DIANA MCCAULAY
In an old growth forest, the canopy is thick and light rarely reaches the forest floor. In a high wind, you might see dapples of sunshine, like coins thrown down. If that same wind fells an old tree, there is a thunderous crash which sounds disastrous. But when that tree measures its full length on the ground, it has torn a space in the canopy and light pours in. Saplings in waiting shoot up, seeds germinate, shade loving fungi retreat. New growth flourishes. You, an observer, might see with fresh eyes the complexity of the forest community, its synergies, its dependencies. Spend some time there and you might even come to understand that as much as the big trees dominate, the forest is made up of millions of much smaller lives including those underground, and that those organisms communicate and support each other in ways science is only just beginning to understand. Were you to return to the spot where the giant tree fell a decade later, you would discover the tree has become a nurse log, and as it has rotted, new saplings have taken root in the crumbling trunk, feeding on the nutrients of decomposition. Twenty more years and the young trees so nurtured will stand tall in a straight line, as if a machine has planted them, each tree arching over the space the nurse log once occupied, like a bridge for other forest lives. And the young trees birthed by the fallen elder will race for the light before the canopy closes.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa and its impact on the western third – maybe 40% – of the island of Jamaica, my home – the metaphor of a fallen tree, centuries in the growing, is helping me to think through how we may yet live together, how we may use the light let in by a catastrophe. The hurricane scoured the hillsides, revealing areas we, Kingston dwellers driving by, had never seen, it toppled tree and sapling alike, the land looked like it had been scorched, fields where crops grew became lakes, beaches moved inland and re-formed behind buildings, the sea came ashore, rivers burst their banks, mud poured in, utility poles fell, roads became torrents, underground water rose up to the eaves of houses built in valleys. And human edifices – churches, schools, shops, businesses, hotels, homes – from National Housing Trust dreamhouse schemes to houses built of plywood and zinc – lost their roofs, their windows or simply were blown apart.
We can now see all that has been lost. Is it time to raze it all and start anew?
The forest knows diversity is strength, that a forest, let us say the Hellshire forest, can depend on a big lizard to eat and disperse its seeds, delivering a dollop of fertilizer in the process. The forest knows that what came before matters – the slow evolution of soils, the drama of fires thinning undergrowth. But we, too many of us live as mere occupants of the land, knowing little, caring less. I watched a television report of the rising water at Content in Manchester. Those who had travelled to witness this strange phenomenon, regarding it as an attraction of sorts, expressed amazement that there was ground water beneath where they stood. Yet, most of us Jamaicans don’t know that over 80% of our fresh water is held in aquifers. Imagine how we might have built and behaved if we did know this. Imagine if we always knew this.
The forest knows what to do when a giant falls. We must now look back to the old maps, the ones marked Ferry and Raging Torrent and Bog Walk, to understand what the land once was. This understanding should guide where to build, how to build, and where to leave alone. The forest learns too – if it has become drier, different types of trees begin to dominate. We need to accept that the benign climate we knew, which certainly included hurricanes, but none with a recorded wind gust of 252 miles per hour, is already gone. The sea will come ashore again, so we need to leave the dunes and the mangroves and the seagrass beds intact and yes, we will have to sacrifice the desired sea view from each and every hotel balcony, perhaps surrender the old coast road and let the land on the sea side carry out its underestimated protective functions. Despite our best efforts, sandy beaches move with weather and time, and we must get out of their way. Imagine us taking heed and doing this.
When we have dusted off the flood plain maps and disaster response studies and construction manuals, when the immediate push of humanitarian relief has been met, then we must finally confront the historical inequities and injustices that have so impeded us as a people, as a country. Pathways to land tenure must be established; surely we have spoken about this for long enough. We must enforce building codes, upgrade waste handling systems, end our love affair with the private car and the extractive industries, focus on a road network to facilitate fast, reliable, safe public transportation and the conveyance of food from agricultural areas to markets. We must remember not just what humanity has done with and to the land but turn our minds to what the land now asks of us. Imagine learning from the forest, which has always known what to do.
What lies ahead for Jamaicans all, city dweller safe under a slab roof, New Kingston businessman, farmer clearing a sodden field, teacher beginning classes under a tarpaulin, health care worker on a double shift in a field hospital, cook shop owner, hotelier, everyone displaced and dispossessed – we must be the nurse log from which a new forest will rise.
