Recovery & Listening || Eva Peroni

Eva is a writer and PhD candidate who explores the ways food is produced, distributed, and consumed and its impacts on the environment and global health. Her work profiles environmental and community leaders crafting a positive vision for the future of food.

Eva Peroni

In the first six months of this new decade, cumulative environmental, economic, social and health crises have exposed an array of vulnerabilities across society, as well as the natural world. As we continue to struggle to respond and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, and numerous countries navigate eruptive political and social unrest, some of the earlier yet equally immense events of 2020 seem like a lifetime ago. Australia’s turn of the decade witnessed an incomparable summer of devastating bushfires that scarred the nation and stunned the world. While the ashes may have settled, the multiple, deeply pervasive impacts to Australian landscape, wildlife, and the very fabric of familiar life for individuals and their communities continue to unfold.

For our nation’s farmers, the devastation was particularly deep. Often portrayed as stoic, lone rural underdogs pitted against a harsh and unrelenting environment, this farmer-as-Aussie battler image takes on new meaning when contextualised by the unparalleled intensity and duration of the Black Summer bushfires. There are those who lost loved ones, friends or neighbours. Those who lost their homes, vital infrastructure and equipment, livestock and crops. There are many who have suffered major disruptions to their livelihoods, where the already significant daily workload of running a viable farming business is now done in addition to the arduous tasks of rebuilding what was lost.

And with the megafires burning relentlessly for up to six weeks in some areas — at times threatening the same properties on multiple occasions from multiple firefronts — the traumatic and mental health impacts will likely reverberate long after fences are rebuilt and pastures are resown.

For many farmers directly impacted by the bushfires, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be severely disrupting the steps to recovery. Immediate needs like clearing debris, rebuilding homes and infrastructure, restarting businesses and regaining income, or the revitalisation of community organisations and spaces have all been put on hold. For some, these back-to-back shocks have arrived hand-in-hand with years of unrelenting drought. For others, the provision of information and resources to support their unique needs may be insufficient or inapplicable. Organic, biodynamic or regenerative farmers, for instance, are not able to accept conventional feed for their cattle, inputs like composts and fertilisers to rejuvenate the soil, or seeds, shrubs and trees to support farm recovery made available through charitable donations, as it would jeopardise their certification. No fire plan or emergency response is sufficient in safeguarding people and properties against such an unprecedented and unimaginable chain of catastrophes: you can only plan for what you can envision. So where do we start, as individuals, communities, cities and global networks, in the journey from disaster to renewal?

To create meaningful pictures of not just the challenges of recovery, but also of a collective ethics of care towards our communities and the Earth, we must remember the great value in taking time to listen.

But the voices of impacted communities are often smothered by the sensationalist tendencies of the media or by a political environment and institutional culture that privileges ‘professional knowing’ over practical knowledge born out of years, if not lifetimes, of experience. And, while there may be community consultations or open hearings for community members to share their knowledge and experience, as is the case with bushfire inquiries, this local knowledge and experience can be overlooked or ignored when it reaches policymaking levels. According to a recent senate committee report on major bushfires in Australia, ‘previous inquiry processes have not resolved the issues that have been so consistently brought to the attention of governments.’

This is not the kind of listening we need. We need to move beyond transactional forms of listening to something more transformational - not only to reshape emergency response and recovery, but also to reshape our sense of community and the ties that bind us.

For organic, biodynamic and regenerative farmers, having their voices heard and needs met particularly during a crisis, can further be complicated by the fact that they are a relatively small group when compared to ‘conventional’ farmers. But there is a growing movement of farmer networks, community organisations, researchers and advocates working to share the many stories of these farmers: their courage, community action and resilience, alongside their struggles, frustrations and fortitude. Following are the stories of three organic and biodynamic female farmers who have each experienced the enormity of loss through fire. They do not centre on their individualised experiences of the bushfires, but draw on their insights garnered from the physical and emotional work of rebuilding their lives, homes, businesses and communities. They each speak of the importance of both listening and being listened to.

Kathy: The process of renewal starts with a conversation

For several decades, Kathy and her partner Graham have been managing close to 600 acres of land as a family-owned organic turned biodynamic farm situated on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Their farm integrates a diversity of plant and animal life, with special attention and effort dedicated to building up the soil’s health and fertility. They faced the megafires for six ongoing weeks, coming under threat on multiple occasions. While they managed to salvage their house and shearing shed, the fires destroyed all of their farm infrastructure, machinery, tools and firefighting tank as well as their perennial pastures and immediate seed banks.

‘Being biodynamic, our first instinct was to look after the soil that we had remaining,’ Kathy recalls. ‘So we sold off all [our livestock] bar our core-breeding stock, because we didn’t want anything roaming on the burnt paddocks to further damage the soil.’

Kathy and Graham have only recently begun to put a light number of stock back on their paddocks, giving the land and soil time to heal. But this doesn’t imply that they’ve otherwise been idle. Once the personal threat of fire had passed, and their immediate and basic needs were met, the main onfarm priorities were urgent ones: clearing dangerous debris, replacing crucial infrastructure like water tanks and fencing, handfeeding remaining livestock, sowing crops, - all the while assessing the damages and sorting out insurance claims. In this exhausting space of rebuilding and recovery, there is little time or energy for anything else. Yet farmers, Kathy explains, also have to make the time and the trip into town for community recovery meetings.

‘Throughout the whole process, there hasn’t been somebody to come and sit down and actually go through with every farmer individually [to determine] what they need,’ says Kathy. ‘We all run our operations differently, be it organic or conventional, and even within those systems, everybody’s different. People’s immediate needs, and what they need to get them back on track are also different.’

Making time for individual conversations may not, at first glance, cohere with the urgency of addressing immediate needs. The time needed to develop a thorough understanding of the issues and opportunities, to acknowledge farmers’ history and culture, or to build and honour personal relationships, may seem at odds with both the ‘need for speed’ imperative in disaster response and the prevailing short-termism inherent in government processes of community recovery. But the sad truth is that some farmers and community members have more experience being cut off, misunderstood or ignored in community recovery meetings than heard to their satisfaction.

Building relationships and taking the time to listen to people’s stories, Kathy believes, can be more useful than following a checklist of to-dos that has been developed in some distant city office. It helps facilitate a necessary shift from an imposed, one-size-fits-all perspective of what can and will be offered, to one of seeing what can be created together and how it can best be achieved. Listening to the requisite variety of voices needed to make sense of the complexities and challenges may seem like extraneous work, but together these various viewpoints are what help guide the oftentimes messy, long-haul work of recovery.

Kathy also highlights that calling or meeting people in the comfort and safety of their own homes may help reach some of the most severely affected community members who may be reluctant to seek help.

There are people that enjoy the solitude [of farming or rural life], but once their world is thrown into chaos, they don’t have the connections for support, and they generally are not going to ask for help

says Kathy.

There is a stigma associated with not coping, and some people do not want other people in their community to know [that they are not coping]. So CFS [Country Fires Service] volunteers need to drop in and have a cup of coffee or a phone chat … they need to go and see people.

For some people, the offering of social support can be more important than what could otherwise be an overwhelming agenda of fixing, advising, advancing or doing. And for community members with the desire to help, Kathy once again advises that the process of recovery and repair starts with an honest, mindful conversation. ‘Make some scones and biscuits, go and find somebody you know, take it out there, sit down and talk to them about where they are at. Really focus on the person right in front of you. Then you may be able to find some way you could assist.’

Christine: The importance of a holistic culture of care

Christine and Chris Watts grow five varieties of garlic with their three children on their family-owned and run farm Blue Sky Organics near Buchan Victoria. Their garlic is grown without the use of any pesticides, chemicals or artificial fertilisers and is hand- planted, hand- weeded and hand-harvested. Their property is nestled in a remote area surrounded by state forest and their intent in farming ecologically is mirrored in their reverence for their surrounding bushland. In speaking to Christine, you gain a sense of the intimate connection her family has developed with their soils, crops and farm environment and how their work expands beyond tending to their crops to ecological stewardship.

On New Year’s Eve the bushfires went through their farm. As was the case in other parts of the country, there were several wildfires burning at once, with the biggest blazes burning for months. Already grappling with the difficult work of harvesting while surrounded by billows of smoke, the challenge of coping with the pervading sense of anxiety was immense.

There really are no words

Christine said.

Reflecting their vision that all animals, plants, people and nature are to be treated with the best intent, Christine and Chris’s primary concern upon returning to their farm was the impact on wildlife. They spent several weeks searching the surrounding bushland for native animals with heat sensitive binoculars. It was several weeks before they came across some wombats or heard the familiar sounds of birdsong.

[Assessing the impact on] wildlife was really our first port of call. The support that came in from around the world was simply amazing, it was absolutely brilliant. But it didn’t help save an inch of wildlife.

Christine communicates a powerful reflection on conventional notions of care. She extends its significance beyond ensuring that the material and emotional needs of people are met to the care of animal and plant species that co-inhabit our common home. Enacting a holistic culture of care is central to the maintenance of the interdependent web of human, plant and animal life, and is embodied in her family’s sustainable farm management approach and ethos. They pay close attention to the longterm balance of natural resources related to their farmland, adjacent land and water and the presence and movements of wildlife, working with nature through thoughtful observation.

Learning how to listen to the non-human world, as well as one another, is central to the process of recovery and renewal and key to cultivating a holistic culture of care.

Kim: Acknowledging and working through grief

Kim is a farmer and selfemployed regenerative agriculture coach and consultant at Integrity Soils working to empower farmers to create financially viable and healthy farming ecosystems to produce nourishing food. In her previous role as a rural financial counsellor, Kim has worked closely with farmers facing the aftermath of floods, droughts, fire and hailstorms, developing practical pathways to resilience to manage climatic variation and market volatility. Several months before the recent wave of bushfires swept across the country, Kim and her partner Angus suffered extensive damage to their property as a result of the Tingha Plateau fire in February, 2019.

The immediate impact of fire on our landscape brings trauma and extreme stress to the people who inhabit the landscape,

Kim reflects.

The form and course of this trauma and the subsequent working through of grief, Kim discovered, is not necessarily a linear process, but rather a distinct individual, social, and relational experience.

Emotionally this period of time felt to me like being on a pendulum, swinging between devastation for what had been lost, and gratitude for what we still had.

Individual and community recovery from disasters can be a complex and often lengthy process, with different people and environments recovering at different rates. Those impacted by the bushfires may experience a gamut of emotions — ranging from shock, sadness, anger, guilt, depression, disorientation, acceptance, or hope — and are likely to criss-cross this spectrum of emotions as they work through the grief process. Not only are they working through the loss of property, livestock, or livelihoods, but also the familiarity of daily life and its standard routines. Understanding some of the feelings and dynamics that underscore grief and trauma is an important step in people’s journey forward. Failure to express or process them may increase emotional distress or manifest in physical illness.

This process of emotional recovery is just as essential and significant as the process of rebuilding and recovering the physical environment but receives far less emphasis in the public arena. Major disasters can inspire an initial outpouring of generosity and donations from communities near and far. But after the fires are out and the communities are safe, after the financial aid starts and then stops, after the world has turned its attention to the next major event, then comes the long-haul work of cultivating people-centred processes for recovery, restoration and renewal.

Key to this process, Kim advises, is being careful not to impose expectations of ‘recovery’ on others suffering deep loss. Her advice echoes Kathy’s.

Create more space for people to listen.

Spaces that allow the safe ventilation of the feelings, fears, and concerns. Spaces that don’t impose premature reassurance or dictate a particular pathway for ‘returning to normal’. Spaces that facilitate communication across different ways of knowing, feeling and being in the world.

We often don’t hold space for active listening. People just want to placate the pain, to “fix it”, or to distract [those suffering a loss] from the trauma. We need to be mindful not to push people through a process they are not ready for,

Kim said.

Let’s stop responding to disasters with stuff people don’t need, and instead connect with them on an emotional level.

Towards renewal

As the bushfires spread across the country, the world watched. Some say the severity of this summer’s bushfires might stimulate a paradigm shift in the thinking about emergencies and community recovery. But with the rapid-fire nature of news cycles, the short termism of political, social and emotional responses to disasters, and now, the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, the world, and many Australians have already turned their attention elsewhere. How can a sustained, transformative dialogue about recovery and renewal emerge? One that doesn’t necessarily dictate a particular pathway for ‘recovery’ or ‘resilience’, but brings together the collective experiences, voices, and defined action of people from impacted communities? As each of the women sharing their stories communicate, providing opportunities for shared validation of people’s experience, that delicately and respectfully uncover the layers of stress, trauma, grief and loss, will be a significant starting point. To do so, we must make the time, within our daily lives, organisational structures or institutional cultures, to learn how to listen better.

Some may think that the simple act of listening to another person is too passive to make a meaningful difference in the context of a major disaster, but when done with care and respect, it can be both deeply cathartic and pragmatic. In her book, The Ethics of Listening, Elizabeth S. Parks outlines ten values as guidelines for good listening: be open, cultivate understanding, practice authenticity, engage in critical thinking, invest in relationships, care for the dialogue, focus on what matters, be intentionally present, remember the ongoing story, and be responsive to need. This deeper level of listening is often called ‘empathic’ or ‘attuned’ listening, where we attend fully to the emotions and experiences of another and allow them to feel heard and respected. This helps cultivate trust and respect, enables the speaker to release their emotions, reduces interpersonal tensions, and encourages the surfacing of information that is conducive to collaborative problem solving.

When someone practices this kind of listening, be they a friend or emergency worker, seemingly insurmountable problems can be brought to the light and broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces. It can be a powerful form of validation; that honours people’s time, validates their experience, their knowledge, and ultimately, their sense of self. It helps return the magnitude of a disaster to a more human scale and pace. In a world full of increasing complexities and challenges, we need to practice the kind of listening that allows us to engage, empathise and cooperate, so that we can better engage in a spirit of solidarity and repair.