Environment – Liberating lockdown

In the 2007 book The World Without Us, author Alan Weisman considers what happens when human impact is no longer imposed on nature. He visits Chernobyl, the Korean Demilitarised Zone and Cyprus’s deserted no-man’s-land. In these places of deep decay and human abandonment, Weisman finds other life flourishes. His research suggests that plants and animals reoccupy spaces vacated by humans very quickly. Only plastics, bronze statues, radioactive waste and Mount Rushmore will endure once we’re gone. All our other structures and artefacts are geologically transient and within 500 years will return to forest and fauna. In many ways, Weisman’s catalogue of the descent to dust of human creations, brings hope. Where human impact is reduced, nature rebounds.

The lessons of The World Without Us have been borne out with Covid-19. Roaring motorways are silent. Photos from around the world show lions sleeping on once-busy roadways in South Africa, buffalo roaming unimpeded by traffic in India, woolly goats occupying Welsh villages, deer in the streets of Japan. Once crowded beaches are full of flamingos and egg-laying turtles. Here at home, bird songs seem clearer, the air seems quieter and cleaner.

It didn’t take complete human elimination for the world to respond positively. It just took us all to stay home. In a short space of time wild animals reclaimed their lost habitat. Human families on foot and bike reclaimed road space too. It has felt like we’ve seen a glimpse of promise, of recovery, of a lost heritage we never knew we were missing. The economic and public health disruption, the deaths and job losses from Covid-19 are a calamity. But after the despair and grief of Australian bushfires, it felt like we might just also have a chance to repair the planet.

Lock down has been at times worrying, frustrating, lonely and tedious, and mental health and domestic violence have been causes of concern. But in some ways, for many, confinement has been liberating. No commutes, no physical meetings, no fast food. The meaning of “essential” has been redefined as front-line workers, basic food stuffs (flour and toilet paper!), health, family, community, nature … The veggie patch has been a source of sustenance and of pride – and if you didn’t have one, you’ll think about making one now. Gardens have never had so much attention. Home making and bread baking are having a necessary renaissance. People are relearning how to cook. People have had a chance to witness the changing of the season. Just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse, we can see how things could get better.

Covid-19 is a lesson that humans can co-exist with nature if we do things a bit differently. If more of us work from home, stay at home, make and bake, grow veggies, ride our bikes, help the neighbours, make safe space for animals, the whole world feels better.