Week six focused on the ways that human impact has negatively affected our choice locations, and how the natural environment copes with/ and adapts to this damage.
The Bellbird parklands was my choice of location and at first I thought I wouldn’t be able to find any human damage in the area due to the amount of signs warning visitors to stay away from the protected areas of native bush, but was quickly surprised to find that the location was littered with rubbish, caution tape and ugly piping.
I tried to focus this particular experiment on the wildlife (birds) in the area as they navigated and adapted to their new environment. When I watched them I tried to figure out if they were suffering and unhappy in their new environment. I was surprised to find that the animals were quite content in their habitats even with the litter and human impact. This reminded me of this weeks reading and the way “We have been lulled by films, and other sources of images, to believe that our future is going to be grim” (Hurley 2008) and how media tends to portray the world be live in as ‘beyond repair’.
The reading inspired me through highlighting the importance of “reclaim[ing] our ability to image socially just and…ecologically sustainable futures”. (Hurley 2008) Something I’ll take away from this week is the way I approach damage and how to take on a positive outlook when coming across human inflicted damage. I want to adopt a cautious and hands on attitude.