As humans, our minds bristling with invention and exploration, we may be so tempted to assume our intellectual mastery and technical capacity for quick change can compete with or even replace the nuanced, but profound developments made over millennia by an ever-adapting natural world, our home. To assume that lightening reason and IQ give our species a lead over the natural world is cause for trouble and great damage. We have been luminous wizards of a type, shining bright, delighting and nourishing many - the truest of us humans aiding the survival of our kind; the blindest of us assuming the world exists for us alone. Before our wands burn too bright, we may need to gently lay them down. Silk hats may need to be folded. Rabbits and doves were there all along, feeding in the wild winds, just borrowed for the effect. Stepping down from the stage, away from the spotlight, we may be tested as we acclimatise to the expressions of the wilderness in the shadows. We may see who and what we have helped. We may also see who and what we have devastated. In our angst we may attempt to conjure up an all too humane rescue, as if the healing powers were ours alone. But eyes, not wands are our tools now. If we as a species learn to retire, and separate parts of our lives from the lure of consumerism and power, by observation, we may understand the need give up the space we commanded and trust it will be re-invigorated by new beings and systems more sophisticated and life-enhancing than we can dream of.
The urge to control is so great in us, whether for rectifying situations or for damaging them, maybe propelled by fear. The hardest thing, it appears, is to stand back and give back space. We might feed birds with the greatest of intentions, but given the chance, nature with its huge nuanced potential for for catering for different digestive systems will do this 100 times better.
If, instead of feeding the birds, we allow wild plants and grazers to take over all our green spaces - gardens, municipal parks, Natural Trust parks, Yorkshire Moors etc, the birds will get the most sustaining diet of all, allowing new generations to develop wilder habits.
If, instead of covering every inch of farmland with grain grown for livestock which we then feed to them in their prison camps, we let them graze in wild spaces with the natural variety of plants they would have grazed on before we ever started farming, we would be witnessing the the re-invigoration of ecosystems.
If, instead of working so so hard as part of the system created by those at the top to insure those at the bottom provide their profits, we were all able to stand back and literally do nothing for a while, we might find that we are allowing something else, initially invisible, but very fundamental, to redress the balance - Nature.
If, instead of constructing clean, tidy, gardens, we are able to remove our decking, plank by plank, and create an amazing wildlife friendly structure or bookcase with the wood, the space we create will immediately charge our gardens with life, whether we see it or not.
If we always think of Climate Change as the only priority, with the emphasis on providing man-made technology and human organisation to address it, we are ignoring the fact that the technology has ALWAYS existed in the Natural World, being the most sophisticated of all technologies. There is so much it can do for us without our having to adopt a Lutheran work ethic. We may not understand it all, but why do we need to wait until we do? How can we expect humans with vested interests - just one species among trillions - to be able to to work it all out. Nature doesn't need to wait for Government approval or human instruction to do its job. Given the space, it will work to redress the balance immediately.
If we plant trees in regular little rows along the motorways, encased in apparently biodegradable plastic, many of these saplings will die from too much damp and mould. The degrading plastic will affect all life's organisms under the soil. Far better to allow native hawthorne and blackthorn to grow naturally and plant the seeds of native trees under their protective foliage. It works in natural systems, so it should work anywhere.
If instead of wasting our food, we make little meals and consume every single morsel, there will be more to go around. We might then be able to allow double or even triple hedgerows to border our fields instead. The less we need to produce, the more space for nature.
If we devise intensive programmes to prioritise endangered species for the sake of that species alone, we may not be understanding the whole cycle of life and death. Extinction will always happen, and that is natural. What is more important is that the opportunity for life in any form is invigorated via the gesture of giving back space and seeing who and what thrives.
I could go on, but I am only a human animal, dying for us to put our faith in a trustworthy remedy we don't entirely understand or need to control.
With best wishes and much hope
Ophelia Redpath
Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2021