Habitat for coastal wetland birds

New South Wales coastal highways from the Mid North Coast to the Northern Rivers have giant traffic roundabouts. Most have a lot of masked lapwings and some white-faced herons huddled in the middle looking lost. Some are hanging out in the road drains that used to be small creeks. 

Image: Highway roundabouts for birds, Promted by Bellingen Area and ChatGPT 

Social Acceleration in Bellingen/ Gleniffer Suburbia

After logging machinery has denuded the forest and ploughed up Gleniffer Rd. more fossil fuel monstrosities are widening the road again. This degraded landscape of Bellingen/ Geniffer now attracts high-speed burnouts with boomboxes.

This 'production of space' opened up the space for burning some tyres throughout the night. Far away from civilisation and enforcement the drivers are racing though the denuded koala habitat and residential areas.

It is futile to deliberate whether the suicides of young men are unintentional or intentional. The mobility infrastructure design demands automobility and speed. The active transport desert repels pedestrians and slow (e)mobility. The traffic jam spurs rage and violence.

Society demands the acceleration of the pace of life. Commercial combustion racing events encourage all petrolheads in petrotopia.

Driving always entails a latent ‘suicide risk' in this given system. The ‘integral accident’ is inherently woven into this mode of transport and technological acceleration. It is the 'collateral damage’ tolerated by all.

Mainstream media bombards us with ‘news’ of ‘accidents’. The overexposure to the daily slaughter on the roads leads to its normalisation. Only spectacles and superlatives can demand any attention now.

Daily reporting of a house that has 'collided' with a speeding car. A group of people without armouring that 'collided' with a flying car. Just another hit-and-run. Just another normal hit-and-run. A few walking school kids ploughed off the footpath while mounting the kerb. No road is ever wide enough or has enough bollards to protect living beings from these machine operators on autopilot mode.

The concepts of the all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and the 'Sports Utility Vehicle’ (SUV) destroyed all mental guardrails for the motorist. Roads became 'so yesterday'. The 4x4 combustion machine was liberated to conquer the rugged terrain (car ads) of all non road spaces. A mindscape of ‘without any limits’ was born.

This allocation of space/time means that humans and other animals now have to dodge these ubiquitous flying bullets. Living beings are literally out of a habitat, considering how many cars end up on top of their homes.

Cars doing burnouts at night are just a matter of degree to the ‘normal’ daytime traffic of a commercialised and heavily industrialised sub-urban Bellingen/Gleniffer area now.

Links:

Suicide or accident? The hidden complexities of intentional road crashes in Australia
https://theconversation.com/suicide-or-accident-the-hidden-complexities-of-intentional-road-crashes-in-australia-248673

The Original Accident, Paul Virilio, 2007
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Original+Accident-p-9780745636146

"The Vermin of the Street: The Politics of Violence and the Nomos of Automobility"

 
"The authors of "The Vermin of the Street: The Politics of Violence and the Nomos of Automobility" analyze how the dominance of automobiles has transformed the world into a space of exception. They argue that, since the rise of the automobile, road violence has become normalized, reducing humans to "bare life" who can be killed without consequence. Drawing on Carl Schmitt's concept of the "nomos," they argue that the road functions as a "bracketed space" where laws and ethics are suspended, similar to the "state of exception" found in concentration camps. The authors ultimately conclude that the automobile has not simply changed the landscape, but our very way of being-in-the-world, transforming the entire globe into a "global nomos" governed by the constant threat of automobility violence."
(NotebookLM summary)

Robert Braun & Richard Randell (2022) The vermin of the street: the politics of violence and the nomos of automobility, Mobilities, 17:1, 53-68

https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S1745010122007299#ks0010

Bellingen Koalas and Suburbia

After the logging and clear felling of Bellingen's forests, koalas find themselves wandering around homeless. Desperate to find suitable (private) land that has not been cleared, they have to cross an array of roads with speeding trucks and cars. Navigating this terrain they find that most '5 acre kingdoms' are sprouting monocultures of lawns and exotic weeds. The majority of local landowners keep introduced canines that keep their places wildlife free. Additionally, these pet owners walk their dogs unleashed through the 'bush' to be emptied. Delighted to spot a koala they take snapshots of the horrified marsupials clinging to a tree by the roadside. They are then tagged and spread around on proprietary platforms.

Data from the South-East Queensland Wildlife Hospital Network could be an indication about the main mechanisms that are making koalas in 'the wild' extinct. Although there is a sparsity of data for the Bellingen/Gleniffer area, one could assume similar trends for this area. Industrial logging of 'The Great Koala park' is a rapid disruption to all forest biodiversity. Unrestrained sprawling human settlements with their associated roads/cars and dogs are also making Australian species extinct.

"After European colonization in 1788, more species have become extinct in Australia than in any other country on Earth (Australian Government Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment, 2022)."

VEHICLES
The wildlife around Gleniffer Rd. and Roses Rd. have experienced a 'massacre' after the 'upgrades'  (for logging machinery and tourist access). Australian wildlife are smeared along the asphalt on a daily basis. The externality of this mobility form is called 'roadkill'.

When koalas are hit by motor vehicles they are predisposed to head trauma and fractures to the skull and jaw. "Koalas who had been attacked by a dog, fallen from a tree, and/or been hit by a motor vehicle were more likely to be euthanized or found deceased than released."

DOGS
For koalas, the main complications of a dog bite injury often include infection, torso fractures and zoonotic organisms carried by dogs. "Despite almost 50% of households in Australia having a pet dog, there is limited research on the human management of pet dog and wild koala interactions." The system is also lacking management strategies to prevent dog attacks on koalas.

This area has no wildlife hospital nearby and no data/ studies have been conducted on the impacts of sprawl ( logging, settlements, roads, cars and dogs).

In 2020, the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Koalas found that koalas will become extinct before 2050 with the present regime of 'business as usual'. First the thylacine, then the koala, then... 

Charalambous, R., Descovich, K. A., & Narayan, E. J. (2024). Identifying Trends in Admission and Release of Wild Koalas in Veterinary Clinics Throughout Queensland, Australia. Society & Animals (published online ahead of print 2024).  https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-bja10220

 

Road and dog density contribute to the extinction of koalas

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40827-w

Dissanayake, R.B., Stevenson, M., Astudillo, V.G. et al. Anthropogenic and environmental factors associated with koala deaths due to dog attacks and vehicle collisions in South-East Queensland, Australia, 2009–2013. Sci Rep 13, 14275 (2023).

A Master Plan for Bellingen Placemaking and its Surrounding Forests

Bellingen area stripped bare?

Bellingen council is in the process of producing a CBD Master Plan for Bellingen, Dorrigo and Urunga.  “A long-term vision and implementation strategy will be outlined for guiding growth and change in an area." The plan will be used to implement “ land use, building density, public spaces, mobility, sustainability, and heritage.”

These long-term 'visions' and actions will have implications for settlers, Indigenous peoples, visitors and more-than-human lifeforms. Stakeholders were asked to ‘share their ideas’ (consultation) with consultants and council. Biodiversity was rendered voiceless.

A strategy for growth (business as usual) and change (unspecified) ”will influence the future appearance, atmosphere, and functionality of the town centres”

Bellingen is a small town, located on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. It has a long history of (rainforest) timber extraction. Like most other Australian sprawling towns it is (totally) fossil fuel/ car dependent. Users of the CBD obtain their stuff there and drive to their homes or short term accommodation. All roads are congested and constantly have to be rebuilt to accommodate the increasing traffic.

The idyllic scenery

A drive in the scenic countryside used to be a big drawcard for visitors and boosted the income for the service industry. The cruise past forest canopy from the coast to mountain rivers and waterfalls funneled money into town.

It is these surroundings, the ambient milieu, that gave the small town its charm. Showcasing its physical (rich biodiversity) or social settings (some non mainstream culture) put the place ‘on the map'. It is not a few shops, but the setting, the relational context that gives a 'thing' its value.

Stripped bare - Native forest governance

The NSW state government’s Forestry Corporation has made the decision now to log and clear-fell vast areas of forests surrounding the area before some are declared a Great Koala National Park. Bellingen/ Gleniffer is now surrounded and locked in by industrial forest logging sites for years.

The degradation and destruction of Bellingen’s 'frame' will have impacts on the “the future appearance, atmosphere, and functionality of the town centres.” 

The habitats of plants and animals are being stripped bare while timber is being extracted with the aid of fossil fuel machinery and tax dollars to subsidise these destructive projects. Untold living creatures lose their homes and are being pushed onto the newly updated logging roads to become 'roadkill'. Diverse and endemic remnant flora and fauna are wiped out to make way for a monoculture plantation with the aid of pesticides and lingering fires and smoke pollution.

Residents, visitors and businesses that have chosen this country location find themselves next to industrial sites with mega industrial machine pollution, eroded, dangerous extraction roads and stranded assets. This invasion disrupts and absorbs the lifetime of the residents and carers who are committed to refraining from degrading Australia any further.

The violent destruction of bulldozing ecosystems entails noise, dust clouds, pollution and expulsion. It is the offloading of the externalities, so that the native forests can be sent overseas in the form of wood chips. Voiceless nature undergoes 'dispersal'.

Forest logging robs Australian animals of food, shelter, and breeding areas and threatens their survival. Unique endemic plants and remnant vegetation ‘get under the wheels’ of logging machinery.

Even in 'normal times’ forest-dependent biodiversity is threatened by out of control land clearing, invasive species, cars, pets, pollution, disease and weather extremes due to climate disruption cause by burning fossils.

Native forest logging makes bushfires worse and renders bushfires harder to control. Out of control fires hasten ecosystem collapse.

Wipe out
The industrial extraction of the 'stuff' called timber is torn out of the heart of a complex web of life. The irretrievable evolutionary process of 3.7 billion of years which appears to us as imperceptibly slow motion is just wiped out.

Our present (perception) has an endless past incorporated in it. The bureaucrats/loggers are only able to see the thing called ‘wood' for export income and votes. With this mind frame an open future is foreclosed and the future takes on a necessary trajectory.

Land use vs Country care
Country was managed for 65.000 years (long-termism) with Indigenous knowledge systems of relationality and connectivity. Settler-colonial society encountered a 'pristine' environment. In a very short time of 236 years since European settlement the 'state of the environment' can be summed up as one of degradation and extinction. "More than half of NSW forests were lost since 1750 and logging ‘locking in’ species extinction". (source)

“Our inability to adequately manage pressures will continue to result in species extinctions and deteriorating ecosystem condition, which are reducing the environmental capital on which current and future economies depend. Social, environmental and economic impacts are already apparent.” (source)

The entire Australian environment is deteriorating due to pressures from rapid resource extraction and expansion, climate disruption, habitat destruction, invasive species and pollution.

To squander one’s own environmental capital is maladaptive behaviour, that prevents one from making adjustments that are in one’s own best interest. To destroy the basis of existence is suicidal, unless there is more ‘new found land’ or another planet waiting around the corner.

The speed of exploitation and its associated expansion in spacetime are escalated by the ubiquitous economic dictates. It is an out of control system without functioning guardrails.

“That things are "status quo" is the catastrophe.”
― Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project

Polycrisis

Ruthless extraction and degradation of one's own existential basis is taking place in the context of an emerging polycrisis, the simultaneous occurrence of several catastrophic events.

Global warming from fossil fuels, putting the chain saw to the tree of life (biodiversity) and pollution of the biosphere are just a few of the intersecting global environmental crises of the collective impacts of one species.

The ongoing ecological depletion on local, regional, and global scales, is seen as normal. The next generations of living entities will just have to deal with this ‘shifting baseline’ of a scorched, barren Earth, devoid of any life as far as the eye can see.

This project is threatening the fabric of complex life on Earth. A 'long-term vision' of a 'master plan', even of a local area, must take the existential risks to humanity and life into account.

It is essential to invoke the precautionary principle to do no social harm and environmental damage in the light of an avalanche of scientific reports and pledges.

Growth, intensification of extraction and expansion of living space constitute the script and the mental landscape of the settler.

 

The 'superior land use' argument has been used to justify the genocidal violence and ecocide of the colonised diversity of life, replacing it with a monoculture of livestock, plantation crops and pets.

The “logic of elimination”, (Patrick Wolfe, 2006) of the expanding colonial scheme goes hand in hand with the denial of existence (e.g. Indigenous peoples, referendum, forest surveys, data sparsity etc) and imperial governmentality.

The state of the planet demands attention and care. A facing up to the unsettling 'long present' of denial. Ending the undisturbed slumber of collective amnesia.

“Australians haven’t actually started living on this continent like they are from here and they have a responsibility of custodianship.” Richard Swain

As we are sliding into creeping collapse at an accelerated speed the presuppositions of the global governance of the biosphere have to be interrogated to produce strategies of bare survival possible in a post-democratic society where regulatory capture is the norm.

The council, Bellingen Chamber of Commerce, the tourism industry, the short stay lobby and all the other ‘stakeholders’ could position themselves to keep Bellingen’s ecosystems in a healthy state. Eradicating forests around Bellingen/ Gleniffer will not foster place identity.

Bellingen placemaking without the buffer of healthy forests and ecosystems would just be another bare drive-though town ‘in the middle of nowhere'.

"First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works” Jan Gehl

 

Links:

M.Ward et al., 2023, The impacts of contemporary logging after 250 years of deforestation and degradation on forest-dependent threatened species
DOI:10.1101/2023.02.22.529603

Patrick Miner et al., 2024, Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment, Journal of Transport Geography, Volume 115, February 2024
 

Patrick Wolfe, 2006, Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research Volume 8, 2006 - Issue 4

Bellingen's new footpath along Waterfall Way: From the CBD to the Butter Factory

When I hear Waterfall Way (drive) in Bellingen, I think road building, road widening, giant fossil fuel machinery, yet another upgrade, congestion, aggro motorists, speeding drivers, 'accidents', dead motorists and roadkill.

WFW is the main road into the SUV-centric town with either no or very few footpaths and cycle paths. A little town where time stands still, where climate change and extinctions are foreign gobbledygook.

As the population growth outpaces local infrastructure, ongoing 'upgrades' are taking place. The latest is to sink a footpath/cyclepath along WFW, on the tree lined Heritage Avenue between the Butter Factory and the CBD. Trouble is, the 'living heritage' has to go. Anyway, these old trees "reached the natural conclusion of their life cycles" They clashed with the “proposed footpath alignment and infrastructure of power lines and road widening” added to their demise. Many trees will have to go so we can “breathe new life into this important entry statement for Bellingen township.”

Standing in the traffic jam motorists seem oblivious to the numerous fossil fuel machines slowing traffic and engulfing wood ducks and people in dust and pollution.

After the 'living heritage' is ripped out, chopped or mulched, the construction of the 2.5-meter-wide shared cement path for pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchairs is taking place.

A thick layer of 'the most destructive material on Earth' is smeared over the soil. Carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, topsoil and urban heat were off the agenda in this mobility design. 

Of course there will be an offset for the lost canopy/habitat elsewhere. Where is the energy consumption balance sheet for all the fossil fuel machinery, the concrete, the idling vehicles to make walkability and 'connectivity' possible? Why were permeable surfaces not considered?

I can see golf carts racing along the footpath now and 'enhanced safety' in “the pedestrian-vehicle conflicts near sporting fields," by just parking on the new footpath.

Make Bellingen a carpark! Pt. 2

 Make Bellingen a carpark! More roads, wider roads and more parking Pt. 2

Pedestrian access to the toilets, Church St.

Parking on tree roots and garbage, Church St.

Make Bellingen a carpark! More roads, wider roads and more parking

Bellingen car park, Creek Ln,  still with trees. Google image 03.2023

Sprawling suburbia is deprived of public forms of transport. Private fossil fuel mobility is encouraged and choosen. The town runs on petrol, plonk, meat and timber. Motorists' expectation is carpet to carpet mobility to not get their R.M.Williams muddy. In between there is a lot of AC idling and cruising to find a big enough parking spot. Monstrous SUVs speed though town to fight for parking. Tree roots are crushed by the weight of 2,000 kilograms of vehicles. The oversized tanks park right across the access route to the toilets as well.
With the growth of the obese-sized vehicles grows the hunger for more and wider roads. It is insatiable. Above all parking, getting stuff or dumping the kids or dogs is the most important issue in town.

Roads are congested and aggressive, frustrated motorists harass non motorised living entities and smaller, slower vehicles. The jam-packed CBD roads are rich in ambient particulate matter pollution. The Al fresco crowds seem to suffer from anosmia and look the other way when large bull haulers and timber trucks fly through the narrow main street. 

There are already many free car parking opportunities to store private vehicles in public spaces. But now there is a brand new car park smashed into the landscape. Residents seem blissfully unaware that in the middle of a climate emergency many native mature trees magically disappeared and the soil surface was sealed. One just smeared asphalt over the 'dirt'. A very large area of impervious surfaces has been constructed after months of heavy fossil fuel equipment made a racket next to the adjoining park and creek. The new treeless hardscape will not provide any shading canopy and there will be no extra cost of blowing nasty leaves from the car park.

New car park adjoining creek and park, Bellingen

This diy urban heat island will increase temperatures, leading to heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Deprived of shade (which previously existed) in a concrete, tar and asphalt environment it will directly influence the health and welfare of residents and wildlife. Rain and runoff will run over the hot surfaces, drain into the creek and increase the water temperature there. Biodiversity will exit, despite the beautification of three lomandras.

Leafy affluent neighborhoods are shady and have resilient mental health. Bare degraded surfaces go with deprived neighborhoods. They do harm to all people and other animals.

Car park beautification, 03.2023

Car centric culture demands more of the same: 'Fix the roads' (lobby), free parking everywhere and no speed checks OK! It is desperately hanging on to dinosaurian ways. 

Elsewhere in the civilised world they are phasing out private fossil combustion mobility in urban centers. They are creating equitable public spaces that are safe for all participants. Enforced speed reductions are now widespread. Shady footpath (What's that?) and cyclepath infrastructure joins sustainable public transport. Bicycle parking racks encourage pollution free mobility. Road trauma in the form of 'the daily death toll', maiming and roadkill could even be eliminated as well.

It is not called ’ man-made climate change' for nothing.

 

Community Climate Action Plan
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/Community/Sustainable-Living/Community-Climate-Action-Plan
"We are now in a critical decade for urgent action with the window to keeping global warming to below 1.5°C and to averting devastating climate impacts rapidly closing."

Bellingen Shire Climate Emergency Program, 2020 – 2030
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/public/files/environment/adopted-corporate-carbon-plan-final.pdf

“Are we building harder, hotter cities?
https://pce.parliament.nz/publications/are-we-building-harder-hotter-cities-the-vital-importance-of-urban-green-spaces/ 

Update:  Residents elsewhere swap parking spaces for extra trees "We are really starting to see trees become essential elements of streets”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-25/trees-replace-parking-spaces-hobart-street/102135698

Make Bellingen a carpark! Pt. 2 

Putting the home and the self under the hammer Pt. II

A system can only see what it can see. It cannot see what it can't see. Nor can it see that it cannot see what it can't see.  Niklas Luhmann

Warehouse logistics topography
Travelling in different countries one encounters the ever-same standardized landscapes of shopping malls, car parks and highways, airports, golf courses, and exclusive eco-holiday resorts. These spaces of travel, consumption and exchange have become ‘non-places’, ruthlessly homogenised. (Marc Augé) Once it was thought that infrastructure existed to service human dwellings. By now cities and suburbs are like a byproduct of the global just-in-time-logistics warehouse. Human housing appears like a side effect of a world-wide logistics system. (Keller Easterling) The human being is the annex to this machine. The order of things seems to be upside down, disorientation is the result in an out-of-control system. Territorial policies of neoliberal restructuring are often made in elsewhere land and dictate the interaction between space and society. In the absence of spatial justice, people and biodiversity are being expelled from the landscape to squeeze the maximum out of a terrain. The highest bidder takes all and wins over spatial justice. (Edward Soya)

The right to the city
H. Lefebvre wanted "to reclaim the city as a co-created space—a place for life detached from the growing effects that commodification and capitalism have had over social interaction and the rise of spatial inequalities in worldwide cities throughout the last two centuries." (source) Till today social movements assert a right to their place. After the formal right to mobility was gained, the right to stay would have to be one of the rights of the 21st Century. Displacement by the highest bidder is taking place worldwide. "Your luxury is our  displacement" (source)
Bottom up-created shared spaces, especially with people-centred urban designs that measure up to the Human Scale (J. Gehl) are magnets for cosmopolitans and creatives globally. In many cities local people have to flee or are expelled by mass tourism, high rents and exorbitant prices. 'Gentrification' is the expulsion and replacement of one strata of resident by a more cashed up group for the sake of profit. Art, culture and beautification are fuelling this process of "urban colonialism." This valorisation process of the invisible hand of the market starts again on a higher level of the growth spiral.
The "insatiable appetite for Indigenous land and resources" is not confined to events of a colonial past. (source) Settler cultures with their mono-cultural baggage of domesticated species deprive bio-diversity of the right to existence. The multitude of live on spaceship Earth is squeezed out of their homes and finally kicked off the planet.



Overtourism
Overtourism sets in when tourists do not want to visit the site anymore because the place is ruined for both locals and visitors. When it has been consumed - it is time to move on to the next location. The Gold Coast for example derives its fame from its manufactured identity 'tall buildings by the sea'. 'Unattractive and overpopulated' the coast has 'lost its mojo'. (source) Many cities and natural sites are suffocating on their own attractiveness.
Intensification, speed and deregulation serve to colonise the night. The 24/7 parties are thumping away il/legally. Musical events are "vast walk-in advertising experiences...they only exists because of a branding imperative." (source) Fuelled by petrol, speed, bright lights, and pyrotechnics the event areas send neighborhood stakeholders packing.

The drive through ' tourist space'  - Scant in man-made wonders
In the absence of any wo/man-made wonders that tourists are drawn to, Bellingen offers 'the drives' through pastoral and natural landscapes. The remnants of 'pristine landscape have been cultured for eons by the first inhabitants. The cultural landscape of settlers is the technosphere. Cultural constructs like the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, or more accurately The Big Blueberry and extractive industries of the Big Quarry (forestry, mining, water) are geographical high points. The planned Great Koala National Park is expected to boost biodiversity and tourism.

“Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities.” ― Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead

Mobile sprawl
The drive is of course the main mode by which the landscape is experienced via the ac windscreen. If one has negotiated the small drive-through town with logging and gravel trucks rushing through and survived the diesel fumes whilst shopping or having a cup. Then it is the wide open roads that are yearning to be widened and become four lane highways. Road construction and congestion are an ongoing feature of private mobility. Roadkill of local wildlife and fast food garbage line the edges. Locals crying out for more parking and more roads and less potholes could easily be satisfied by allowing corporations to fill the holes with their logos.
SUVs plough their way through heritage-listed rainforest and along beaches. Lookouts and viewing platforms lure visitors out of their internal combustion engines and show them where to look. Driving routes to the Gleniffer Reserves picnic spots are leading to the water catchment area which are heavily frequented and have no toilets. Interpretive Signage directs motorists through the Gleniffer Valley elaborating on Gumbaynggirr Homeland and “settler common sense” history.

"Where the bloody hell are ya... Come live our Philausophy”
'Philausophy' is the latest $38 million advertising campaign of Tourism Australia that relies entirely on ordinary Australians and the beauty of the landscape. The dreaming of an all year-round tourist season with plane loads of fly-in fly-out tourists from the Asia-Pacific zone coming to squeeze the last koala or shoot wombats might turn into a nightmare. Deep cruise ship ports, huge airports and self contained resorts run by o.s. interests.  Bakers, butchers and supermarkets would disappear and one could choose from the largest variety of souvenirs, proudly made in China. In a world playground populated by theme parks, disneyfication and hyperreality the tourist is mostly not able or willing to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality. They desire simulation as the created atmosphere can give them" more reality than nature can" (source).

The touristic gaze and imaginary shape and mediate our knowledge of and desires about the rest of the planet. (Franklin and Crang 2001 PDF )

Masses on the move
Tourism is “one of the greatest population movements of all time” (PDF) Once explorers 'discovered' far flung locations in the attempt of empire building for their masters. The wealthy landed gentry in Europe had their Grand Tour.  Then Thomas Cook commodified "mass travel" for Brits and the rest is history. Western tourists flying to 'sunny locations' or cultural heritage sites changed the entire fabric of societies. Under the new economic conditions of globalisation the masses on the move that are with or without resources are part of the imperialism then and now. "The seemingly innocent here-and-now of tourist–host interactions is rooted in broader historical trajectories of travel, colonization, global inequalities and privilege." (PDF)

"In this young, mostly white, ahistorical, neoliberal utopia of the imagination, anyone can go anywhere."( source) 

Words can be like tiny arsenic capsules; they are swallowed unnoticed, they seem to have no effect, and after some time the poison effect is there. (own translation)  Victor Klemperer, Lingua Tertii Imperii LTI

Framing semiotic landscapes of the self
Through a schemata of interpretation of events and themes we construct meaningful patterns. A system of 'pigeon holes' /slots ( M. Minsky) activates mental maps or neural networks of associations that make up one's knowledge and feeling towards the world. "Schemata of interpretation"  “The schema concept refers to cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge, abstracted from experience with specific instances; schema guide the processing of new information and the retrieval of stored information.”(source) Embodied cognitive structures and interpretation patterns make sense of the self and the world. "Words not only highlight individual concepts, but also specify a certain perspective from which the frame is viewed.' Individuals, groups, and societies engage in frame building. Mass media, politics, advertisement and voci populi. (V. Klemperer)

If we manage to persuade a Democrat every day to use a word we have given him, we can win. Michela Murgia

The frames, or semantic networks have a plasticity. The coherent structure of reasoning, language, memory can be re-framed within the cerebral localization. The recipient's internal structures of the mind can be changed. Agenda setting mainstream media, political campaigns, ubiquitous ads and think tanks flood our minds. Time poor and desperate to reduce complexity, we lack the resources to stop, filter and evaluate our resonance to the information and pictorial avalanche. 'Advertisers ' operating with the power of the narrative reduce complexity for us and bind the message to our emotions. The in- and exclusion mechanism of our filter (reframing) and the resulting actions are not always rational. (source)



Story-telling fiction 
The spaces of the landscape and mind travelled through here without CO2 mileage have aimed to demonstrate that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories and actions. (source) The grand narrative of (neoliberal) economic theory might just turn out to be another story-telling fiction giving legitimacy to the present governance regime.
The beautification of places and its representation on social media has become an integral part of driving the growth machine."The aestheticisation of the economy delivers the motivational fuel. We could say that homo aestheticus has become homo oeconomicus’s best friend." (source)

Incalculable risks
Instead of hastening into more business as usual, one could stop and examine the underlying presuppositions of life.  At the moment we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on in order to sell it. The happy few benefit from the destruction of our life support system the biosphere. There is a lot of unfinished business: Extinction, Hothouse Earth, confronting the silence of the colonial past, inequality, depriving future biota, the 'collateral damage' of mass mobility, the withering of rights and the nation state and a voiceless nature. At the moment we are steering head on into incalculable catastrophic risks on a global scale. (source)

Transformation
“To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.”(source) The possibility of visualising a future at all, a will to care for the self and country. Naming a telos, free speech (parrhesia) and the refusal to react to pressures.

Not in our name!
In various cities (Barcelona, Hamburg, Venice, etc) people resist "turning the whole city into a brand for the benefit of wealthy residents, business elites and tourists."  Not in our name! is jamming the gentrification machine. (source)



Putting the home and the self under the hammer Pt.I 

Links:
Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant, NewLiberalSpeak, 2001 Radical Philosophy

Adrian Franklin and Mike Crang, The trouble with tourism and travel theory? 2001 PDF

Victor Klemperer, Language of the Third Reich, LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii. Continuum Impacts. ( A Philologist's Notebook")

Andreas Reckwitz: “Creativity has become a kind of performance pressure”, The Goethe-Institut interview 2013

Spratt, David; Dunlop, Ian. (2019). 'The Third Degree: Evidence and implications for Australia of existential climate-related security risk (PDF) (Report). Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration.

Thurlow, C., and Jaworski, A. (2011). Tourism discourse: Languages and banal globalization.

Vogl, J. (2019). (History of) Economic Knowledge Freed from Determinism. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 12(1), 73-92. https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v12i1.409 (PDF)

Rich Things: How Tourism, Sneakers, and Museums Make the Economy of Enrichment, Interview with Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre, 2019, 032c

The fall of Prague: ‘Drunk tourists are acting like they’ve conquered our city’ The Guardian, 2019

Gold Coast has 'lost its mojo' as development and population boom throws character into question, The Guardian 2019

Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’, The Guardian 2019

Flooded Venice had tourists taking selfies and residents in tear, The Washington Post, 2019


Images:
Fibre structure over water, EU
Make Art not War, public mural, EU
Car poster, AU
Tourist gaze, EU
Pixel man, street art,  Berlin
Homo sapiens skeleton, church installation, Adel Abdessemed, Berlin
Thylacine hide, EU

Update Nov. 2020:

Ecotourism fans may be in it for the social posts

Justin M. Beall, B. Bynum Boley, Adam C. Landon, Kyle M. Woosnam. What drives ecotourism: environmental values or symbolic conspicuous consumption? Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1825458

Update Feb. 2021
Bellingen Shire branding strategy seeks to capture the spirit of our place. Gumbaynggirr people: ""Truth-telling is what will define our spirit," Bernard said, citing the need for acknowledgement of the old wrongs, like the massacre in Fernmount, the destruction of songlines, the felling of ancient trees.There's also the fact that we have a plaque dedicated to the first white child born in Bellingen, but nothing commemorating the strength of the Indigenous women who have birthed children in the valley for millennia." Bellingen Courier, 6.2.2021

Bellingen Shire Branding Project

Cover In-Pram Children from Car Exhaust Emissions

Children are particularly vulnerable to even low levels of pollution. Psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents are linked to traffic pollution. (source) Air pollution generally demands sacrifices in lives and economic costs. (source) Pollution from combustion (diesel) vehicles/ motors, fires (back-burning) and wood heaters are just a few that shorten lives prematurely.

Now parents are advised to use covers on their prams during toxic school runs to protect their infants from air pollution:

 “Fine particles show larger health impacts compared to their larger counterparts and at the young age children are more susceptible to particulate pollution, suggesting a clear need for precautionary measures to limit their exposure during their transport along the busy roadsides…Children could be at risk of breathing in some nasty and harmful chemical species…One of the simplest ways to combat this is to use a barrier between the in-pram children and the exhaust emissions, especially at pollution hotspots such as traffic intersections, so parents should use pram covers if at all possible.” (Source)

Links:
Use buggy covers to combat air pollution danger, parents warned, The Guardian, 10.03.2017
Exposure of in-pram babies to airborne particles during morning drop-in and afternoon pick-up of school children, Environmental Pollution 06.03.2017

Top tips to avoid getting metal pollution in your brain, New Scientist, 5 September 2016

NICU treatments for improving neurodevelopmental outcomes rely heavily on touch. On the somatosensory scaffolding of later perceptual, cognitive, and social development. Touch is a cornerstone of interpersonal interactions and sensory-cognitive development. Current Biology, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.036

Update:
Air quality concerns spur anti-idling push at schools. Parents who leave their cars idling in school pick-up zones urged to switch off.  abc 12.04.2017



Images:
Mother and child getting poisoned by cars, Street art EU
Plastic covered prams of North Shore jogging mums, Sydney
Tyre Adventure Playground, Bellingen

The Camphor Trees of Bellingen

The camphor trees of Church Street, Bellingen are to be cut down. ”The war of the camphor laurels” has been causing local outrage for years. The large trees are throwing some shade on cafe visitors and motorists on a side road reducing the heat island effect.

In the collective imagination, the iconic ornamental giants are synonymous with ‘the beautiful pristine picturesque Bellinger valley’. Postcard-views show cow pastures framed by thick stands of camphor trees hugging the waterways.



For others they are an out of control invasive noxious weed that have reduced local biodiversity of the entire area. When bush regenerators eradicated camphor trees and planted endemic species, heritage enthusiasts sprang into action: “ In some cases, bollards were burned out and boundary chains cut to allow visitors to drive their vehicles onto the fragile banks, crushing native seedlings and causing erosion damage in the process.” (source)

In the social imaginary the introduced flora belongs to the foundation myth of the region. After white settlers cleared the biodiversity of the rainforest valley and replaced it with a pastoralist monoculture, the need for shade became apparent. The giant trees promised instant shade in the fertile flood plains for the British antipodeans and their cattle.

”Ruthless clearance of native vegetation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created the desire to plant exotic trees such as Cinnamomum camphora in urban and rural settings for practical and aesthetic purposes… (The tree ) “was also highly esteemed for its ability to quickly provide shade for dairy cattle in the  denuded former-rainforest lands of sub-tropical north-eastern New South Wales…” ( B. J. Stubbs, 2012)

The Asian tree was intentionally introduced in 1822 as an ornamental tree for use in gardens and public parks. Additionally colonial Acclimatization Societies founded after 1860 aimed to ‘acclimatise’ the European settlers by introducing foreign flora and fauna. Botanic gardens aided in the human-mediated introduction and spread of the species.

Settlers longed for ornamentals “throughout the Australian colonies to enrich the Australian flora” (source).

The 19th Century ‘panacea’ became entirely out of control after the demise of the dairy industry. “It was generally recognised by the late 1990s that camphor laurel was well and truly out of control and had become a major environmental problem in parts of eastern Australia. This was a consequence of several decades of  landuse  change  accompanying  the  decline  of  dairy  farming,  and  the associated lessening of weed control on the former dairying lands… It  has spread uncontrollably  across  that  region,  competing  successfully  with  native  regrowth,  and  forming  veritable  forests  on  abandoned  pasture. “ ( B. J. Stubbs, 2012)

The neglected and degraded pastures were then bought up and planted with bamboo and other exotics, while the other invasive weed problem remained. Today the mainstream public and private ’solution’ to the river-hugging non-native species is pesticide. In the war on weeds all unwanted growth is doused with a glyphosate-based weed killer, a 'probable human carcinogen'. The new ‘panacea’ to get rid of the last/past folly.



"Inter-continental and inter-taxonomic variation can be largely attributed to the diaspora of European settlers in the nineteenth century and to the acceleration in trade in the twentieth century. " The European diaspora creates an "unprecedented intensity of human-mediated species exchange (which) leads to the homogenization of floras and faunas, re-defines the classical boundaries of biogeography and has far-reaching implications for native biota, ecosystem functioning, human health and economy...The pathways by which alien species are introduced into new areas are also changing rapidly, in particular through increased global trade, tourism, agriculture, horticulture, and the construction and formation (for example, through climate change) of new transportation corridors, such as the opening of the Arctic Ocean shipping routes.” (Source)



Cacti are the contemporary 'must have' 'must spread' alien species wave unleashed on the area.

Deregulation of biosecurity and the hunger for horticultural exotics prepare for the extinction of endemic biodiversity. “…There is an urgent need to implement more effective prevention policies at all scales, enforcing more stringent national and regional legislations, and developing more powerful international agreements.” (Source)



Back to the iconic heritage trees in Church St and the false dilemma in the collective imagination.

The street is the only shaded cafe strip in town where cars should go 10 km/h but 40 km/h is recommended. A giant car park come turning circle where motorists sit with their packs of dogs and blow exhaust fumes into each others' lungs.



The large camphors are caged in planter boxes. (bollards) The roots lifting the pavers have been lovingly smeared over with tar. Like many other mature trees (crammed in cement) in Bellingen they do not look healthy. Their branches are mutilated so not to interfere with dangling power lines and property.

On the opposite side of the cafe strip the toilet block is also set among large trees. Their root network is abused as an overcrowded car park. ‘Access’ to the amenities means dodging a lot of SUVs.



Chopping the giant weeds would liberate Church St. for more fossil fuel vehicles. More neatly paved impervious spaces for cars. A car-centric tabula rasa. In a town where nothing goes without fossil fuel mobility this is the most likely outcome. After the $836,175 chop all motorists, shade hugging or biodiversity loving will be able to park there at ease. Should anything crack though the cement - a good spray will help.

Walkable, car-free and livable environments are as yet unthinkable in this cultural artifact. People-centred public lounge rooms with street furniture, designed to ‘human scale’ with endemic tree shade coverage optimised and impervious surfaces eliminated to stem the uncanny anthropogenic heatwaves are in the realm of dreaming.




Sources and inspirations:
Brett J. Stubbs,  Saviour to Scourge: a history of the introduction and spread of the camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora) in eastern Australia , 2012 (pdf) (flipbook)

"No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide" Nature Communications 8, Article number: 14435 (2017) doi:10.1038/ncomms14435
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14435

Heritage trees are on the chopping block, The Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun, 13.02.2017

Bellingen Town Centre Beautification, create.bellingen.nsw.gov.au

Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space, Donald Nicholson-Smith trans., Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Originally published 1974. 1991, (pdf)

John Urry, Consuming Places (1995), (pdf)

Global movements and funding cuts a threat to biosecurity in Australia, abc 02.2017

Review of Australia's Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity, IGAB, 12.2016 (pdf)

 The Cars and Trucks That Ate Bellingen 

Updates:
"Suitable replacement trees" will morphe into more car parking: “Affiliated works included formalising car parking and planting of replacement trees which occurred by way of community input via a working party." Bellingen Courier, 13.03.2017

The Shark Free Beaches of NSW

The beach is without a doubt the playground for Australians. The formation of national identity is pinned on beach culture. "Australians are islanders and we've come to expect - almost as a kind of birthright, as much as a lifestyle - a certain kind of access to open beaches..." (source) From family holidays (if not in Bali) to national surf events and festivals it is the space to be in. On 2,000 kilometres of New South Wales coast, locals and visitors showcase their beach bodies, swim, surf, play sport and empty their dogs. It appears to be the place of equality. 'Our beach' turf is fiercely defended against 'the other' (Cronulla riots). Its is the only place of summer culture.

The beach as money-making machine
Urban beaches are manicured with fossil fuel and 'renourished' with sand when climate extremes gnaw on the edges. They are artifacts with fences, furniture, nets, signs and flags. Business, surf /events/ competitions - culture, recreation space: gym/sports groups etc monetize this space and depend on it functioning. When the 'cash cow' is closed there is an outcry.

Coastal sprawl and marine urbanisation
Historically the beach turned from a place of work to a (commercialised) leisure ground with the urbanisation of the coast. 85% of people live within 50 kilometres of the coastline today. Coastal sprawl and marine urbanisation seem to concrete the coast from Cairns to Melbourne merging swelling urban centers. The large cities boast degraded biodiversity (and shark nets) and it has become relatively safe to use the beach as if it is a pool. Polluting jet skis, inflatable rescue boats and helicopters are buzzing around swimmers at city beaches for the 'safety of beachgoers'. "Beaches around Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast are protected by shark nets, but there is no meshing on beaches in the far north." (source)

 
More people in shark habitats
Population growth (sea change /tree change etc) on the north coast of NSW brings more human beings into the ocean than ever before. "Data from the Australian Shark Attack File indicates the increase in Australian shark attacks coincides with the increasing human population, more people visiting beaches, a rise in the popularity of water-based fitness and recreational activities and people accessing previously isolated coastal areas." (source)
Swimming, diving and some surfing take place in the shallow water. In the deeper water, the ocean is conquered by new adventurous forms of activities going deeper and further in (paddle ski, kayaking, surfing, diving, windsurfing and whale watching in tinnies etc) These plastic-aided adventure activities take place well beyond the flags and far from the mainland.

"Let's not forget the ocean is the domain of the shark." (source)
Various (no take) refuges for marine biodiversity have been established along the coast. Sharks keep the ocean healthy. "Sharks and other ocean predators help protect the ocean's carbon stores by keeping other wildlife in check." (source)

How the presence of sharks and risks are further increased
Heating the ocean through our combustion of biomass seems to benefit the ancient marine predator that has been in the ocean for the last 400 million years. Various human activities, like polluting rivers, throwing fish offal into the beach, fishing or tourism operators using bait to deliberately attract sharks increase the presence of sharks and risks.

 
Shark encounters
Recently there have been 13 shark encounters, including one death off the north coast of NSW this year. (source) Various groups react in fear and want sharks culled or repelled. "Surfers on NSW north coast call for partial cull of sharks after recent months" (source) "Long-time surfers say they are now scared to get into the water." (source) The "far north NSW communities call for shark nets, immediate action to prevent shark attacks." (source)

Extinction - we are working on it...
"Australians in particular have a peculiar, pathological feeling about sharks." (source) Ideally the species should be wiped out (like so many other Australian species) so that man can industrialise the aquatic territory without fear. In the marine habitat, the shark is framed as usual as 'the problem' that needs a 'solution'. A feel-good self-deception, also known as denial could serve to kill this 'monster' and conquer the space for human purposes once and for all. Whatever 'fix' will win, it must be cost effective and be based on technology or fossil fuel. The aim is to 'cleanse' the 'playground' of the competing apex predators (sharks, crocodiles, etc.) so that no people or business interests are harmed. It is known that there is "no “silver bullet” for deterring sharks or stopping attacks." (source). No method is 100% effective, but doing anything would soothe the mind and business as usual could continue. To turn the ocean into a shark-free pool might continue to be a pipe dream.

Risks

The comparative 'tolls' for shark mauling, dog attacks and killings by motor cars makes one wonder, that if by that logic one ought to cull dogs and take these deadly combustion machines off the roads:

• There have been 15 shark-related incidents on the NSW coastline this year, 12 of them on the north coast. (source)
• There were 1,191 dog attacks in the 3rd quarter of 2014/2015 in NSW. (source)
• There have been 260 people killed  in NSW from crashing vehicles so far this year (the injured are not included) (source)

"The day you fail to find sharks cruising your favourite beach is the day you should really start to worry." (source)



Resources:
Concrete coastlines: it’s time to tackle our marine ‘urban sprawl’
http://theconversation.com/concrete-coastlines-its-time-to-tackle-our-marine-urban-sprawl-38175

Australian Shark Attack File
https://taronga.org.au/conservation/conservation-science-research/australian-shark-attack-file

New South Wales beaches closed for 24 hours after shark attack
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/23/new-south-wales-beaches-closed-for-24-hours-after-shark-attack?CMP=soc_568

Surfers on NSW north coast call for partial shark cull
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4291914.htm

There is deep unease about sharks in northern New South Wales, 02.10.2015
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/02/could-big-game-fishing-solve-the-problem-of-shark-attacks

Ballina Mayor David Wright fears Richmond River water quality could be to blame for shark activity
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-21/shark-meeting/6635678

Recreational fishermen may have unwittingly helped attract sharks to Coffs Harbour beach 16.06.2015
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-16/recreational-fishermen-might-have-unwittingly-helped-attract-sh/6549142

A dramatic increase in shark fishing, fuelled by the lucrative shark fin market, is threatening already endangered species along the NSW coast
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fears-for-endangered-species-as-shark-fin-market-grows/2007/08/11/1186530673607.html

Man bites shark, The day you fail to find sharks cruising your favourite beach is the day you should really start to worry.
http://conservationbytes.com/2009/01/07/man-bites-shark/

Ellison, Elizabeth (2014) On the beach : exploring the complex egalitarianism of the Australian beach. In Horatschek, Anna-Margaretha, Roseberg, Yvonne, & Schaebler, Daniel (Eds.) Navigating Cultural Spaces : Maritime Places. Rodopi, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 221-235. (PDF)

Updates:
Shields and smart buoys: new technology to protect sharks and people 06.10.2015
WA Premier tells Broome to 'quietly get rid of crocodiles' on Cable Beach to protect tourism abc 09.10.2015

One of the Margaret River region's two surf life saving clubs is experiencing a downturn in membership due to increased shark activity."Going to the beach is an inherent part of the West Australian lifestyle" abc 15.10.2015

Darimont CT, Fox CH, Bryan HM, and Reimchen TE (2015) The unique ecology of human predators. Science 21: 858-860.

The NSW government announces a $16m high-tech strategy to combat shark attacks along the 2,000 kilometres of beach line. 25.10.2015 SMH

"Recreational users want to go and enjoy the water undisturbed or without the fear of being disturbed by a shark." Professor Bax 28.10.2015 abc

Shark attacks hit NSW North Coast tourism’s bottom line 30.11.2015 coffs coast advocate

Shark nets used at most beaches do not protect swimmers, research suggests  Guardian 09.02.2016

Two rare Japanese stingrays killed by Queensland's shark control program on the Gold Coast
"Successive governments have recognised the vital role the shark control program has played in protecting human life at those beaches which attract tourists from all over the world and throughout the year.” abc 22.02.2016

IMAGES:
A crowded ocean, tiles Sydney
Man in Ocean, tiles
Shark mural, Coffs Harbour
Shark without a fin, Coffs Harbour Jetty