Speaker 1: Now this is astragior Urbanized with Tony McManus ga the
Speaker 1: five o'clock. It's so nice to have you with right
Speaker 1: through until the Breaking program gets underway with Ross and
Speaker 1: Ross here on three at W. It's an interesting headline,
Speaker 1: these things that come across the desk, and I looked
Speaker 1: at it, and I reread it, and I reread it,
Speaker 1: and then I thought about the question and how, in fact,
Speaker 1: the power often lies in the question, not necessarily the answer.
Speaker 1: And the question is how to survive the next one
Speaker 1: hundred years? Question mark how to survive the next one
Speaker 1: hundred years? So we're going to talk to this bloke,
Speaker 1: Simon Musto is the author of how to Survive the
Speaker 1: Next one under one hundred years. Now, we've only got
Speaker 1: about ten minutes to talk Simon. Can we wrap it
Speaker 1: up in ten minutes or not?
Speaker 2: I reckon, Yeah, let's you're going to go?
Speaker 1: Good Onion? Where would we start? Well?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, okay, So it is that it's an ambitious title. Okay,
Speaker 2: of course the subtitle is Lessons from Nature. And the
Speaker 2: reason why I think this story is important is because
Speaker 2: we live in a society where people are increasingly exposed
Speaker 2: to a lot of negative news, okay, and we don't
Speaker 2: often hear the other side of the story, which is
Speaker 2: the part where we have this supportive, supporting infrastructure of nature.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And I think particularly for communities, Australia has a history
Speaker 2: obviously a very strong local community sense of belonging. We
Speaker 2: get together and we deal with problems as their care
Speaker 2: as a community. And if we learn to take lessons
Speaker 2: from nature, we open up a whole new way of
Speaker 2: thinking and it exposes us to a lot of fresh
Speaker 2: answers about how we can survive and how we can
Speaker 2: empower ourselves, particularly at a local community level.
Speaker 1: So I mean you're right about the news cycle. We
Speaker 1: see it. We've seen it recently, prolifically this year, more
Speaker 1: recently perhaps with the flooding rains that we've seen in
Speaker 1: Queensland and New South Wales. Conversely, here in Victoria we've
Speaker 1: seen chronic drought areas in the southwest of Victoria and
Speaker 1: into South Australia. It's a really tough time for many.
Speaker 1: Is that the sort of thing that you're looking at
Speaker 1: and the things that have to be considered and should
Speaker 1: be considered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I'd like people to start to do is
Speaker 2: to think differently about their place within nature. I think
Speaker 2: we have a history obviously of almost seeing environmentalism as
Speaker 2: a separate and opposite construct to development and human progress.
Speaker 2: Whereas what we're beginning to discover now is that a
Speaker 2: lot of the support infrastructure that nature provided us in
Speaker 2: the past, which we've perhaps fritted away, is able to
Speaker 2: reintegrate through restoration and provide a significant amount of economic
Speaker 2: value back into our local communities. We're talking, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe seven to thirty times more value than we're currently
Speaker 2: getting from our taxpayer dollar expenditure if we spend that
Speaker 2: on processes that are positive. So to give you a
Speaker 2: small example, this wonderful example of eastern barb bandicoots. So
Speaker 2: the Rosvelt Sanctuary in the yu yangs in just west
Speaker 2: of Melbourne, owned by the Odonata Foundation, was taken over
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine by a benefactor called Nigel Sharp,
Speaker 2: and it acts as a laboratory to work out how
Speaker 2: to restore balance with an ecosystems with native species. Now,
Speaker 2: that animal used by bandicoot was considered extinct up until
Speaker 2: quite recently. It was rediscovered in old abandoned cars in
Speaker 2: a quarry in Hamilton, and the population is now thousands
Speaker 2: of animals, and if it wasn't for that fur the
Speaker 2: rest of our sanctuary, those animals would now be extinct.
Speaker 2: More recently, what's happened is they've reintroduced them to a
Speaker 2: working sheep farm in western Victoria near Hamilton, and in
Speaker 2: just three years they have restored soil and soil water processes.
Speaker 2: So the things you were talking about a moment ago
Speaker 2: flooding for example, So we've gone through some of the
Speaker 2: worst floods in the last few years that that area
Speaker 2: has seen, but the fence infrastructure has remained solid, so
Speaker 2: they're no longer having to spend money on fencing. Because
Speaker 2: of the surface water that longo runs away, the organic
Speaker 2: layer in the soil has increased, the potentile strength of
Speaker 2: water is increased, meaning they're getting more profit from the farm.
Speaker 2: All of that achieved simply by reintroducing a single animal
Speaker 2: back into the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much comes out of that. Are you based
Speaker 1: on the work that you've been doing for many, many
Speaker 1: years in writing? Are you completely devoted to the idea
Speaker 1: that young people have got this? Young people have got
Speaker 1: this even like old facts like me and many people
Speaker 1: in this audience, and go don't worry about it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's cyclical. The environment as we know it has been
Speaker 1: going on like this for millions of years. Nothing's really changed.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a chaotic situation. So
Speaker 2: my understanding of how econsistents function, you've got difference between
Speaker 2: balance and chaos effectively, and I think so we've got
Speaker 2: a diversification of views and young people obviously they suffer
Speaker 2: from a probably more negative news input or exposure to
Speaker 2: algorithms than we do. They some of them have ignored that,
Speaker 2: and I see in my own children a sense of community.
Speaker 2: They spend more time chanting to their friend and getting
Speaker 2: involved in things. Now I think other kids suffer differently.
Speaker 2: What I am urging is to, I guess, step aside
Speaker 2: from that and start looking, just start spending some time
Speaker 2: in nature, Tony. Honestly, the start of this is just
Speaker 2: to immerse yourself back into the environment around you and
Speaker 2: actually look at it and think about what's going on.
Speaker 2: And this is not going to solve all the problems
Speaker 2: of the world without our assistance, but there is a
Speaker 2: heck of a lot you can learn about to do
Speaker 2: yourself which can make the world a difference. If that's
Speaker 2: scaled up and I often use the phrase rewilding your mind. Okay,
Speaker 2: by reconnecting in that way, it actually brings a new
Speaker 2: way of thinking, and it's very very cathartic. It's been
Speaker 2: very cathartic for me at.
Speaker 1: Least, oh bit it has. How did your heart and
Speaker 1: soul head into this direction some years ago, Simon, Oh.
Speaker 2: I've always been like this ever since I was a child.
Speaker 2: I use I grew up in the UK. You can
Speaker 2: probably tell from my accent. I was actually born in Adelaide,
Speaker 2: but my parents went back to the UK when I
Speaker 2: was very young, and I just used to wander the
Speaker 2: fields of the United Kingdom countryside and the Cotswolds night
Speaker 2: and day, every working every waking hour effectively, and I
Speaker 2: try to do that as much as I can these
Speaker 2: days as well. Today I tend to wander under the
Speaker 2: water and in the water of portfol At Bay, which
Speaker 2: is a remarkably exciting place to be.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of exposure and no doubt you
Speaker 1: would have seen it over the weekend with the great
Speaker 1: new documentaries coming over the future King of Australia and
Speaker 1: is sitting down there with Sir David and Sir David,
Speaker 1: who's coming up to his one hundredth birthday. I think
Speaker 1: from memory and in the future King looking at what's
Speaker 1: happening underneath our oceans. Have you had time to have
Speaker 1: a look at that and understand how important the points
Speaker 1: that Sir David has been making in that area alone.
Speaker 2: Personally, I haven't seen the film yet and I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit hesitant. I probably shouldn't say this, but I
Speaker 2: mean I tend towards looking and immersing myself into positive
Speaker 2: actions that I can take. We're running the project at
Speaker 2: the moment called Restore the Bay in Melbourne, which is
Speaker 2: something that I think encapsulates everything I've just talked about,
Speaker 2: a way for people to take part in something where
Speaker 2: they can be part of co designing outcomes for our
Speaker 2: own neighborhood. And again, I prefer my preference is to
Speaker 2: jump in the sea and actually see it for myself,
Speaker 2: and I think those we come to the same conclusions, right.
Speaker 2: But the thing people really want to know is what
Speaker 2: action can I take?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What action can I take? Hits the book How
Speaker 1: to Survive the Next one hundred Years. As you speak,
Speaker 1: I'm getting lots of tickes. What in particular talks about say,
Speaker 1: keeping bees and those sorts of little things. Have you
Speaker 1: looked at that are they? I mean, I've said on
Speaker 1: this program before how important bees. We have no bees,
Speaker 1: We're all kangaroo edwards pretty much. But do you look
Speaker 1: at those sorts of things and have young people recognize
Speaker 1: how special that is for our survival? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Possibly, I certainly mention regularly enough. The odds thing I
Speaker 2: think is that ten years ago not many people had
Speaker 2: veggie patches in the garden. No, they did not, whereas today,
Speaker 2: I don't know Tony, your friends and colleagues, but everyone's
Speaker 2: got a veggie patch today, right, it seems or something.
Speaker 2: They've grown something in their garden. And I don't find
Speaker 2: that quite remarkable because it wasn't. It didn't come about
Speaker 2: through any kind of law, or change has come about
Speaker 2: because of something else. And I think that's that kind
Speaker 2: of mysterious underlying thing that nature does and connects with
Speaker 2: our brains in ways we really don't understand. But you
Speaker 2: see a change like that happening and you go, well,
Speaker 2: how about when did that figure?
Speaker 1: But you could say that about to Simon how important
Speaker 1: it is for people to get at and just enjoy
Speaker 1: nature in its most basic form, I guess is just
Speaker 1: having a guard and spending time and connecting with garden.
Speaker 2: That's right, and anything and everything we do to look
Speaker 2: after the place we live immediately around our feet and
Speaker 2: around our minds, I think is where our focus should be.
Speaker 1: More and more, Simon, I hope we talk again. It's
Speaker 1: simply called how to Survive. I love the title how
Speaker 1: to Survive the next one hundred years, and that's even
Speaker 1: before we have children and grandchildren. How to Survive the
Speaker 1: next one hundred years Lessons from Nature. Simon must thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us nice and early on a Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2: Simon, Thanks Tony, it's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Good On. Yeah, what a book, how to Survive the
Speaker 1: Next one hundred years. There's a big thesis just there.
Speaker 1: You would have thought, have a look at it. It's
Speaker 1: available from all great bookshops. Of course, it was nice
Speaker 1: to having live of course, part of Australia Evernight