One Mission to Unify us All.

By Marianne Hill

With all the craziness of the last three years, and the divisions created as a result, it is easy to forget the most fundamental facet of our lives. The Earth, our one and true mother to whom we owe every molecule of everything we ‘have’.

Whilst all sorts of headlines lead us to a variety of terrifying outcomes, we are missing without doubt the most important issue that collectively we can change. Every mother and father on the planet tend to take it for granted that our beautiful vibrant pristine planet that we were born into, will be the same for our children and their children. And whilst the media, governments, institutions, and industries are running around extoling what ‘needs to be done about climate change’, there are a growing number of people living close to the environment (ecologists and farmers) that know that ‘climate change’ is not the issue we need to be focusing on. Besides, let’s be honest about what you and I can really do about climate issues.  

Biodiversity is crashing. Scientists have increasing amounts of data to show biodiversity is being lost at a rate of 10% per year. Why is this not the headline of every newspaper? Without biodiversity there are no pollinators, and no pollinators means no food. And that’s just the obvious aspect. Our ecosystem functions as a whole and this huge group is slowly becoming extinct. We truly are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, and if we don’t want that to include humans, we need to act fast. Remember thirty years ago how you were forever washing your car windscreen in the summer due to bug splat? When was the last time you did that?  

What I can tell you for sure, is that it didn’t happen on its own. It happened because of us – mankind (and many would add greed into this equation) because we make decisions without considering the future ecosystem. Mother nature, in her wisdom, evolved nature to be both beautiful, diverse, and abundant. It is also so complex that humans can neither comprehend all of her subtleties or see the damage we do – as our one lifetime is simply too short to get the needed perspective of the changes.

It is time for all of us (in the western world especially) to wake up and face the damage we have done and accept the responsibility for it. We all need to come together like never before. For the love of God, the Universe, Great Spirit, ‘All that is’ or whatever else you choose to call it: it is now long past time. It is time to care like never before and time to realize just how much damage is being done by us in our fog of comfort.

One of the biggest parts of this equation is agriculture, with small farmers at the very top of the extinction list – the farmers that care the most. So, we are left, over mere decades, with larger and larger farms using increasing machinery and chemicals on an ecosystem that evolved with totally different and highly complex symbiosis over millions of years. A symbiosis that science has barely scratched the surface of. Just look how quickly the Great Plains of America turned to a dust bowl after the annihilation of the buffalo and tillage began. The Earth evolves a wonderfully sustainable planet, and we destroy it at an ever-increasing pace.

The good news though, is we can change it. We can stop the decline, and if the starlings are anything to go by, we can do a lot more too. And we do not need ignorant government officials to tell us how to do it!

Every day we can make small changes in our buying habits, and this is absolutely key. Singularly, you may feel that you alone make no difference – but you do. All of us, when aligned together, are a true collective force: A groundswell!

So my question is: are you going to buy a commodity, a product produced by a nameless face for a system that most likely does not care even if its vision and mission say otherwise? You can change everything by caring enough to empower the small and the local. We all love our children, and care is love in action. By knowing more about what you are buying, and from places that know intimately how your purchase was produced, it means that every choice you make can empower a more vibrant future. It is a journey, and maybe not an easy one at the start, especially for those on a budget (but that’s where community comes in). If you think you cannot afford food other than from a supermarket, then get together with friends and neighbours and start a buying co-op, share cooking tips, share your gardens, or maybe find some derelict land and learn how to grow things. If you know why you want good produce, and you are motivated, farmers will be happy to oblige. You may even stimulate small new farm enterprises, or inspire more farmers to diversify their product line, take on more staff and nurture not just the food but the land on which it is grown.

This is how biodiversity is regenerated. By you.

How do I know this? Because I have done it myself. I have worked with livestock and learned by my mistakes and doing just a little to restore nature as she intended on our small patch. In just three years, we have quadrupled our grazing (and that’s huge for a small tenant farmer) and have the potential to double that further, and because we monitor the land, we see the biodiversity returning both above and below ground. The land now also holds more water that can filter to the aquifers. And if that’s not enough, the scientists are proving that this is one of a number of natural methods available to farmers to actually sequester carbon back into the soil – where it belongs.

Nature is bounteous. We just have to learn how to work with her.