David Suzuki

by David Suzuki

  Stingers were not a hazard in the past, because there were plenty of turtles that fed on them. But the turtles were “harvested” for their meat and shells, and at some point their numbers became so depleted that they could no longer sustain themselves, and they disappeared. Stingers and stinger nets now are just an accepted part of the hot season—but they didn't have to be. Let's hope the great interest of tourists in viewing turtles will help spur the reintroduction and protection of this species.

  Two hours' drive from Port Douglas is the Daintree, a jewel of tropical rain forest that is easily accessible and delightful to explore. Yet in the adjacent lands around it, lots are being cleared and sold off for development. Every time I've visited the Daintree, I've been overwhelmed by the immensity of our ignorance and our arrogance in the way we treat nature. A few years ago, biologists “fogged” some of the canopy of the Daintree with pesticide, just as research entomologist Terry Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution had done in the Peruvian Amazon, and, like Erwin, they found thousands of species of insects that had never before been seen by humans. It is thought there must be tens of thousands of species in the Daintree yet to be discovered.

  But remember, when a new organism—plant, animal, or micro-organism—is collected, it can be “keyed out,” meaning its taxonomic position is identified, and if it is new to science, it can be named. When a name is assigned to a new species, that does not mean we know anything about its numbers, distribution, habitat needs, or interaction with other species or even such basic biology as what it eats, how it reproduces, or when it matures. It is breathtaking, therefore, that even though we remain almost completely ignorant of most of the species' needs and interactions with ecosystems, we do not hesitate to destroy those ecosystems to get a few “resources” that we find useful. We should remember the story of the goose that laid golden eggs and realize that entire ecosystems like the Amazon and Daintree forests are the goose. Only so long as they flourish will we be able to collect the golden eggs.

  BEFORE MY THIRD VISIT to Australia, I received a message that someone named Peter Garrett, who sang with an Australian group called Midnight Oil, had offered to do an event with me in Sydney on my next visit. I wrote to ask Patrick Gallagher who this guy was and whether he was legit. Patrick replied that he was a big name and Midnight Oil was a very popular group, but the publisher seemed hesitant about the idea of my doing an event with a rock band. His reluctance gave me visions of trying to deliver a serious talk in front of a screaming, drug-crazed audience interested only in hearing the rock group. Uh-uh. I told Patrick to thank Peter but turn him down. Patrick seemed relieved.

  Huge mistake. I soon learned that Peter and the Oils were not just big in Australia, they were huge! And they were on their way to conquering North America and Europe.

  Peter was far more than just a performer; he was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), one of the largest environmental groups in the country, and he had run unsuccessfully for the Australian Senate in 1984 for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, a predecessor of the Greens. His fans were my kind of people. When I first heard their signature song, “Beds Are Burning,” demanding that Australians confront the fact that the land belongs to the Aboriginal people, I was blown away.

  The song had the same impact on me as had another in 1988. First I had received a call from a Bernie Finkelstein in Toronto. “Who are you?” I asked. “I'm Bruce Cockburn's manager,” he answered, “and Bruce asked if you would listen to a song he has just recorded.” Kind of a weird request, but I did know Bruce Cockburn was a successful Canadian singer, and Bernie's office was close enough to the CBC for me to drop in. So I did, and Bernie put on a CD to play a brand-new Cockburn song, “If a Tree Falls.” I cried when I heard it. It was powerful, and later, with the video, I knew it would be a hit. When Paiakan stayed with us, he loved Bruce's video of that song, even though he didn't understand the words.

  Peter Garrett is an impressive sight. He must be six and a half feet tall, and he is lean and bald. When he performs, he's like a scarecrow puppet being manipulated by someone high above, arms and legs flailing about. I saw him onstage for the first time in Anaheim, California, and his rapturous reception by the audience showed me how badly Patrick and I had erred, but by then Peter and I had become good friends.

  When he came to Canada in 1993 as the long battle over logging in the Clayoquot Sound rain forest on the west coast of Vancouver Island was heating up again, Midnight Oil volunteered to perform in the protest area. I was delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the band, and it was a marvelous concert, marred only by the nastiness of loggers who were there harassing the protesters and who screamed epithets and threatened the band as they left. (Eventually, more than nine hundred people were arrested before the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation signed a resource management agreement with the British Columbia government.)

  Because of the Australian public's tremendous response to my message of environmental stewardship, I had been urged by a number of people to start a David Suzuki Foundation Australia modeled on my Canadian foundation, but I resisted because I don't want to form a multinational organization. If our approach is useful and can be copied in Australia, there should be an autonomous Australian-created group based on similar principles.

  On one of those early visits to Australia, I was told that a program called The Couchman Show, hosted by Paul Couchman, had asked that I appear as a guest. The Allen & Unwin publicist, Monica Joyce, was worried because she thought the show tended to be confrontational, and she suggested I talk to Couchman before deciding yes or no. I called and told Couchman that I was interested in dialogue, not in confrontational diatribes. “Oh no,” he assured me, “we're not that kind of show. We like to have everyone offer their positions so we can have open discussion.” I accepted the invitation.

  Couchman had not leveled with me. The audience was stacked with businesspeople and economists, with a sprinkling of environmentalists, and the entire format was set up for confrontation. Because I had received assurance from the man himself, I was completely relaxed. An eminent economist shared the stage with me, and I presented my case that economics was fundamentally flawed because it excluded nature as a central part of its underpinnings (economists call it an “externality”). I probably said it a bit more forcefully than that.

  Well, the economist launched into an attack on my position, egged on by Couchman. As the audience generously applauded the economist, I finally realized I had been set up. A few environmentalists in the audience tried to defend me, but we were overwhelmed by the onslaught against us.

  In the end, the economist told me I didn't know what I was talking about, that the air and water were cleaner today than they had ever been. I exploded, “If you believe that, you are a fool!” I shouldn't have been so rude, but I had been under steady assault, and his statement revealed how ignorant he was. When it was over, I stomped over to Couchman and said, “You lied to me.” He didn't care; he had generated his fireworks.

  A year later, I met the Australian filmmaker Paul Cox at his home, and the first thing he told me was that he had watched me on The Couchman Show and had been infuriated by the nonsense the economist spouted. He apologized over and over on behalf of Australians. I had long since overcome my anger, but I was glad there was support for my position among the viewers.

  On another of those early visits to Australia, I received a request that I meet Green Party politician Bob Brown of the state of Tasmania. As an elected senator in the federal government, he has played an indispensable role in raising the profile of environmental and human-rights issues. We met in Melbourne, and as we strolled along the Yarra River at dusk, Bob suddenly stopped talking, looked intently along the riverbank, and pointed at something. It was a platypus. Thus my first sighting of a wild platypus occurred in a most unlikely environment, but I was delighted to think there was still room for the animals even in the middle of a city.

  Bob wanted to know whether Lake Pedder,
a pristine glacial lake in Tasmania's southwest wilderness that had been flooded in the 1970s to generate hydroelectric power, could be restored. Was it feasible? Did Tasmania need the energy the inundated lake supplied, and would the original values of that ecosystem be able to recover if the dam in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area was removed? To study such matters, he needed money, and I offered him enough for someone to do the work. It was the early days of the David Suzuki Foundation, and I was pleased to be able to support an international project under our name.

  The study showed that the energy supplied by the dam that had caused the flooding of Lake Pedder was a small part of the state's needs and could easily be given up without any economic disruption. The findings also suggested there existed sufficient residual vegetation and animal species around the lake to restore the original ecosystem if the water was permanently allowed to return to its natural flow. The study was released to the public, but, as with so many things in Tasmania, tearing down a dam seemed a regressive step to the powers that be and the idea was rejected with hardly a thought.

  Sarika and Severn posing with David Hudson's dance troupe in Queensland

  One of our most memorable visits to Australia occurred in 1991, when my father had recovered from my mother's death in 1984 and had regained some of his great zest for life. Dad adored our children, and we invited him to join us on a trip to Australia. He was thrilled to go, and with his genuine curiosity and his skills as a raconteur, he captivated all those he met down under. He was enchanted with the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the people—a whole world to fill his insatiable appetite for new experiences and knowledge.

  With Georgina and Phil in tow, we made our way to Port Douglas. There Tara bought an inflatable vest for Dad, and we took the family out to the Great Barrier Reef on the Quicksilver. Dad's arthritis had gnarled his limbs and digits, so he looked like a twisted gnome, but he didn't let it slow him as he hobbled onto the float. We fitted him with mask, fins, and snorkel to go along with his protective vest, and in he jumped, hand in hand with Sarika. There was Dad at eighty-one, holding onto eight-year-old Sarika, paddling over to one of the “bommies,” a column of coral rising to the surface and easily encircled. I watched them swimming off and listened to their muffled exclamations through the snorkels: “Look at that!” “Over there!” “Grampa, Grampa, what is that?” It is one of my happiest memories.

  SINCE THOSE EARLIEST VISITS, Tara and I have made several trips to Australia together, and during that time we have seen many changes. In the almost two decades since our first joint trip, the Great Barrier Reef has been changed by tourism, fishing, and the accumulation of effluents from cities, towns, and farmers' fields, which ultimately percolate through the reefs.

  More recently, climate change has been responsible for coral bleaching over immense areas. Coral is more than one organism. An animal called a coelenterate, which is related to jellyfish, creates a hard shell around itself, a carbonaceous material we think of as the coral. The coelenterate harbors within it another species, a plant that provides energy through photosynthesis in return for the nutrition the animal captures. It's a classic example of symbiosis, a partnership in which both parts benefit from each other. The plants also confer color to the animal, and the Great Barrier Reef is a profusion of colors from purple to pink and green. The plant parts are extremely sensitive to temperature, and a rise in water temperature of just a degree or two can cause their death and hence the “bleaching” phenomenon of color loss. The animals can survive a season without their partners, but they then die if they are not reinfected with the plants.

  Coral bleaching related to El Niño events unprecedented in their heat, duration, and shortened interval between are thought to be the basis for a global bleaching episode; El Niños are deviations from normal temperatures in the southern Pacific Ocean between South America and Australia. Coral reefs are oases of life, supporting a disproportionate abundance of life forms, and, as with tropical rain forests, disruption of their integrity represents a catastrophic threat to the ocean ecosystems of the world.

  In 2003, when Tara and I again visited the Great Barrier Reef, it had visibly changed in both abundance of organisms and vitality. Dead stag coral littered the bottom, and the numbers and variety of fishes were noticeably diminished. (This is not a scientifically validated observation—it is subjective and anecdotal—but I think too much is at stake to ignore it.) Yet when we finally climbed back on the boat, the guides bubbled with enthusiasm, extolling the wonders of the reef and all its components. Part of that is their job; after all, we had paid a lot of money for the trip. But it is my impression that they really were enthusiastic and meant what they were saying.

  Even in that short span since Tara and I had first visited this place in 1989, the degradation was perceptible to us. Because the guides had been working there only for a few years, however, they didn't have the same baseline for comparison. To tourists, the coral and fish are still dazzling in profusion and color, but I am sure an old-timer who has known the reef for decades will remember it in a state that no longer exists.

  It was the same on our visit to the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania in eastern Africa. Our encounter with so many mammals filled us with wonder and delight that there still are such pristine areas with abundant wildlife—until we talked to some of the people who have lived there all their lives and remember a flourishing plain that no longer exists. Urban people like us live in such a degraded environment for wildlife that almost anything else looks rich and unspoiled. It's only when we dig deeper to find what the state of wildlife was decades or centuries before that we realize how much we are drawing down on nature's abundance.

  ON THAT VISIT IN 2003, I was asked for the second time to be honorary patron of the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), a program for youth who had dropped out of school but were unable to find jobs. The program gave them a stipend to spend six months a year learning how to rehabilitate the land, cleaning up soil and rivers, planting native species, making inventories of wildlife, and otherwise being trained for jobs in conservation. When Mike Rann had been minister for Aboriginal affairs in the Labor government of the state of South Australia in the 1990s, I met him, and we hit it off. I was asked to be the honorary patron of YCC, but when Labor was thrown out of office in 1993, the program was cancelled. Mike led the party back to power in 2001 and as state premier then resurrected the Youth Conservation Corps and asked me to return as honorary patron. I was delighted with the honor, and Tara and I attended a YCC event in Adelaide.

  Once again, we were moved to see the dedication and enthusiasm of the kids. A young girl who seemed to have rings hanging from every part of her face and body enthused about her bird inventory: “I've seen twenty-five species right here in this field.” A young man with tattoos on his face, arms, and legs and a bush of hair that exploded from his head exulted about how great it was to be out here in the country and to be paid for it. We were taken to a large area of degraded land where the trees had long been cut down, the land overgrazed by sheep, and the soil overrun by grass and brush. “This will be Suzuki Forest, named in honor of our patron,” announced John Hill, the minister of environment. The Youth Conservation Corps will plant native trees on that land so that perhaps a couple of decades from now there will again be a young forest, one bearing the name of that Canadian bloke who used to visit Australia.

  AYERS ROCK, THE LANDMARK familiar around the world as one of Australia's icons, is now known by its Aboriginal name, Uluru, and is an amazing sight. Imagine a flat desert, hot as hell; out of its haze looms a massive piece of rock that changes color as the sun makes its way across the sky. An Aboriginal woman offered to walk around Uluru with Tara and me. As when I was filming !San people in the Kalahari Desert, at first all I saw was scrub and sand. And as with the !San people, I was shown there was food aplenty. In Australia it's called “bush tucker,” and this woman demonstrated great knowledge of it, pointing out tiny edible fruits and various nutriti
onal and medicinal plants, as well as hiding places for insects and scorpions.

  One of the terrifying aspects of globalization and economics is that this kind of knowledge is not seen as having value in a modern industrialized world, and what has taken thousands of years of careful observation, experimentation, and insight is being lost all over the planet in just a few generations and will never be recovered. This information is far more profound than current science, because it has been tested over time with the survival of those who possessed the knowledge.

  During a book tour in the 1990s that took me to Brisbane, an Aboriginal man offered to take me on a short walk through the bush. I was delighted, and we drove to a nearby park. I was dressed in shorts and sandals, and as we stepped onto the trail, I looked at the leafy ground beside it and realized there were leeches waving their heads about a half an inch off the ground, just waiting for an easy victim. Fortunately, I evaded them as we searched for witchetty grubs, the white, fatty, larval forms of beetles that are much prized by Aboriginal people and eaten live or cooked. I was determined to eat a live one, but I must admit that I was not highly disappointed when the only grubs we found were “not the right kind.”

  In Adelaide after one of my readings, an elder who looked white approached me and introduced himself. He was Lewis O'Brien, a respected elder of the Kaurna people. He was very pleased because I had talked about the book I coauthored in 1992 with Peter Knudtson, Wisdom of the Elders, which examined the congruence between aboriginal knowledge and scientific insights, and I talked about my respect for traditional knowledge and the way First Nations people had educated me about our relationship with Mother Earth.