Species extinction is happening at a rate that is profound in geological terms. Right now the species of the Earth are going through the greatest ever extinction event.
The story below is one from my own experience of species loss. I encourage you to think about animals birds flowers places in the bush parts of the river or ocean that you have loved deeply that you are seeing lost or destroyed and tell the story of your love for it and share the pain of your loss.
Requiem to a biological hot spot
South-West Western Australia with its ancient nutritionally deficient soils and it long harsh summers has evolved a fantastic number of unique wildflower species. For many their range is limited and the niche that they have worked out a strategy to handle is tightly defined.
The wildflowers of South-West Western Australia are stunningly beautiful shapes and colours and they are a precious part of the story of my whole childhood.
We grew up close to the bush surrounded by it in an ever-present relationship with it. While we took the bush for granted we also loved it deeply. Our generations of pioneering Australians had worked close to the land and moved widely across the land learning to understand and live with its harsh climates and poor soils. The bush forged us. From my earliest childhood I saw my mother go into the bush to forage to picnic and literally to commune with nature. She took us with her and we followed forest trails walked sand hills covered in low bushes and flowers pushed aside spider webs drove along the roughest wild bush tracks into deep forest picnicked by streams and a camp fire deep in the hills and we picked wildflowers.
Forbidden to pick wildflowers but my mother was fiercely pioneeringly independent of such laws. We knew her anger at the developers who bulldozed whole regions of virgin bushland for new suburbs while we were restricted from picking a simple posy.
There were some memorable expeditions like the walk through the bush and struck thousands of enamel orchids in flower. Another time we drove deep into the hills forests to pick kangaroo paws and got bogged in a deep stream across the track miles from anywhere with dark falling. More usually the wildflowers were collected in small numbers and mixed species. The ones I most remember are: spider orchids donkey orchids cowslip orchids hovea kangaroo paws pussy paws myrtle leschenaultia egg and bacon smoke bush banksia fringed lily various purple pea creepers orange broom Star of Bethlehem Geraldton wax everlastings in pink yellow and white
The bush around our homes was full of all these precious flowers and as a child I loved them deeply. When I was much older and moved to a new suburb it was also next to bush that was a botanic garden of close-growing flowers. When this was all bull-dozed for houses soon after the damage and loss seemed criminal.
We made several memorable wildflower expeditions in spring. The first was up through the wheat belt then going on up to Geraldton then to Sharks Bay and Murchison River. Another time we drove to visit relatives on a station out from Paynes Find. The fields of everlastings were a deeply wonderful experience.
Later I went south to the coast around Cape Naturalist riding through the coastal scrubland with its rich treasure of flowers. Another time I went to Bluff Knoll and climbed up through its floral wonderland. Yet another time I drove across from Busselton to Esperance going through the Fitzgerald River National Park with its special heritage.
The bottom line for the thousands of wonderful unique wildflower species of South-West Western Australia is that most are on the absolute threshold of extinction and unlikely to be salvageable. They have narrow ranges and South West WA is showing strong evidence of climate change.
Go still! Go limp. Know deeply that we are losing our treasured wildflower heritage for all time. The spider orchids the delicate pink fringed myrtle the richly-scented broom the whole eco-systems which sustained them. Our grief is deserved.