The Anthropocene

This week, we travelled to Minyon Falls, which in reality was an empty gorge devoid of water due to extreme drought. From the top of the gorge, I could see where the river used to flow through the vegetation, creating patches of palm trees in the dense rainforest. Above the gorge, Eucalyptus trees thrive in the dry climate. We learned that these trees are susceptible to forest fires because they are so dry and oily. While walking through the rainforest I noticed burnt bark on some trees and wondered if it was from a bush fire that was man made or a wildfire that was a natural occurrence. In one of our readings, Defining the Anthropocene, the authors, Lewis and Maslin state that humans have had a drastic influence on the environment including land transformation and altering the composition of the atmosphere. They suggest that the epoch we currently live in is not the Holocene, but the Anthropocene: an epoch that started with human’s significant alterations to Earth’s geology and ecosystems. I had difficulty understanding this concept, especially because humans have been shaping landscapes for thousands of years. In the book Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe, he talks about how Aboriginals used fire as a way to regenerate soil and clear out undergrowth which promoted the emergence of new fauna and animals. If the Aboriginals were the first peoples, than we have been living in the Anthropocene since the start of humanity. 

When we think about the Anthropocene we think about the damage we as humans have inflicted on the environment, but who took part in that damage? We were told on our hike that Aboriginals caused mass extinction of megafauna through setting fires, but the fires were crucial for the health of the ecosystem. When colonizers arrived in Australia, they set uncontrolled fires to the land during dry seasons and altered the landscape by introducing cattle that impaired the soil. The West’s environmental alterations in Australia were not sustainable, distinguishing their environmental impact from the Aboriginal’s impact. In The African Anthropocene, Gabrielle Hecht emphasizes how Africa has been a true witness to the Anthropocene due to the West’s exploitation of the continent. She says that recognizing that exploitation is crucial in understanding connections between planetary and individual suffering. I began to make a connection between the West’s perception of what an Anthropocene means and the reality of what living in one is like. I got a small taste of what living in an Anthropocene is like this week when I packed my swimsuit for a waterfall hike but was presented with a dried gorge, a product of the West’s capitalist agenda to keep pouring coal into our atmosphere in the name of development. 

While walking through the rainforest, Soenke and Nigel told us about how trees can emit pheromones or signals through their roots to warn other trees of bug infestations so they can form defences. This made me think about how fragile and brilliant nature is, it must have taken equally intelligent and patient people to work with that nature and use its resources in a sustainable way. But is any change to Earth’s geology and ecosystems bad? Even if it’s sustainable? Maybe my understanding of an Anthropocene is to derogatory. Good or bad, it is my understanding that we have been in the Anthropocene Epoch since the beginning of humanity.