HumaNature

‘HumaNature’ explores the ways in which South African writers express the complex relationship between humanity and nature. Many writers evoke the causes and consequences of the deep social and ecological challenges we face today, and their work shows that what are often viewed as separate social and ecological issues are in fact entangled social-ecological issues. Social and ecological justice are inseparable. South African authors challenged the apartheid regime, and now they challenge the systems that generate pollution and poverty.

VIEW STORY
VIEW STORY

Young people learning about wind generation at an Amazwi education programme. Amazwi education programmes use South African literature to connect to urgent issues.
Athol William’s poem ‘Water Restrictions’ emphasizes the social justice aspect of water scarcity caused by environmental changes. Social justice and environmental justice are inseparable and for solutions to be viable the two need to be considered together.
Two pages from a handwritten draft of Douglas Livingstone’s poem ‘A Littoral Zone’. Livingstone (1932 – 1996) was a marine biologist and a respected poet. His work is one of the earliest examples of South African writing that explores the entanglement of humanity and nature. Livingstone said, ‘The littoral zone – that mysterious border that shifts restlessly between land and sea – has, to me, always reflected that blurred and uneasy divide between humanity’s physical and psychic elements.’ Writers often use such border spaces as a metaphor for relationships such as that between humanity and nature, because these border spaces represent the meeting of two things that seem separate but are in fact intimately entangled.

Connecting people and environment

‘HumaNature’ is a product of co-creation between the museum and members of the South African youth. The museum invited the youth to create photographs and writing about social-ecological issues of importance to them, to become part of the exhibition. While the invitation asked for either positive or negative messages about the human relationship with nature, those received all explored the continuing negative impact of humanity on the natural world. These contributions appear throughout the exhibition, and are a basis from which to rethink our relationship with nature.

Connecting people and environment

‘HumaNature’ is a product of co-creation between the museum and members of the South African youth. The museum invited the youth to create photographs and writing about social-ecological issues of importance to them, to become part of the exhibition. While the invitation asked for either positive or negative messages about the human relationship with nature, those received all explored the continuing negative impact of humanity on the natural world. These contributions appear throughout the exhibition, and are a basis from which to rethink our relationship with nature.


<em>Remembering Green</em> by Lesley Beake is set in 2200 when global warming has caused seas to rise and inundate most of the land. Beake contrasts the Tekkies of the island city – once Table Mountain – who still resist change and cling to the old ways of life with those who have adapted to life in the dry interior and adopted alternative ways of living.
Dana Snyman’s writing here explores the relationship between identity and landscape.
Manuscript draft of Gabeba Baderoon’s poem ‘Landscape is Passing into Language’, 2006.
Handwritten manuscript version of a poem with the working title ‘Low Ebb at Station 13’. A number of Livingstone’s poems reference the ‘stations’ along the Natal coast at which he undertook his research into pollution levels in the sea, work which inspired much of his poetry.
The draft poem titled ‘Low Ebb at Station 13’ was finally published as ‘Low Tide at Station 20’. This is the published version of the poem.

Literature and Change

Since the mid-1990s, the ways in which the human relationship to nature is represented in South African literature has changed dramatically. This reflects changes in our society and our cultures, and our growing awareness of the social-ecological crisis. Recent literature often demonstrates an increasingly respectful treatment of nature and of living things and emphasizes the deep issues that we need to resolve.Writers explore the deep links between culture and nature. They imagine the changes caused by pollution, and they imagine positive changes.

Literature and Change

Since the mid-1990s, the ways in which the human relationship to nature is represented in South African literature has changed dramatically. This reflects changes in our society and our cultures, and our growing awareness of the social-ecological crisis. Recent literature often demonstrates an increasingly respectful treatment of nature and of living things and emphasizes the deep issues that we need to resolve.Writers explore the deep links between culture and nature. They imagine the changes caused by pollution, and they imagine positive changes.


Elana Bregin comments that she wrote her fantasy fable, <em>The Slayer of Shadows</em>, ‘with that kind of fantasy element because we all live with a daily dose of horror and eventually it doesn’t shock. If you want people to look differently at things they see every day, you have to create it differently’.
The burning of coal for power is a leading cause of global warming. The ongoing construction of new coal-fired plants in South Africa has faced heavy criticism from local and international environmental organisations. In 2018 the Mpumalanga province recorded the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide air pollution in the world, directly caused by coal-fired power generation. About 23 000 South Africans die every year as a result of air pollution. As well as emitting greenhouse gases, the plants will use massive amounts of water in an already water-scarce South Africa. While there is urgent need for increased energy-generation capacity in South Africa viable ‘alternative’ means such as wind- and solar-generation remain sidelined. Juanita Mulder / Pixabay.  
In <em>Souvenir</em>, Jane Rosenthal imagines a future South Africa where the effects of severe climate change such as rising sea-levels and are part of the everyday experience. Rosenthal illustrates the helplessness of humanity in the face of the rising sea.  
A letter to the Daily News that poet Douglas Livingstone wrote in the 1980s. He questions what he calls a ‘So what?’ response to research by a group of learners on the pollution of the sea by sewage. He writes, ‘We live in? on? a polluted planet and some sort of perspective view is overdue.’
Trees, like all green plants, take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen during photosynthesis. When trees are cut down and burned or allowed to rot, their stored carbon is released into the air as carbon dioxide. This adds to the pollution that causes the Earth to warm up. In this way, deforestation contributes to global warming.  

Global warming

The changes in weather, or climate, that we experience today are caused by global warming. Global warming is caused by the pollution that is generated by industry, cars, and the farming of animals for meat, among other causes.

This pollution creates a blanket around the Earth that prevents the sun’s heat from being reflected back into space from the surface of the Earth, so the heat builds up. The blanket of pollution is overheating our home. This overheating causes changes in local or regional weather, which is also called climate.

Regional extremes of heat and cold are caused by the disrupted weather systems. Unusual regional cold is also a sign of the bigger problem, global warming. Different regions may experience more intense droughts or more frequent floods. South Africa has suffered both in recent years as we experience the changes in weather that are caused by global warming.

To take away the pollution blanket, we have to stop polluting. Humans have been on Earth for about 300 000 years, and it’s only in about the last 60 years that the amount of pollution that we generate has increased drastically. Changing the way we do things now will help to make sure that there is enough water and food for you and your family, that you don’t suffer extreme heat, or experience extreme weather and flooding where you live.

Learning is vital to the change that is necessary to halt global warming. Literature can play an important role in learning about the challenges and in bringing about change.

Global warming

The changes in weather, or climate, that we experience today are caused by global warming. Global warming is caused by the pollution that is generated by industry, cars, and the farming of animals for meat, among other causes.

This pollution creates a blanket around the Earth that prevents the sun’s heat from being reflected back into space from the surface of the Earth, so the heat builds up. The blanket of pollution is overheating our home. This overheating causes changes in local or regional weather, which is also called climate.

Regional extremes of heat and cold are caused by the disrupted weather systems. Unusual regional cold is also a sign of the bigger problem, global warming. Different regions may experience more intense droughts or more frequent floods. South Africa has suffered both in recent years as we experience the changes in weather that are caused by global warming.

To take away the pollution blanket, we have to stop polluting. Humans have been on Earth for about 300 000 years, and it’s only in about the last 60 years that the amount of pollution that we generate has increased drastically. Changing the way we do things now will help to make sure that there is enough water and food for you and your family, that you don’t suffer extreme heat, or experience extreme weather and flooding where you live.

Learning is vital to the change that is necessary to halt global warming. Literature can play an important role in learning about the challenges and in bringing about change.


Manuscript of Beverly Rycroft’s poem ‘Tuesday is Rubbish Day’, 2010.
Manuscript of Beverly Rycroft’s poem ‘Tuesday is Rubbish Day’, 2010.
Manuscript pages from K. Sello Duiker’s novel <em>Thirteen Cents</em>, which tells the story of street child Azure, against the background of the governance systems that drive the present social-ecological crisis.

People, government, environment

Governance systems that focus only on economic growth do not take into account factors such as quality of life or happiness. They don’t count the health of people or the environment as valuable, because these can’t be given a monetary value. Our present systems of government drive inequality and ecological degradation, and the majority of people continue to live in poverty in damaged and unhealthy environments.

 

People, government, environment

Governance systems that focus only on economic growth do not take into account factors such as quality of life or happiness. They don’t count the health of people or the environment as valuable, because these can’t be given a monetary value. Our present systems of government drive inequality and ecological degradation, and the majority of people continue to live in poverty in damaged and unhealthy environments.

 


Karen Jayes’s For the Mercy of Water considers the political, humanitarian and ecological ramifications of water scarcity. The supply of water is controlled by corporations and people are thus forced to ‘steal’ water.
Karen Jayes’s <em>For the Mercy of Water</em> considers the political, humanitarian and ecological ramifications of water scarcity. The supply of water is controlled by corporations and people are thus forced to ‘steal’ water.
Wendy Woodward’s poem mourns the loss of wetland to ‘development’.  
Manuscript pages from Jenny Robson’s novel <em>The Denials of Kow-Ten</em>, 1998, set in a dystopia where water is controlled by the powerful.

Water

Water is a vital resource that is increasingly scarce due to global warming. South Africa is a water scarce country and the changes in our climate threaten to make this difficult situation worse. Many authors are taking up water scarcity as a theme in their work and a number of the ‘Voice of the Youth’ contributions emphasized the threat of water scarcity.

 

Water

Water is a vital resource that is increasingly scarce due to global warming. South Africa is a water scarce country and the changes in our climate threaten to make this difficult situation worse. Many authors are taking up water scarcity as a theme in their work and a number of the ‘Voice of the Youth’ contributions emphasized the threat of water scarcity.

 


Global warming is made worse by deforestation of land for food production. One of the main crops for which land is cleared to produce is palm oil. The World Wildlife Fund reports that palm oil is in close to 50% of the packaged products in supermarkets, from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It is extremely versatile and very useful, but its production is a major driver of deforestation of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species. This loss of forests for food production is a major contributor to global warming and the changes in climate that we are experiencing.
The mass-scale farming of animals for food is a leading cause of global warming. The consumption of meat is thus a leading cause of global warming. The farming of meat also causes deforestation, as forests are cleared to make way for grazing land. Most mass-farmed animals are kept in terrible conditions. Do animals have a right to peace and justice?
‘Pesticides, alone and in combination with other factors, have had a devastating effect on honeybees and wild pollinators. Pesticides commonly found in lawn and garden products and used in agriculture are known to be hazardous to bees –some killing bees outright and others with subtle effects that reduce a bee’s ability to thrive. Approximately 90 percent of all flowering plants require pollinators to survive. In agriculture, nearly a third of pollination is accomplished by honeybees.’ (Beyondpesticides.org)
‘Pesticides, alone and in combination with other factors, have had a devastating effect on honeybees and wild pollinators. Pesticides commonly found in lawn and garden products and used in agriculture are known to be hazardous to bees –some killing bees outright and others with subtle effects that reduce a bee’s ability to thrive. Approximately 90 percent of all flowering plants require pollinators to survive. In agriculture, nearly a third of pollination is accomplished by honeybees.’ (Beyondpesticides.org)

Food

The entire ecosystem upon which we depend for our food depends on the insects that pollinate the plants that are the foundation of the ecosystem. Without insects, life on the face of the Earth would largely disappear. The use of insecticides for agriculture is a short term, profit-driven tactic that severely damages the natural systems upon which we and all other animals depend for survival. The use of domestic insecticides contributes to this.

Food

The entire ecosystem upon which we depend for our food depends on the insects that pollinate the plants that are the foundation of the ecosystem. Without insects, life on the face of the Earth would largely disappear. The use of insecticides for agriculture is a short term, profit-driven tactic that severely damages the natural systems upon which we and all other animals depend for survival. The use of domestic insecticides contributes to this.


The Master’s Ruse by Patricia Schonstein is set in a future when the sea is biologically dead and the world is run by oppressive dictators. Schonstein suggests that the end of the human race will come as a relief to the planet.
<em>The Master’s Ruse</em> by Patricia Schonstein is set in a future when the sea is biologically dead and the world is run by oppressive dictators. Schonstein suggests that the end of the human race will come as a relief to the planet.
Livingstone’s poem ‘Beach Terminal’ recalls Durban’s status as a whaling port, and expresses the horror of the industrial slaughter of whales.

Humans and other animals

The relationship between humans and the other animals with which we share the Earth is perhaps the most significant element of the entanglement of humanity with nature. As individuals we have compassion for our pets and for wild animals, but we farm animals for food, often in very poor conditions, and destroy animals’ homes in order to build or to grow food for ourselves.We recognise the evils of colonialism, of the ways in which western peoples exploited the peoples of the former colonies. Might we one day come to a similar view on the way humanity treats other species?

Humans and other animals

The relationship between humans and the other animals with which we share the Earth is perhaps the most significant element of the entanglement of humanity with nature. As individuals we have compassion for our pets and for wild animals, but we farm animals for food, often in very poor conditions, and destroy animals’ homes in order to build or to grow food for ourselves.We recognise the evils of colonialism, of the ways in which western peoples exploited the peoples of the former colonies. Might we one day come to a similar view on the way humanity treats other species?


HumaNature

Thank you for touring 'HumaNature'. We hope you enjoyed it.

Follow Amazwi on our Facebook for updates on future exhibitions and events

@AmazwiMuseum

HumaNature

Thank you for touring 'HumaNature'. We hope you enjoyed it.

Follow Amazwi on our Facebook for updates on future exhibitions and events

@AmazwiMuseum