opinion

#AustralianNativeOrchids #Conservation #EternalLife

Some years ago, I enrolled in a bushwalking course, thinking that the course was about appreciating the bush. During an initial assessment walk in Mt Samaria State Forest, midway through a navigation exercise, I noticed a common bird orchid in flower. I pointed it out to my leader, "Roy". Roy was momentarily fascinated, but as he spun away to check his bearings, the sole of his size 12 walking boot unwittingly screwed the orchid into the ground, as if he was stubbing out a cigarette butt.

#AncientLandforms   #ImpactOnAgriculture #PopulationAndGeopolitics

I want to look at is the theme of connectedness in outdoor education. Connectedness is easy enough to conceptualise as a notion - in the way, for example, that chaos theorists famously connect the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon rainforest with tsunamis in Japan. We can imagine water droplets connecting all parts of the globe by recycling themselves in perpetuity. We can imagine being connected to woolly mammoths or dinosaurs in the sense that chemical particles in our bodies may once have been the stuff of those creatures.