Wednesday 29 May 2019

Time to Grow


May has passed its peak and there’s barely a thought of a time without full leaf cover or the rainbow meadow patch that has replaced our drills of spuds. It’s been a busy time. Getting used to the thoughts of leaving a work that has consumed much of my life to date, launching a book (click here if you've been on the moon the last month! www.catherinewilkie.ie) and now getting used to thoughts of a new horizon, already beckoning me and only days away.

Growing Time - bring on the bees, 
and the wigwam!
When I started working on bogs I didn’t know a blanket bog from a turf bank, or a brown moss from a less brown moss (mossy brains will get this reference!). I started my postgraduate research in 1996 at a time when bogs (peatlands) were well off the mainstream radar and also when I was probably more engaged with high level academic notions of ecological restoration. Rather than the real thing. Which involves diggers and dozers, and lots of welly wearing by the way.

Twenty-three years later and I humbly bow to the great wisdom of the wet-scapes that bogs and fens are part of, and the lessons that I have slowly and steadily taken on board as I moved through the bog-fairs of Canada, USA, Fenno-Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe. I never made it to the southern hemisphere tropical swamps, and much to the disappointment of a long-held aspiration, I’ve never witnessed Orang-utan playing in the branches of their very vulnerable natural habitat. But I have been eaten alive by midges on a breeze free Mayo day, and I have battled with mosquitoes in central Finland! Again, it’s the small things that really put is in our place…

The great events surpass the biting insects though and I have had the great privilege of steering some spectacular restoration work. And I have witnessed the power of nature to forgive the sins of us over-eager humans, by working its natural wisdom and healing to over-turn loss of habitat and species in the space of but a few Earth years. Nature does so much, but it is our nature to recognise when we must stop, understand, and duly restore and rewet as the case usually is with heavily modified wetlands. Nature shows no emotion, nature just gets on with it. There are no mistakes, just lessons learned and new horizons.

And so, do the same. I leave one world, carrying with me the lessons and memories that are etched on my soul. The memory of Mayo skies that go on forever, the wonderful isolation of being immersed in fieldwork yet never alone. The sound of gurgling water moving under your feet and not a clue of what secret pipes are flowing. Finding a new species, or finding a species wearing a different persona and it making an eejit out of you for days. Learning of liverworts and lichens and how the small things matter. My own reflection in a dark and peaty pool that is centuries old. A surprised Otter on a lonely riverbank. Cranes dancing and calling in the early morning Polish mist. Making a dried-out bog wet again, and hearing the birds sing again. Such gifts I carry with me. And friendships, lifelong though many over distances longer. 

To new horizons, though also old. Back to the heart of learning – of pushing boundaries of the mind, of stepping out of a comfort zone, yet with the comfort that nature has my back. Next week I begin my work with the indelible Professor Jane Stout in Trinity College Dublin. She, and others will be working with me to unravel the concept of Natural Capital Accounting – bringing nature onto the balance sheets. That’s right – water, soil, habitats, the whole kit and caboodle. Will it work? I don’t know. But it’s definitely worth a try. I won’t be trying to monetise nature – nature doesn’t do money – but this system may work to target restoration and identify the weak points in the system. The fragile bits that nature-based solutions can fill.

So, my path has changed. I carry my scars and my lessons, and I venture out to new horizons. 

Time to grow indeed.  


2 comments:

  1. Best of luck Catherine! I'll see you soon I'm sure :)

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  2. Looking forward to hearing what you learn

    ReplyDelete