When times change, how can we remain the same? A lesson in nature
Everything is changing rapidly these days. Between AI and other technological advancements, the state of our political world, our cultures, and the changing climate, it feels as though each year looks vastly different from the last. When I get overwhelmed, I try to focus on what hasn’t changed. The tree in my front yard, though pruned, goes through the same cycles year to year. My garden, though it goes through different iterations and successes, still gives me the reddest, most delicious tomatoes every summer. The seasons change constantly, yes, but they return every year as a reminder of the past and hope in what is to come.
Nature reminds us that sometimes, change is okay. When we find the beauty in our ability and resilience to adapt, we are reminded of our strength. That is what nature does time and time again: it is resilient, strong, and adaptable. Sometimes the best way to adapt is to learn from our past and how we have adapted before. We can learn from these moments and respond to new conditions with that knowledge.
No better example than the return of Indigenous fire management in Australia. If you remember, in early 2020, Australia was on fire. All over the news, we saw images of forests and their wildlife being burned, all over the country. I remember this particularly well because I had just finished spending the previous year in Australia and had just visited these forests. During this time, I remember listening to an NPR segment in which an Aboriginal Australian discussed how native Australians have used fire to mitigate wildfires for a long time. He said, “Fire has been used to maintain, to look after this whole continent forever. How we maintain that balance is through fire, by not letting any one thing dominate something else.”
For thousands of years, Aboriginal peoples across Australia used fire intentionally to care for their continent. In Wilinggin Country, in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, the Ngarinyin people used carefully timed, relatively cool fires as part of their relationship with the land. Rather than waiting for the hottest and driest months, when fire could move rapidly across the landscape, people burned smaller areas earlier in the dry season. These fires created a patchwork across the landscape, and when fires came later in the season, they were less likely to encounter an endless landscape of dry vegetation that could carry on uncontrollably.
This Earth is changing; there is no question about that. Change itself is nothing new, but the pace and scale of human-caused climate change present conditions that are new for many communities and ecosystems. As humans, all we really know is change. As my late father-in-law used to say, the only constant is change. So how do we adapt? How do we learn from our past to prepare for a better future? The question we must constantly ask ourselves.