Finding UNIBuds is a joy. It brings back the memories of IMU and INCOVAR…
Not working this weekend, I decided to join Unibuds for their Sunday activity, “Bush Care”. I was not sure what the activity involve, but it is a chance to escape from the routine of hospital life.
There were 5 volunteers from Unibuds and a few pensioners were there for “bush care”. The city council worker who was supervising, explained that our mission was to pull out weeds among the native plants.
According to him, when the Europeans first arrived in Australia 200 years ago, they started to keep a record of the different types of plants seen in different areas of Australia. Based on these information, the bush care workers believe that they are able to identify native and foreign plants. They believe that with mass influx of foreigner into Australia, there are a lot of foreign vegetations being introduced. Some foreign plants are taking over the habitats of the native plants, therefore reducing the number of native plants. Some native plants are believed to be endangered. Therefore the bush care volunteers aim to remove the foreign plants so that the native plants can thrive again…
This philosophy does not really fit into my existing believes…It is arbitrary to use the 200 year old European records as the guide to which plant is native and which plant is not. The plants in Australia 200 years ago may very well been introduced by the other settler before the European Era. The native plants 10, 000 years ago could be very different… Just how long does the plant need to be on this piece of land to be considered native?
Similarly in human history, certain racial/cultural/religious group claim ownership of certain piece of land, stating that they are the native and deserved special right. Just how long does a certain group of people need to be living on that piece of land before they are considered native? Does living on that piece of land for 5 generation make someone native?Does being born on that land make someone native?
Is it right that Mugabe “weed” out the white farmers? Does the Jews or the Palestinian own that piece of “holly land”? This principle that is being used in “Bush Care”when applied to human beings is causing too much pain in our world. We don’t really own any land… We are all just passing by…
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