older trees) produce more nectar. There are many more such examples of course, and these examples could be developed in more detail. Moreover, a fox-shooter may also be an orienteer, on occasions. An apiarist may be a naturalist, or may collect firewood. Outdoor sports and activities create complex maps of knowledge of the forest within the community.
Within each of these ways of knowing are tensions between technical skills and personal experience, and between taking some benefit from the forest, and becoming familiar with the forest. Not only will individuals learn different things about the forest according to what activity they have chosen, but that also that the meaning of that knowledge will be shaped by the activity. In outdoor education, the question arises whether an activity can be shaped to develop particular knowledge, and for what reasons. Such reasons require local study to determine.. The sustainability of the remaining Box-Ironbark ecosystems faces many challenges [15]. Very little forest remains along streams or rivers. It is almost all along ridges. This has had consequences for the rivers, and also for the wildlife that lives in the forest. Trees have been cut down faster than they can grow back. There are fewer large old trees in the forests. The large old trees have hollows in their trunks or branches that are important for wildlife. (Australia has no wood-peckers, and tree-hollow take a very long time to form). The forests are mainly in small fragments, so although they are mostly government owned, they are difficult to manage compared to the large blocks of land that can be managed as a national park. Taking a wider view, the forests are almost all within the catchment of the Murray-Darling river system, which supports 60% of Australian agriculture and faces many problems, some of which depend in a practical way on how those living in the Box-Ironbark areas treat the land, and some of which depend in a political way on how those living in the Box-Ironbark area understand the land.
These few details are enough to illustrate that within the broad context of Australian environmental and social history, there are important local factors to consider when understanding outdoor sports and environmental education. To understand Australian society and Australian environments is to recognise great diversity. It is not possible to be attentive to social and geographical aspects of outdoor sports, or environmental education, without paying attention to local details [16]. Then it may be possible to begin a conversation about what kind of activity could best contribute to the local community and to local environmental sustainability.
For example, as mentioned, the forests like the Lyell Forest have a relatively small number of old trees. Boxes and Ironbarks are slow growing, requiring centuries to reach large sizes in some locations. Hollows, which are essential for much of the wildlife, particularly some of the mammals, but also some birds and goannas, form slowly in these trees. The outdoor activity I have introduced to students (who are training to be outdoor education teachers) has a simple premise. Students take a small area of forest and get to know the hollow trees in the area. The process begins in the first year of their course, requires that they spend several nights in the forest, and encourages them to spend more. They must learn what lives in the trees in a respectful, unobtrusive way. They may observe, but are allowed no trapping, spotlighting, banging on trees, playing recorded mating calls, feeding, or intrusive viewing (such as climbing trees to inspect holes in daylight). They must learn to see signs of wildlife, and must wait until the creatures show themselves. The purpose of this activity is to teach students how an activity may be constructed which in a small way could weave some important, but neglected aspects of the forest into the lives of local people.
The activity has a different structure to bushwalking ? students walk from tree to tree, looking for scratches on the bark and signs of hollow branches. They arrange their day so that in the evening they can quietly watch a tree to see what creatures emerge. Many of the animals which live in the trees only come out at night, which, combined with the fact they hide in hollows, means that for many local people they barely exist. Thus for the students the activity makes the forest come to life in a particular way.
A single activity may teach some facts, but it is important that students understand how an on-going relationship changes the meaning of an activity. Students who have visited an area more than once recognise things they have seen before, and notice changes. They not only learn about wildlife and its relationship to the trees, but they connect what they have seen with personal stories.
Students who expect to visit again have a reason to remember what they learn. A colleague and I use a simple device to introduce this social aspect of learning. Students in the first year of their course are introduced to a small area of forest by final year students, over three days and nights. They visit the forest on several more occasions over the next two years. Then in their final year, they in turn introduce a group of first year students to ¡Ètheir piece¡É of forest.
A map of students¡É movements through the forest would show a very different pattern to that of an orienteer visiting checkpoints, or a bushwalker passing through. The rhythm of activity is also different, because it has to take into account the schedule the wildlife sets. Instead of all meeting at ¡Èdinner time¡É students disperse to watch different trees at dusk. The activity also has some clearly evident social signatures. Students walk without maps, and speak of places in a slightly old-fashioned way: ¡Èthe goanna tree¡É; ¡Èthe Red Box tree where we saw the sugar gliders¡É; ¡Èthe echidna stump¡É, and so on. When groups meet in the forest at least some of their conversations is an exchange of stories about what they have seen. Thus wildlife becomes part of their socialisation, in a similar way to stories about sporting events on the weekend having a social function in the workplace.
It is the weaving of knowledge about wildlife with personal stories and a social relationship that makes this activity a little more like an indigenous way of knowing, and a little less like a field trip for a science class. I have called the activity a recreation activity because for some students at least it provides the same interest and motivation as recreation; some have returned many times to watch their trees. However, it is also a modest program, and it is important to note that it is more successful on some occasions than others. The question of which groups should undertake which activities in which part of the forest, if Australians are to learn how to live sustainably in Australia, is a much bigger question.
|
|
|
|
)
)
Send feedback to info@wschool.net