The beautified Bellingen 'main drag' has no bike parking, let alone a bike path. Parking combustion engines is on the mind, not emission free parking infrastructure for all ages.
The planted exotic horticultural wonders proudly sponsor plants from far flung locations. (Place branding?) The vegetation has not yet reached curtain size to shield against the oversized heavy vehicles shooting through town. The daisies from South Africa might one day slow traffic down by covering the hot bitumen.
The sparrows are delighted by the puddles that form on the new tiles. A toddler was seen quenching his thirst on one of the many dog drinking bowls. No birdbaths were spotted anywhere for wildlife. The generous deposited dog faeces go a long way on the smooth terrazzo flooring. Pedestrians navigate commercial furniture, speeding skateboards on the private public partnerships (PPP) 'footpath' and hope they can run fast enough to cross the zebra crossings...
Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts
1.10.18
Oh my god they forgot the bike parking! Bellingen 'beautification'
The problem isn’t dockless share bikes. It’s the lack of bike parking, The Conservation, 1.10.2018
Update: 06062020
There
is only one bike rack in Bellingen now, unfortunately dog owners tie large
dogs to it so there is still nowhere to park one's bike.
25.1.17
Cacti and Succulents of the Bellingen Area
On a walk through Bellingen one can encounter cacti and succulents in
cafes, shops, markets and community gardens. The spiny exotic plants
are everywhere. They seem to be an expression of the fashionable Bellingen
lifestyle. They are trendy and convenient as they require no care.
The must-have plants are easy to name as 'cactus' or 'spiky plant', even for the botanically naive person.
”The interiors world has gone crazy over cactus plants!” "Succulents and cactuses with weird and wonderful leaves are “curated” in eclectic collections of pots, and terrariums are a thing."
The pots grace the outdoor lounges of hipsters. For
years now ‘spiky plants’ have showcased Sydney’s real estate. That
Mediterranean-style feeling seems to sell. Interior gardens, green
walls, rooftop/balconies and outdoor living rooms sprout a mono-culture
of spiky things in planter rows. It is the botanic message of the ‘for sale
sign’ or 'money dwells here'.
Dispersal by plant segment
makes it a dream for the horticultural industry and customers. Once the
thing has outgrown its pot it is time to 'set it free.' In the garden
they become a serial drain blocker. On larger blocks the fossil fuel
maintenance team tends to throw the cut offs into the edge of the bush.
Forgotten are the Prickly Pear Cacti hedges from South America that quickly overran many
thousand acres of farmland. Today still mother of millions are poisoning cattle and succulents are poisoning children.
While some attempt to control weeds, others are disseminating invasive plants throughout the Valley. Limiting the trade in potentially invasive species is outright unthinkable.
While some attempt to control weeds, others are disseminating invasive plants throughout the Valley. Limiting the trade in potentially invasive species is outright unthinkable.
Despite of being set in a rich Gumbaynggirr landscape of biodiversity both businesses and residents choose to populated the landscape with introduced and invasive cacti, succulents, agaves, bromeliads and bamboo, among other weeds.
While deforestation, rapid land clearing, shave the land of native vegetation and biodiversity, the Big Quarry exports more coal then ever before.
It almost seems that people have resigned themselves to climate inaction and are preparing their air conditioned dwellings for Death Valley like (56.7 °C) temperatures extremes. Ornamental flora from the desert of central Mexico or Arizona seems to be the appropriate setting for anticipating the climate catastrophe on the most arid continent.
Update:
"Bellingen registers its hottest day on record. Temperatures soared into the 40s as Bellingen went past its previous best to a top of 48.9 degrees just after 5pm according to Bellingen Weather’s station... in 60 years it has never been that hot." Bellingen Courier. 13.02.2017
NSW smashes February statewide heat records two days in a row SMH, 13.02.2017
13.9.15
The Cerura Moth, The Scott Sisters and Nature Depictions
This hairy moth was hanging out where coastal rainforest trees are allowed to be. Cerura australis (Lepidoptera) is attracted by the perfume of the Flintwood tree (Scolopia braunii). It is the favourite food plant of its larva.
Both moth and tree were depicted by the scientific illustrators and naturalists the Scott sisters, Harriet (1830–1907) and Helena (1832–1910). Their book 'Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations' was published in 1864.
The father and co-author took possession of 2560 acres of prime land on the Hunter River estuary in 1827. Ash Island was seen as a 'paradise for naturalist'. For thousands of years the Worimi and Awabakal people had cultured this tidal wetland into a biodiversity hub. Alexander Walker Scott, an entomologist of the day invited other explorers, like Ludwig Leichhardt to his tropical place and even "offered to clear 10 acres in the district, construct a cottage and establish a vineyard for Leichhardt."(source). With time the usual degradation took place at the hands of settlers: subdividing, clearing, draining, agribusiness and finally industrial use of the landscape. In 1866, AW Scott went bankrupt and sold the Ash Island property. (source)
The young women had many years to depict 'paradise' and functioned as 'lady’ plant collectors to 'male experts' as was common in colonial days. "Their father’s bankruptcy forced the sisters to seek payment for their art and endure the perceived social shame for doing so." (source) Excluded from careers, universities and learned societies they continued to draw and paint Australian animals and wildflowers commercially till the end of their life. The artists were largely forgotten (in the land of pesticides) until there was an exhibition in 2011. (source)
One outstanding aspect of these 'amateur' naturalists was, that Harriet and Helena were drawing from live animals. "Most natural history illustrators of the time worked with long-dead, pinned specimens that were faded and lacked colour."(source) They refused the 'pinned' appearance of butterfly and moth cadavers and let them live. They also refused to depict 'the thing' in its decontextualised form. Like Maria Sibylla Merian before them they displayed the mutualistic symbiotic relationships between flora and fauna. The plants and the animals are shown at various stages of their cycles as an educational understanding of living creatures.
The scientific minds and the market demand an encyclopedic knowledge and repository for present and future disposability. Till today 'nature' is classified for the logistics warehouse of man. The 'thing' is still pinned, cut, tagged, frozen in vaults yearning for the self-made catastrophe. The bio-diversity of the ecosystem is reduced to a free service to humanity.
Removing a living organism from its larger environmental context in mind and practice allows for the reduction of life into mere stuff, living beings become mere material for one species' industriousness or the collector's wunderkammer.
The 'thing', once removed from its habitat/ biome can be utilised or exterminated by us and we can remain in proud denial about the basis of our life being pulled from under our (and others) feet.
It is also popular to have individual bird sound repositories for example. The 'thing' is without it's home habitat. The soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause: " is interested in a given habitat’s entire soundscape—its “biophony”—(he) finds the single-species paradigm absurd...each living organism in a biome evolves in situ to find its own acoustic niche, based either on frequency or time, so that “their utterances are not buried by other signals.” Thus, each animal sound, plus the sounds of the wind in the trees, or waves on a beach, fit together like pieces of a puzzle to create the kaleidoscopic composition we hear. According to this theory, animals change their sounds when their habitat changes." (source)
A perception and depiction of the whole in situ could contribute to the continuing existence of the web of life.
Today Ash Island is part of Hunter Wetlands National Park.
Images:
Cerura australis
Detail of hand coloured lithograph by Harriet Scott from A.W. Scott, “Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations drawn from the life”, London, 1864
Both moth and tree were depicted by the scientific illustrators and naturalists the Scott sisters, Harriet (1830–1907) and Helena (1832–1910). Their book 'Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations' was published in 1864.
The father and co-author took possession of 2560 acres of prime land on the Hunter River estuary in 1827. Ash Island was seen as a 'paradise for naturalist'. For thousands of years the Worimi and Awabakal people had cultured this tidal wetland into a biodiversity hub. Alexander Walker Scott, an entomologist of the day invited other explorers, like Ludwig Leichhardt to his tropical place and even "offered to clear 10 acres in the district, construct a cottage and establish a vineyard for Leichhardt."(source). With time the usual degradation took place at the hands of settlers: subdividing, clearing, draining, agribusiness and finally industrial use of the landscape. In 1866, AW Scott went bankrupt and sold the Ash Island property. (source)
The young women had many years to depict 'paradise' and functioned as 'lady’ plant collectors to 'male experts' as was common in colonial days. "Their father’s bankruptcy forced the sisters to seek payment for their art and endure the perceived social shame for doing so." (source) Excluded from careers, universities and learned societies they continued to draw and paint Australian animals and wildflowers commercially till the end of their life. The artists were largely forgotten (in the land of pesticides) until there was an exhibition in 2011. (source)
One outstanding aspect of these 'amateur' naturalists was, that Harriet and Helena were drawing from live animals. "Most natural history illustrators of the time worked with long-dead, pinned specimens that were faded and lacked colour."(source) They refused the 'pinned' appearance of butterfly and moth cadavers and let them live. They also refused to depict 'the thing' in its decontextualised form. Like Maria Sibylla Merian before them they displayed the mutualistic symbiotic relationships between flora and fauna. The plants and the animals are shown at various stages of their cycles as an educational understanding of living creatures.
The scientific minds and the market demand an encyclopedic knowledge and repository for present and future disposability. Till today 'nature' is classified for the logistics warehouse of man. The 'thing' is still pinned, cut, tagged, frozen in vaults yearning for the self-made catastrophe. The bio-diversity of the ecosystem is reduced to a free service to humanity.
Removing a living organism from its larger environmental context in mind and practice allows for the reduction of life into mere stuff, living beings become mere material for one species' industriousness or the collector's wunderkammer.
The 'thing', once removed from its habitat/ biome can be utilised or exterminated by us and we can remain in proud denial about the basis of our life being pulled from under our (and others) feet.
It is also popular to have individual bird sound repositories for example. The 'thing' is without it's home habitat. The soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause: " is interested in a given habitat’s entire soundscape—its “biophony”—(he) finds the single-species paradigm absurd...each living organism in a biome evolves in situ to find its own acoustic niche, based either on frequency or time, so that “their utterances are not buried by other signals.” Thus, each animal sound, plus the sounds of the wind in the trees, or waves on a beach, fit together like pieces of a puzzle to create the kaleidoscopic composition we hear. According to this theory, animals change their sounds when their habitat changes." (source)
A perception and depiction of the whole in situ could contribute to the continuing existence of the web of life.
Today Ash Island is part of Hunter Wetlands National Park.
Images:
Cerura australis
Detail of hand coloured lithograph by Harriet Scott from A.W. Scott, “Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations drawn from the life”, London, 1864
12.7.15
The Park Beach Reserve, Coffs Harbour and Land Care
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The mushrooming tall buildings of Ocean Parade have a slim buffer at the front and back separating them from the road (Hogbin Drive) and the glaring light pollution from a bare sport field framed by large weeds (pines). The busy road and the speeding cars gobble up the green margins. Burnout wrecks set the bush alight and garbage is generously dumped by motorists.
A wide strip of vegetation bordering the road is regularly doused with herbicide, giving the edge of the little forest a brown and dead appearance. In the latest addition to 'land care', it seems that the endemic littoral rainforest species were just hacked to the ground with no apparent reason.
Maybe flat dwellers requested a better view of the noisy road and access to the light glare opposite? All weeds have been left standing. They are working hard on making Coffs Harbour even more ugly.
31.5.15
The Bush: Travels in the Mind of Australia, inspired by Don Watson
Some thoughts inspired by Don Watson, interviewed by The World Today at @SydWriters'Fest on soundcloud. His latest book: The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia, Penguin Australia. (2014)
First there is the outstanding and unbelievable voracious appetite for destruction of all things Australian by European colonialisation. To 'wipe it all away' in this newly established British colony, also known as the 'blank slate' of Terra nullius. Proceeding with the 'business as usual' expansionist progress paradigm, all endemic flora and fauna had to disappear. The indigenous owners of the land "felt the full force of Australian colonial brutality" (source). The inflexible aliens found themselves in an alien land and strained to recreate their place of origin that they were habituated to.
The amazing point is not only 'the scale of destruction', but its perpetual continuation right into 21st century contemporary society and landscape. 'The Great Australian Silence' permeates and it is coupled with an inability to confront reality. The mental state is one of oscillating between learning disability and ‘intentional ignorance’, commonly known as denial.
The long list of inconvenient truths about climate disruption, massacres of indigenous people, land degradation and biodiversity impoverishment are overwhelming.
The mind manufactures defense mechanisms for a required state of permanent 'feel good' existence. A delusional unwillingness to face reality is coupled with a melancholy across generations. Like a social transgenerational epigenentics the uncleared deeds of the past linger in the minds of the present. Existence in rural and sub-urban isolation, bereft of meaning, populates the minds with roaming packs of 'black dogs': mental illness, depression and suicide. The others busy themselves with Anglo pragmatism to get things done by recreating the status quo.
A bit of bush lore, Aussie 'nature' (45,000 years of Aboriginal land stewardship) or #wildoz add to the pride and puffs up the chest. Most of the time one is propelled by fossil fuel machines, racing through the paved bush at 100 km/h.
Isolation also molded the psyche of national insecurity, stuck on an island in the Asian Pacific region. Sliding from a democracy without a bill of rights into an oligopoly of vested interests. A withering sovereign state replaced by (semi-) private instrumentalities.
'The bush' is still clear felled in the country, native vegetation is bulldozed and residents of the major cities seem to hunger for tree free cities (10/50) to go with the diy heatwaves. The majority of Australians huddle in cities, mostly along the coast. The bush is still unknown to most. It is a place to dump the weedy garden clippings, fly-tipping or empty the dogs.
The mind is caged by fence posts.
Images:
Henri Rousseau, La Femme en rouge dans le forêt, (detail),1886
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808
Listen:
After a lot of laughter and giggling, the audience demands 'something positive'! at the end of the interview...
First there is the outstanding and unbelievable voracious appetite for destruction of all things Australian by European colonialisation. To 'wipe it all away' in this newly established British colony, also known as the 'blank slate' of Terra nullius. Proceeding with the 'business as usual' expansionist progress paradigm, all endemic flora and fauna had to disappear. The indigenous owners of the land "felt the full force of Australian colonial brutality" (source). The inflexible aliens found themselves in an alien land and strained to recreate their place of origin that they were habituated to.
The amazing point is not only 'the scale of destruction', but its perpetual continuation right into 21st century contemporary society and landscape. 'The Great Australian Silence' permeates and it is coupled with an inability to confront reality. The mental state is one of oscillating between learning disability and ‘intentional ignorance’, commonly known as denial.
The long list of inconvenient truths about climate disruption, massacres of indigenous people, land degradation and biodiversity impoverishment are overwhelming.
The mind manufactures defense mechanisms for a required state of permanent 'feel good' existence. A delusional unwillingness to face reality is coupled with a melancholy across generations. Like a social transgenerational epigenentics the uncleared deeds of the past linger in the minds of the present. Existence in rural and sub-urban isolation, bereft of meaning, populates the minds with roaming packs of 'black dogs': mental illness, depression and suicide. The others busy themselves with Anglo pragmatism to get things done by recreating the status quo.
A bit of bush lore, Aussie 'nature' (45,000 years of Aboriginal land stewardship) or #wildoz add to the pride and puffs up the chest. Most of the time one is propelled by fossil fuel machines, racing through the paved bush at 100 km/h.
Isolation also molded the psyche of national insecurity, stuck on an island in the Asian Pacific region. Sliding from a democracy without a bill of rights into an oligopoly of vested interests. A withering sovereign state replaced by (semi-) private instrumentalities.
'The bush' is still clear felled in the country, native vegetation is bulldozed and residents of the major cities seem to hunger for tree free cities (10/50) to go with the diy heatwaves. The majority of Australians huddle in cities, mostly along the coast. The bush is still unknown to most. It is a place to dump the weedy garden clippings, fly-tipping or empty the dogs.
The mind is caged by fence posts.
Images:
Henri Rousseau, La Femme en rouge dans le forêt, (detail),1886
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808
Listen:
After a lot of laughter and giggling, the audience demands 'something positive'! at the end of the interview...
22.8.14
Dr Hewitt's Bellingen Hospital Arboretum
The 1920s brought a new wave of settlers. One notably one was Dr. George Hewitt, who worked in the Bellingen Hospital. This young doctor set out to plant as many ' woody plants' as he could all over Bellingen. His arboretum hugging the hospital consisted mainly of Australian native plants. A place for the recuperating and visitors to enjoy a beautiful garden walk. He was also planting a sign for the 70's wave of settlers that deforestation does not lead to a more habitable planet.
At the dawn of the 21st century yet a new demographic mindset is populating the valley rapidly. Logging and mining trucks shoot through the small 'turn-of-the-century' main street of Bellingen. The few remaining trees look paltry or are dead. They would make wonderful parking. Car exhaust fills the country air. Addicted to automobile dependency all have to top up in the 'scenic town'. Retail reflects the changed demographics: Copious amounts of sugar and plastic for toddlers, pets for all the family and the staple of petrol, meat and beer.
The howls of private and state forest chainsaws are all-pervading. The time is ripe (again) to go for the steep slopes. The new suburbia does not yearn for tree shaded walkability.
Update: 0914
Australia's failure to act on climate pollution gives rise to angst about the hell-fires to come. Two reactions are being offered: Combusting all that is not human settlement and a 'godsend' 10/50 tree felling law that allows for the elimination of all (native) flora and fauna around human settlements and happens to increase the 'value' of the real estate simultaneously. Bingo!
16.9.13
Rejecting the local environment - Let's go pink
Finally another pink thing from Elsewhere to brighten up the 'drab Australian bush'. Azaleas and Rhododendron already frame the real estate, now Paeonia will blossom.
It seems to be a heritage of the settlers then and now to hurl exotic plants either intentionally or unintentionally. A huge horticultural industry and the blind eye of regulation are structurally aiding the dispersal of exotic plants.
Why is this so in Australia?
The mostly female desire for pink might be the need to be in the pink.
Macke, August, 1910, Azaleas
Manet, Edouard, 1864, White Paeonia
Corinth, Lovis, 1921, Pink Clouds
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