Deep sustainability and the art and politics of forests

[Cathy Fitzgerald]

Dear art & ecology forest group members,

Some of you may be interested in this below

Clearfell (clearcut) site, Ireland: Industrial forestry is common to many parts of the world

‘I thought again of our fundamental inversion of all relatedness, of how we nearly always ask the wrong question—What can I get from this?—and so rarely the right one—What can I give back? Even when we try to learn from others, it is from the same spirit of acquisition: What can I learn from this forest ecosystem that will teach me how to manage if for maximum resource extraction? Rarely: What can I learn from this forest community that will teach me better how to serve it?‘  Derrick Jensen, A Language Older than Words, 2000, p. 319

Last December 2011 on the 30th celebration of the Irish Green Party and in the last few weeks of the UN International Year of the Forest, I presented on behalf of the forestry policy group, a comprehensive new sustainable forestry policy for Ireland. It was accepted that day!!! The policy development had taken several years with the input and hard work of a small number of committed members. It had involved wide consultation with forest and other environment/natural heritage groups, professional foresters and policy makers from here and overseas.

My own personal involvement in policy development was propelled for a number of reasons: over several years my partner and I, with the help of a local sustainable forester, have been transforming our very small 25 year old conifer plantation into a permanent (non clear-fell) forest using Close-to-Nature continuous cover sustainable forestry methods. This is because I have a strong belief that we need to create radical new ways of relating to our natural environments, if we and those environments that support us all are to thrive in the long-term. I have spent considerable time too on a long term art & ecology project of which my forest is central to my work.

 

Read the full article here http://ecoartfilm.com/2012/01/20/deep-sustainability-and-the-art-an...

 

My ongoing doctoral work on art, forests and experimental film can be seen at www.ecoartfilm.com