Here’s me on what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to savour the flowering New South Wales waratahs (Telopea speciosissima) in Bottle Forest, part of the Royal National Park near Sydney. I was in the company of family and dozens of others on much the same mission. This pocket of waratahs attracts hundreds, probably thousands, of visitors […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 8 of ‘Connect with Nature’.) Michael Portillo is probably best known for his TV documentaries on railway journeys, but Australia’s SBS network is currently screening a series recording a walking trip he did in Devon and Cornwall.  In contrast to his upbeat railway documentaries, this series is more personal, […]

(This post supplements chapters 6 and 12 of Connect with Nature) Australia’s latest State of the Environment Report was released recently. The message of the report is as clear as it is alarming. The already calamitous environmental degradation in Australia is continuing. The loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and species is happening worldwide, but Australia is among […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 10 of Connect with Nature by drawing attention particularly to the health and well-being impacts of nature sounds). A particular delight for me in my bush camping days way to be woken in the early morning by a ‘dawn chorus’. The Australian bush is home to many birds and […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 5 of Connect with Nature)  The recent report of yet another mass shooting in a school in the USA brought to mind the experience of Kyle Jeter, a science teacher at a high school in Florida, USA. In 2016, Kyle succeeded in having newly available space in the school […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 7 of ‘Connect with Nature’). This image is from the record of an intriguing project undertaken by Wendy Moore, a polymer clay artist of international standing. What you are looking at is a dead eucalyptus leaf gathered by Wendy on one her bushland walks, a card matching a colour […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 11 of Connect with Nature). I recounted in my last post how a couple of doses of nature in the form of visits to my village gardens ‘cured’ me of a case of nature deprivation brought on by a long hospital stay. The visits, or at least the opportunity […]

(This post supplements material in Connect with Nature, chapters 8 and 10). I recently experienced the effects of acute nature deprivation. It happened this way. For four weeks, I was confined to a hospital room battling a cluster of abdominal infections and septicaemia, triggered by cholecystitis (gall bladder inflammation). For three of the four weeks, […]

(This post supplements material in chapters 2 and 3 of Connect with Nature.) I have been working on a project that got me thinking about bushwalking leadership. I have been leading bushwalks for decades – about two a month during my most active years. Some of my bushwalking leadership was in the context of training […]

(This post updates material in Chapter 11 of Connect with Nature.) In 2013, choosing to call my blog, Our Green genes, was something of an act of faith. I was inspired to call it that by Edward O Wilson’s biophilia ‘hypothesis’ that humans are innately or genetically disposed to be interested in and attracted to nature. […]