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.
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| 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.
