Philosophy in the Arthurs

A matter of opinion

by Confederation President, Brian Walker

Although it is mid-summer, the early morning chill keeps me in my sleeping bag long after sunrise.

I lie, relaxed and warm, listening to the first faint sounds of the day. At eye level outside my tent three fat little brown birds are fossicking busily among fallen scoparia leaves. The air is pungent with the smell of leaf mould and damp earth.

My camp is among gnarled, weather-beaten scoparia scrub on the edge of Thwaites Plateau, below the towering pinnacle of Federation Peak in Tasmania’s remote Eastern Arthur Range. Here a few level tent sites have been hacked out of the steep slope. The dark brown soil is hard and cracked with rocks protruding; after rain it will be liquid mud.

As I watch the birds I realise with a shock that I am an alien in this harsh mountain environment where they are so clearly at home. Getting here was hard work for me. My well-being – in fact my very survival – depends entirely on what I can carry on my back. With food for ten days, camping gear and cameras, it is no light load.

When I realise my insignificance in the total scheme of things, it quickly sets my mind to pondering philosophically. What right do I have to be here, I wonder? How can I claim to be at home in the bush when my ability to survive in it is so limited?

I recall my first visit to the Tasmanian southwest. It was a major trek of nearly 260 km that included the Huon Track, Western Arthur Range, Port Davey Track, South West Cape and the South Coast Track.

On that journey I developed a love-hate relationship with this region, where weather, mud, scrub and the terrain seem to conspire to make all forward progress as difficult as possible. In places I felt as if I were fighting for every step.

Back in the more benign walking conditions around Sydney, I decided I had seen enough of Tasmania. It was too wet, too cold, too unpredictable, too difficult for truly enjoyable bushwalking. But as time passed, I found my mind wandering back repeatedly to that wild and lonely landscape.

On reflection, I realised I had not been prepared mentally for Tasmania’s southwest. Of course I was expecting it to be tough in places. And I had heard all about the unpredictable weather. But somehow my brain hadn’t made the necessary adjustment. While hoping for the best, I was unwilling to accept the worst when it happened.

All I remember long afterwards is the appalling weather, the inescapable mud, the vicious scrub and the pain of slogging hour after hour through freezing wind and rain. I decide this is one part of the world where man is not meant to intrude.

Not until much later do I begin to recall the good things – such as my elation on completing the full east-west traverse of the Western Arthurs. And the extraordinary sense of being at one with the world as I wander along the windswept sands of Prion Beach. As the swirling waves obliterate my tracks, I think I could be here in spirit alone.

On that first trip, a wonderful bond of friendship developed between me and my three companions as we shared the good and the bad. At the end of each day, sometimes in awful conditions and almost at the limit of our endurance, we always managed to cheer each other up. We laughed and joked a lot as we shared the pleasure of knowing we had survived another day.

Gradually I realised that the bad things I remembered were important elements of a journey that had been immensely uplifting. For a brief time I had experienced the planet merely as a spectator, exercising no control, completely at the mercy of the elements.

With this realisation came a longing to return, a longing that has since been fulfilled several times. I

With this realisation came a longing to return, a longing that has since been fulfilled several times. I have been back to the Western Arthurs, the south-west coast, the Central Conservation Area, the Walls of Jerusalem, Precipitous Bluff and twice more along the South Coast Track—all in the past four years.

On this occasion I’m back again, this time traversing the Eastern Arthurs to Federation Peak. I reached the range by way of the Huon Track —the infamous yo-yo with its interminable ups and downs across the ends of all the ridges that sweep down from the northern side of Mount Picton.

The 900-metre climb up Luckman’s Lead in blazing heat leaves me feeling exhausted and dizzy. ‘I think I need a lay day’ I gasp to Rob Simon, my walking companion, as I stagger into Stuart Saddle. He gives me a sly look and says ‘I guess you have to expect this sort of thing when you walk with older people.’ The bastard!

But for once I’m inclined to agree that my age is beginning to show. Luckily it’s only a momentary glimpse. Next morning I feel fine and have little trouble scrambling around the Needles, across Goon Moor and through the rocky maze of the Four Peaks. We emerge onto Thwaites Plateau as a huge bank of cumulus cloud behind Federation Peak turns to gold in the late afternoon sun.

Now it is the morning of our fifth day. Rob is still sleeping in his tent lower down the slope. He won’t get up until he hears me shout ‘tea’! As the early riser, I put the billy on for both of us. This morning I’m taking a leaf out of his book and staying in bed.

Which brings me back to my philosophising. It seems to me we have forgotten that we are just one of many species of animals that inhabit this planet. In our arrogance, we assume the planet is ours, to use however we please. We try to subjugate it to our needs despite the consequences for ourselves and everything else.

In this selfish, short-sighted way, we act as if the present conditions will last forever. We diminish, destroy, pollute and alter irreplaceable natural elements. Our actions endanger the very fabric that sustains life as we know it.

The little birds that prompted my thoughts are in their natural habitat. They are at home peacefully going about their own business; I am an intruder, lucky to be sharing their space for a while. I think surely this is what wilderness conservation is really all about.

Isn’t it our recognition that other species have the right to exist too, free from interference by the all-dominating Homo sapiens? Wilderness consists of those few places still unspoiled by the hand of man. It is only proper that we visit them on sufferance, if at all.

We must realise that we simply do not have some divine right to go anywhere we please in any fashion we choose. If we build roads, bridle paths, huts – even walking tracks – in wilderness areas, we diminish them. We also diminish ourselves.

We should enter wilderness only as silent spectators. Being there is a privilege, not a right. I deplore the modern trend to regard bushwalking as an energetic fitness activity and the bush as a vast gymnasium. This is based on the same arrogant assumption that the planet is for our use alone.

This attitude is no different from that of 4WD and trailbike owners, horse riders, and so-called ‘adventurers’ who think they have a God-given right to go anywhere they please. The bush (what’s left of it) is not our playground. It is the home of many other species that depend on it for their very existence.

It is unforgivable to endanger or eliminate other species by recklessly destroying their natural habitats. The complete removal of centuries-old native forests is an act of vandalism on a monumental scale. The shameful practices of modern forestry are based on short-term greed for money, not on responsible land husbandry.

Fouling rivers, the oceans, the very air we breathe, are acts of folly that will have harmful repercussions for thousands of years. Mining and farming practices that result in saline soil, erosion, and other degradations are totally irresponsible.

Hunting other species to extinction cannot be justified on any grounds. Such behaviour highlights the breakdown of high moral and ethical principles as forcefully as the shocking mistreatment of our own kind.

Most people are unconcerned by such matters because they have lost touch with the life force of the planet. Living in cities and towns, in artificial, man-made environments, we are seldom forced to confront the results of our depredations, let alone take more than superficial action to curb them.

We have only limited opportunity to observe the crucial links between sunlight and plants, air and water. Totally engrossed with our own mundane existence we are unaware – or do not care – about the disastrous effects our actions are having on other species and on the environment.

In densely populated countries it is impossible to escape from the overpowering crush of humanity. Places free of the destructive aspects of human intrusion are very rare. It is no wonder people are now coming from all over the world to experience Australia’s vast open spaces.

Warm air rising from the valley gently stirs the flap of my tent and sets the scoparia rustling and clattering overhead. It is almost time to make a move. Reaching for my clothes, I decide the enlightened few who are fighting so passionately to save the world’s vanishing wilderness will prove to be the true guardians of this planet.

Only those who experience the world with open minds and hearts, free of all but the most basic trappings of civilisation, will ever truly understand. When you can survive the elements at their worst and observe nature as it is, without interfering in any way, you will know true humility.