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Connecting With Nature

The crises we are faced with in today’s world – climate change, ecological collapse, extinction, pollution, and mental health – can be traced to the disconnection between humans and natural world. Nature can be a source of solace, balance and healing for many. People here share how they first became aware of environmental issues, and their special connection to the land and its non-human inhabitants that they share it with.

Simona Tobia: Oui. Et euh, est-ce que vous avez une mémoire spécifique de quand vous avez vous étiez petite, vous avez parlé, je pense, d'un arbre. De quelque chose que vous faisiez au moment des moments particuliers dans la journée.
Gaby Oriente: C'est surtout sonore, imagine, en fin, c'est tout. En fait c’est sonore et olfactif. Moi, les champs de colza, l'odeur des champs de colza, alors c'est une odeur particulière, puisque le colza a une odeur assez lourde. Mais c'est tellement familier chez moi que je me sens en sécurité. Quand j'ai, j'ai ce genre d'odeur là, ça le chant des oiseaux, ou peut-être tout à l'heure on peut aller juste en dehors de la serre. On se rendra compte du chant des oiseaux comme il est, comme il est présent.
Simona: Oui.
Gaby: Ça depuis que je suis petite, c'est un son, dans n'importe quelle situation émotionnelle, si j'ai un chant d'oiseau autour de moi, je me je m'apaise tout de suite, je me sens en sécurité. Pour moi, c'est un truc de de détente, tout de suite. De… c'est bon, tout va bien. Il y a, les oiseaux chantent. Il y avait le coucou au printemps, il y a les écureuils dans les arbres, les insectes qui bourdonnent et que je vois, les libellules, les papillons, toutes ces choses-là. Les pâquerettes qui sortent de terre. Enfin, c’est, c'est … tous ces souvenirs d'enfance. C'est ça quoi.
Simona: Et aujourd’hui ? Est-ce que il y a un peu plus, ce son ? Par rapport à quand les gens … oui, quand vous avez commencé.
Gaby: Depuis que je suis arrivé, donc, j'ai, j'ai remis beaucoup de matière dans mes sols et là, donc, au départ, il me
Simona: Remettre matière, ça veut dire ?
Gaby: Eh, c'est-à-dire que beh j'ai pris du broyat de déchets verts, par exemple, que j'ai ramené dans mes potagers, donc j'ai réintroduit ça. J'ai mis beaucoup de foin. J'ai beaucoup de paille, j'ai mis du broyat de bois, j'ai mis beaucoup de matière organique. J'ai ramené de la matière organique dans mes potagers. Pour relancer la vie du sol. Au départ, il me fallait une bêche, voire une pioche, pour planter quoi que ce soit dans mon sol. Là, aujourd'hui, je plante avec, avec mes doigts. Donc, en trois ans, je vois vraiment la différence. Là, maintenant, j'écarte le, la terre, ça grouille. Y a des vers de terre aussi gros que mon pouce. Il y a énormément de cloportes, enfin, et puis toute, pas très bonne en noms d'insectes, et où on les nommer, mais je vois bien tous les insectes qu'il y a.

English Translation:

Simona Tobia: Yes. And uh, do you have a specific memory from when you were little, you talked about, I think, a tree. Something you did at particular times during the day.
Gaby Oriente: It's mostly sound, imagine, in the end, that's all. In fact it's sound and olfactory. For me, the rapeseed fields, the smell of the rapeseed fields, so it's a particular smell, since rapeseed has a fairly heavy smell. But it's so familiar to me that I feel safe. When I have, I have this kind of smell there, it's the song of the birds, or maybe later we can go just outside the greenhouse. We'll be able to hear the song of the birds as it is, as it is present.
Simona: Yes.
Gaby: That since I was little, it's a sound, in any emotional situation, if I have a bird singing around me, I calm down right away, I feel safe. For me, it's a relaxing thing, right away. Of... it's good, everything's fine. There are, the birds sing. There was the cuckoo in the spring, there are squirrels in the trees, insects that buzz and that I see, dragonflies, butterflies, all those things. Daisies coming out of the ground. Well, it's, it's... all these childhood memories. That's it.
Simona: And today? Is there a little more, this sound? Compared to when people... yes, when you started.
Gaby: Since I arrived, so, I have, I have put a lot of matter back into my soils and there, so, at the beginning, I
Simona: Putting matter back, what does that mean?
Gaby: Well, that is to say that well I took shredded green waste, for example, which I brought back to my vegetable gardens, so I reintroduced that. I put a lot of hay. I have a lot of straw, I put wood shreds, I put a lot of organic matter. I brought organic matter back into my vegetable gardens. To revive the life of the soil. At the beginning, I needed a spade, even a pickaxe, to plant anything in my soil. Now, today, I plant with, with my fingers. So, in three years, I really see the difference. Now, I move the, the earth aside, it's teeming. There are earthworms as big as my thumb. There are a lot of woodlice, well, and then all, I’m not very good with insect names, and to name them, but I can see all the insects there are.

Tess W.: At the back of our back garden was a big open field where people that lived around there used to collect for bonfire night and have bonfires. That's where the king cobbler was, which was a huge oak tree, which I always used to think had snakes living in the bottom of it. Then from there, there was open fields where I guess there would have been corn and that sort of thing growing and a track ran to the railway lines, the old railway lines that were not in use anymore. Yeah it was pretty rural. You actually had fields joining the back of your garden? Did you go wandering in them and playing in them? Yeah. Definitely. I suppose mainly up the old railway lines was our main haunt because you could go one way and it went to the river. There was a beachy type thing I remember that we used to play in. Then the other way was what we used to call the sandy banks. There'd be tall banks either side from where the railway line used to go. That was our main playing area. I guess in those days, it was a safe area. There were no roads and things to worry about to get to it. It wasn't a time when you worried about stranger danger, so felt pretty safe. What games did you play? [Laughter] Oh golly! I guess skimming stones into the river, running up and down. I don't remember any particular games up there. I do remember a lot of marbles and hopscotch and stuff in the road outside of our house. I don't remember any particular games. You did spend quite a bit of time in fields, were there woods nearby at all? No. There were not a wooded area that we could walk to. There were woods, but that was somewhere that we would go with our parents, not that we would walk to on our own - it was too far away. Did you have a sense or a growing interest in the natural world and creatures and plants? I don't actually remember having an interest as such in the natural world. My brother was an avid butterfly collector in the days where you caught butterflies and killed them and stuck pins through them, which seemed very okay when we were kids. It didn't strike me as anything odd or something you shouldn't be doing. We all traipsed around with butterfly nets catching various butterflies. That didn't seem odd at all. We enjoyed the natural world. It was just there.

Dinkins: But I would say as a parent, you always get your first experience in organizing, and you are organizing around the issues that are attached to environment. Because I don't look at the environment as just trees and grass. It's where I live, it’s where my children go to school, all of those different things. I began to experience with my children, these different forms of racism. The increased amounts of lead and the testing that Black communities always had to go through, that's really how I got my first feel of organizing, without knowing that I was organizing, I was just a mother who was like, “You know what? This is wrong. This is an injustice and I'm not going to stand for it.”

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Southwest France: An Overview Serai'ya Crawley
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Connecting With Nature Serai'ya Crawley
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Connecting With Nature Serai'ya Crawley
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Connecting With Nature Serai'ya Crawley
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