Yesterday, the place where I made my first film burned to the ground.
It was 2015 and, fresh out of my masters degree, I had begun fumbling my way into documentary filmmaking. I had the “wrong” camera and was going about it the “wrong” way, but I was having a crack.
Through one connection or another, I – and Remember The Wild (then called Wild Melbourne) – was hired to film a promotional video for Conservation Volunteers Australia.
CVA had purchased the Little Desert Nature Lodge and had plans to rewild parts of the National Park. As a young conservationist, visiting that place was a dream. There were bettongs in enclosures that ate carrot at your feet. There was George the emu who ate whatever was in your hand, meant for him or not. And there was hope. A dream and a vision of a better world for wildlife and the places they call home. And while the video I made was truly terrible, the experience itself was exciting, uplifting, and formative. In a word: awesome.
Ten years later and that place is now ash. The lodge’s Facebook page says they evacuated the animals, but I am unsure if George still roamed the grounds when the fires came. The choughs, the parrots, the babblers. The shingle-backs, goannas, snakes. The many plants and invertebrates. 65,000 hectares of their home – their lodge – is also gone. And sadly, many of them with it.
For many Australians – indeed many Victorians – the mallee is a far-off place of little relevance. For governments it has been a vast area of bush – out of sight and out of mind – with varying uses. But for the plants and animals that live there it is as central as anything could be. It is everything. And so too is it for the residents of Nhill and Dimboola. For the people of Patchewollock and Rainbow, of Ouyen and Red Cliffs. Regardless of where we might live, where we might claim residence, the climate crisis is coming home.
Regardless of where we might live, where we might claim residence, the climate crisis is coming home.
I never stopped filming the mallee and its denizens.
After that first video I worked with colleagues on an educational film for the Karen community of Nhill. Funded by the CFA, it aimed to make these newer members of the mallee community – who hailed from the tropics of Burma – aware of the dangers of fire in an Australian context. The Karen wrote the film and starred in it, presenting it in language.
Settled in this far-off rural town, they were each of them refugees, some witness to terrible atrocities and indescribable hardships. In my life I have never met people so warm and generous.
At this moment, I think of them, as I think of the other members of the Nhill and Dimboola communities. The graphics on the Vic Emergency App are ominously red and orange, but their warnings cannot capture the frightening reality on the ground. Neither can abstract statistics of hectares burned capture the reality of the loss of animal and plant life.
In 2017 I began working on another film project, this time on Eucalypts. Mallee eucs featured prominently in these films which explored, in part, how these plants have evolved to cope with Australia’s climate. Mallee eucs, and many others, can re-sprout from their base (their lignotubers). After fire, they can grow new shoots from their trunks through their epicormic buds. They are resilient, they are tough, they are survivors. But they are not immortal. Extremely hot fires will kill them. Frequent, repeated “disturbance” will erode their resilience. Eventually, no matter how tough, they will not survive.
How many times must the people of rural Australia re-sprout, I wonder. How many times must we rebuild our homes, our sheds, our lodges? How many times can we?
Ten years after my first foray into the mallee to make a film, I am still immersed in that landscape, its ecosystems, its people. Just a week ago, I finished the first draft of a documentary on malleefowl. The film touches on many subjects, but the ever-present threat of a changing climate is never far from view.
As 65,000 hectares of mallee were turned to ash in a single day, the words narrated by Dr Joe Benshemesh – from the National Malleefowl Recovery Group – echoed in my thoughts:
It used to be that conservation was all about large patches, but with these bigger and more frequent fires, we are more and more focused on smaller patches that have a natural resistance to fire, and can offer some sort of sanctuary for malleefowl.
This film project, which I began pre-pandemic, is coming to a close, but the impacts of the climate crisis are only just beginning. Environmental and conservation challenges are relentless, and the need for us to care and act feels constant and overwhelming.
When I woke up this morning and learned of the lodge’s fate I did not want to sit with that knowledge. Really I did not. I wanted to go about my day. I wanted to focus on the work I had in front of me. But I couldn’t.
Writing this article will change nothing about the climate and will not rebuild the lodge or restore the habitat. But it has felt necessary for me as I grapple – like so many others – with the reality of what is bearing down upon us. As I grapple with what matters and why.
The fact is, I am heartbroken.
But while I am sad, I am also safe.
As the smoke clears, the people of the mallee around Nhill and Dimboola – as well as the people in Gariwerd (the Grampians) – will need our support. They may need donations of money and essential items, they may need shoulders to cry on, but most likely they will need our patronage.
When it is appropriate, I will go to the Little Desert National Park. I will look upon the wounds of the landscape I have loved, and which has given so much to me. I will buy lunch in Dimboola, and I will purchase something from the Karen-owned shop in Nhill.
And – for what it is worth – I will keep telling stories of these people, these places.
We respectfully acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We respect their immense knowledge of Country and their deep and ongoing connection to Country.
ABN: 57 167 848 394
Remember The Wild © 2024
We respectfully acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We respect their immense knowledge of Country and their deep and ongoing connection to Country.
Remember The Wild © 2024
