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

Bats and birds increase crop yield in tropical agroforestry landscapes

"Ecology Letters": Bats and birds increase crop yield in tropical agroforestry landscapes. Abstract
 
"We found that bat and bird exclusion increased insect herbivore abundance, despite the concurrent release of mesopredators such as ants and spiders, and negatively affected fruit development, with final crop yield... Our results highlight the tremendous economic impact of common insectivorous birds and bats, which need to become an essential part of sustainable landscape management."


Insect-munching bats spare the chemicals. abc 240305

"Farmers can reduce the need to spray their crops with insecticide by encouraging insect-eating bats to roost in old hollow trees in their properties...There are about 90 species of bats in Australia, three quarters of which subsist solely on insects and spiders...The smallest species of bat in south-eastern Australia is the little forest bat (Vespadelus vulturnus), weighing in at just four grams. It gorges itself on mosquitos, while the southern free tailed bat (Mormopterus) feasts on the destructive Rutherglen, or seed bug ( Nysius vinitor)."

"Many farmers are unaware of the benefits of insect-eating bats... and often don't even know they have the tiny nocturnal mammals on their properties. Dr Lindy Lumsden "is encouraging them to preserve old dead trees on their properties so that bats can roost and breed in their hollow trunks...People often see a dead tree as just being good for firewood or a bit of an eyesore and cut them down...The main thing that farmers can do is maintain the remnant vegetation on their properties so the bats can breed themselves up....It takes around 80 to 100 years for tree hollows to develop, so farmers need to revegetate to ensure the trees that fall down and die, leaving bats homeless, are replaced in years to come."

Images:
Pisanello, Detail of Madonna of the Quail, 1420
Kaki Persimmon fruit, (Diospyros kaki)

Updates:
Native birds provide crop benefits, but Australian farmers treat them as a pest, abc 022014 

"Effects of land use on bird populations and pest control services on coffee farms” Railsback, S. F. and M. D. Johnson. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1320957111.  042014

Downturn in shade-grown coffee putting forests, wildlife, people at risk, mongabay, 07.2014

Shade coffee is for the birds 05022015

 Why shade-grown coffee is good for birds and farmers, The Conversation 26.02.2015

Retreat

A long weekend in a retreat (60-something kms from Bellingen). Multiple huts in a rural landscape.

On arrival multiple fossil fuel powered machinery made the landscape 'tidy'. The disturbing and excessive noise and dust pollution hogged the attention.

On opening the door to the premises, one was hit by an intense cloud of synthetic fragrances that was cooking on a power point. All textiles were drenched in these potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals. Curtains and furniture seemed to be dipped in fire foam and flame retardants. The bedsheets smelled perfumed. The kitchen cupboard had, as in most Aussie kitchens, the well-used spray can of pesticide handy. The water, without a filter, tasted foul and metallic.

The closeness of the  neighbouring huts tried to emulate a feeling of a tight-knit sub-urbia back home. Families wanting a "getting away from it all" feeling ended up in the confinement of 'family cabins'. "Loudness-as-an-inalienable-right “(Wallace, David Foster) of families one might add. Large unplanned families with the full package of pets and all the baggage. Parents intensely interacting with their wearables. Many mouths scream. The child that cannot use language cries and screams.

The dads of instant culture pour petrol, meths or other accelerants on the meat altar. The incinerated meat stands in the form of cows not far off. They are usually pre-cooked in the shelter-less Australian sun.

The toy pets bark and squeal from the abuse of being mistaken for a horse. Agitated the free range dog chases the only Australian native fauna in sight, a brush turkey. For short minutes distraction culture goes sensation seeking and then they sprawl and sprawl.

The use of the veranda is impossible and the hut smells toxic. The entire night the resident rooster claims his territory over the visiting Koel and the array of family dogs bark and yap and yap and yap.

Next idyllic morning the neighbouring fence is being drenched with toxins trailing in a large dust drift. The posts are meters away from the line of huts. Copious amounts of herbicide/pesticide is being doused, the diesel of the tractor fills the 'shelter' up with thick clouds of diesel fumes.

We retreat to a coastal eatery.  A deafening aural ambiance from families being fed. In the food preparation area a white, plastic auto mist box disperses pesticides totally unmanned round-the-clock! At short intervals poison is being released on to 'bugs', staff and customers. Enthusiasts of old car wrecks generously share the fumes of their old timers which fill the entire cafe.

People just seem to tolerate the ubiquity of pesticides and noise pollution

We disappeared through the sanitised, chemicalised agricultural acres which stretch for mile upon mile. Australian flora and fauna has been eradicated or only fragments are left as retreats.

Images: 
Cicada, domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori and a diversity of flies, Alfred Brehm,  Brehm's Life of Animals

Even ‘environmentally protective’ levels of pesticide devastate insect biodiversity. 
 Common insecticide used in homes associated with delayed mental development of young children

Update
Pyrethroid insecticides exposure increasing in homes and people, 07022014