Jennifer Marohasy

The chief executive of the National Parks Association of New South Wales, Andrew Cox, was reported in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald saying that he would “die in a ditch” protecting national parks from commercialisation by the tourism industry.

Back of Bourke, May 2005. Photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy
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Other posts in this series:
part 1 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000797.html Percy [...]

For me, wilderness both resonates of human potential and also describes the ultimate expression of humanity. No other state of relations can be more admirable. Far from the notion of humankind and wilderness being mutually exclusive, I believe we must rather aspire to change for the benefit of wilderness and in so doing, restore to [...]

“Genuine wilderness must embody a strong element of wildness and freedom.
It is not a nature park with paths and handrails and faux rustic signs warning of the obvious with myriad rules enforced by badged bureaucrats in uniform.
Real wilderness is also a state of mind which entails not only freedom but responsibility. It’s a place where [...]

It becomes so hypnotising, that I’ve just had to dive overboard into 15,000 feet of ultramarine indigo and let my boat sail on without me with no one on board.
Mind you, I had a long line trailing…….
I felt I was “the first that ever burst into that silent sea”.
[Spangled Drongo, May 2008 ]

Beyond Buyat Bay, [...]

“Wilderness is mainly in the mind’s eye – to be a stranger in a strange land for a fraction of a second and create an other world where what is familiar and drab and safe is fleetingly unrecognisable yet beckons like a siren’s song. A place like home yet a place like no other.”
Posted by: [...]

“Why do we love to believe that mankind is a plague upon the Earth? We view anything and everything that happens in nature, no matter how barbaric, bloody, or destructive, as good. Indeed, the word ‘natural’ has no negative connotation at all.
If a volcano like Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines dumps millions of tons of [...]

“At its heart ‘wilderness’ is a value judgement.
“As poor old Hawking had to concede nothing is destroyed, it just changes appearance.
“Wilderness is an appearance which is judged by some to have a superior aesthetic to the appearance of things which have had the human hand upon them. In this respect the ‘wilderness’ issue is a [...]

“Absolute wilderness is those boundless places in the eye of the mind of the beholder where no human footprints can be found and for which all those enter there and become lost have no hope of rescue. Only the most reckless trapper or sibylline shaman venture into the wilderness, as a pebble falls to the [...]

“Wilderness thus became the domain of the nobility, an environment where they alone could develop and display a number of artistocratic qualities. Friction arose between the peasants – inhabitants of open, unobstructed outdoor spaces – and the noble occupants of the forest, and that friction persisted as long as the peasant felt excluded from a [...]

“An infamous media type said, ‘In essence we’re a conceited naked ape but in our mind we’re a divine legend and we see ourselves as some sort of God that we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and die and what will be destroyed and saved.’ Wilderness has no gods or one [...]