In perfect isolation on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere sounds like a great place to be during a global pandemic! But as for all of us, it has been a surreal experience for Lizz Hills from Wild Mountains Environmental Education Centre which is 1.5hrs’ drive south-west of Brisbane on the Queensland side of the border.
As the lockdown continued, Lizz started to miss the volunteers and engagement in programs from wider community and came up with some creative solutions. Wild Mountains is passionate around best-practice for sustainable living being completely off-grid: using recycled materials, solar systems, collecting rainwater, and processing waste. “The centre itself walks the talk that we teach in our programs.”
“We have tried to get really creative during lockdown. Wild Mountains is next to Border Ranges National Park, which is part of Gondwana Forest … we try to create a buffer between that national park and the farmlands below by doing a lot of regeneration and Landcare. Our volunteers are keen to get out in the forest, so we thought we would start sending seeds so they could raise trees from seed at home during this time and later when restrictions lift they can come back and plant them and continue that vital work. It is such a lovely way for people to remain connected and grow a forest – two great outcomes from lockdown. We also took our sewing group, Sew Sustainable, online.
Wild Mountains runs an earth education pedagogy from the Institute of Earth Education, a global organisation based in America, and they have a clear pedagogy of head, heart and hands. For a cohesive life you can’t do one without the other.
Tips: Being able to reflect that this too will pass, this too will change, that is the inevitability of life. It is really interesting that due to the decrease in human activity, nature is still thriving. This pandemic has not affected the whole planet, it has just affected all humans. As we move forward, keep in mind that we are all part of an interconnected web, we are part of a big picture, we are not the big picture.
Changes: If we can better understand how to use food with more respect, better understand where food comes from, awareness of what it actually takes to grow a tomato, or lettuce, will lead to reducing food waste because it is really important to be able to understand the food system. Other factors I’d like to come out of this are understanding that we don’t need as much as we think we do, that we can create our own entertainment. Being able to recognize our humanity and understand that this is something that affects us all, and will continue to affect us all, and has an opportunity to bring us all closer together.
Find out more about Wild Mountains here, or see other ARISING stories here
What Lizz Hills said:
“In the first month, it was life as normal. We always have large food stocks here as lots of people coming through, we live minimally on the land, and it didn’t feel different. Then school holidays ended, and my beautiful husband and son started home schooling and our family has grown through the experience.
“I came to know Wild Mountains soon after I had a major accident. In 2004, I fell off a train in Thailand and sustained a skull fracture so I carry with me an acquired brain injury which is often labelled as a hidden disability. I came to Wild Mountain as a volunteer in 2005. Wild Mountains has a huge volunteer program – and I just fell in love with the land. Our vision for Wild Mountains is that we can all live together and lead fulfilling lives and not damage the systems of life on the planet – this really resonates with me. There must be a way that can be creative, productive and scientific and still respect the world that we live in. My husband and I went travelling for a bit, and when we came back we started to build a straw bale house on a little property that is part of Wild Mountains called Whiptail.
“Wild Mountains is passionate around best-practice for sustainable living – we used recycled materials, we solar orientated the house. At Wild Mountains we are all completely off-grid, so the centre itself walks the talk that we teach in our programs. We collect our own rainwater, process our own waste, we have five types of composting toilets up here and three different solar systems.
“We have tried to get really creative during lockdown. Wild Mountains has a plethora of volunteers and a huge community on line – we reached out to them and said ‘what do we do now’ and they came back with some really great ideas. Wild Mountains is next to Border Ranges National Park, which is a gob-smackingly beautiful part of world – the Border Ranges is part of Gondwana Forest that links up with the Congo and South America. At Wild Mountains we try to create a buffer between that national park and the farmlands below. We do a lot of regeneration and a lot of Landcare.
“Our volunteers are keen to get out in the forest, so we thought we would start sending seeds so they could raise trees from seed at home during this time and later when restrictions lift they can come back and plant them and continue that vital work. It is such a lovely way for people to remain connected and grow a forest – two great outcomes from lockdown. We also took our sewing group, Sew Sustainable which often met at volunteer weekends at Wild Mountains, online. We held our first one last week and shared our projects with each other and the home-schooling kids on the call too. This helps build connection. We talk a lot about connection to nature as chances for reflection and connection to each other.
As most people that go through large traumatic events in their lives, I am using all the skills that I have learned how to cope with the new body I ended up with back in my early 20s: Going from a vibrant young women who was rock-climbing, scuba diving, had a business and studying at university, to ending up in a hospital ward and not being able to dress myself. That has given me a lot of ability to develop resilience, to understand that this too will pass, to be able to face that moment. Since then, I have really engaged in connecting with nature at a practical everyday level. Being curious about the leaf that is in front of me and being at peace in myself, sitting in a quiet spot in nature. Those two practices have stood me in good stead for the difficult times that like now, and difficult times in future. When we learn that life is constantly changing and that nature is also a constant place to draw inspiration from, that is really valuable.
I’ve received lots of feedback from the hundreds of volunteers we’ve had over the past couple of decades that it is really valuable to come back to nature, to take time for reflection and come back to those everyday doing practices. We have a lot of university students as volunteers and they get stuck behind the screen. At the centre, we are in a little black hole where there is no extra screens or technology and we invite them to step back from that, just for a moment. For some, that is really challenging, it causes some anxiety. We feel here at Wild Mountains that means it is even more important to put it down, to step away and talk to people. Learning how to be comfortable in our own skin is part of the path to becoming an adult and we see time and time again, that you can really achieve some special qualities and values through connection with nature. That is outside of the education programs and practices we do. This idea of being connected to nature and being still and silent in nature and that having massive benefits is outside of the education that provide to our primary school, our secondary school and our university crews.
Wild Mountains runs an earth education pedagogy from the Institute of Earth Education, a global organisation based in America, and they have a clear pedagogy of head, heart and hands. For a cohesive life you can’t do one without the other. At Wild Mountains we follow the idea if we give you some different ideas or new ways of thinking, like systems thinking, or if we introduce challenges to you, then we show you how to look at that problem with your hands and how to come to being and doing. We have a two-week university program and for the first week we go out and do Landcare and bushcare everyday – and that really sets your body up so you are able to be receptive and open to my heady stuff we do later. That can be challenging for some people but it does lay that groundwork, when you do get out and process with our hands what we need to be doing, it is a lot easier to integrate it into our being. So head, heart and hands is a philosophy that we follow.
For this year, all of our university programs have been suspended. We have one primary school program, our Earthkeepers program happening later in the year. I think it will be a slow way back to delivering programs, but it is still going to be our passion to try and inspire our community to reconnect with nature because of the multitude of benefits that it has. That’s why we are grappling with online areas and a lot of DIY stuff – how do we send seeds, how do we send patterns for cutting up T-shirts that you would otherwise throw away but can turn into other things. How do we start engaging people with conversations around the way they would like the future to be?
The crisis has been able to open up conversation in that space around waste and where resources come from. We’ve been having conversations with our supporters around food waste and how is it that during this time we learn the skills to be able to repair things, how is it during this time that we view art resources differently – you don’t have to wander down to buy knick-knack plastic things that you can stick to a poster for kids. Trying to rethink the way that we consume. At Wild Mountains, it hasn’t had an effect on the way we think about waste, but it has been a great way to start interesting conversations.
Tips: Being able to reflect that this too will pass, this too will change, that is the inevitability of life. Get back out into your garden, even if it is just a pot plant, or on your balcony. Not so that you can be productive but to get curious about the life that’s around you. It is really interesting that due to the decrease in human activity, nature is still thriving. This pandemic has not affected the whole planet, it has just affected all humans. As we move forward, keep in mind that we are all part of an interconnected web, we are part of a big picture, we are not the big picture.
Changes: I’ve seen interesting reports around food waste. If we can better understand how to use food with more respect, better understand where food comes from, with lockdown there are things that came internationally that we might not have access to, this this helps us understand food and make different choices. There has been such a run on seeds and seedlings, that industry is booming and that is fantastic. If people have an awareness of what it actually takes to grow a tomato, or lettuce – these are two things that are easy to grow but can be hugely challenging –awareness around that will lead to reducing food waste because it is really important to be able to understand the food system. Other factors I’d like to come out of this are understanding that we don’t need as much as we think we do, that we can create our own entertainment. Some of the things we buy, that we haven’t been able to do that for a while, people might think about whether they really need that and that would be valuable. I also hope that people will value each other more. We’ve been separated, in distance, and I hope people will see how important we are to each other. Not only within families, but at Wild Mountains we’ve had lots of amazing volunteers from overseas and one of the first things we did was connect with our volunteers and donors. Being able to recognize our humanity and understand that this is something that affects us all, and will continue to affect us all, and has an opportunity to bring us all closer together. “