Val Plumwood, who died last week, was an intellectual and eco-activist in the Judith Wright tradition. Like Judith she made her home in the bush near Braidwood and wrote about it in the same loving terms – “The country of my heart lies along the high forested escarpment that edges the coastal mountains of New South Wales.”
A prolific writer, researcher and lecturer Val gained an international reputation beyond her academic one. Her two major books – ‘Feminism and the Mastery of Nature’ (1993) and ‘Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason’ (2002) confirm her position as one of Australia’s leading environmental thinkers.
From 1971, when she first visited, Val was involved with Monga Forest. Her book ‘The Fight for the Forests’ (1973) foreshadowed the later struggles against the threat posed by intensive forestry. After coming to live nearby in 1974 she took the name ‘Plumwood’ in honour of the Eucryphia moorei trees found in Monga.
An event occurred in 1987 which, as she said, ‘changed her life’, and made her review the whole relationship between humans, animals and nature. Whilst canoeing in Kakadu National Park she was attacked by a crocodile. Amazingly she survived three attempts by the reptile to drown her. Even after escaping she was alone, seriously injured and miles from help. That she survived against so many odds was a wonder. That she was able to use her thoughts during the experience as a basis for a whole new conceptual framework indicates a remarkable intellectual toughness.
From the starting point of “This can’t be happening to me. I’m a human being I am more than just food!” Val Plumwood developed the premise that ‘human supremacist culture’ positions humans outside and above the food chain. “The idea of human prey threatens the dualistic view of human mastery in which we humans manipulate nature from outside, as predators but never prey.”
This premise was to be enlarged and nuanced in her subsequent books into a profound critique of rationalist philosophies, Platonic dualism and the mindsets these create. The ecological crisis facing the world today is thus a consequence of such mindsets – an irrational rationality that cannot admit to interdependence with nature or to a merging of self with the world.
As a writer and an activist Val was involved in many local organisations and campaigns. She was an early member of the Friends of the Mongalowe River, of Braidwood Regional Arts Group and the founding committee of the Two Fires Festival – honouring the art and activism of Judith Wright, as well as the fight to save Monga Forest. She could be a prickly colleague on a committee or at a meeting but was also a consistently loyal friend. The gatherings held at the home she built high on the escarpment were always stimulating and memorable occasions – especially at Warratah time when the garden was filled with red blooms. The sense of shock at her sudden death is exacerbated by feelings of unfinished business and the awareness that she still had so much more to contribute globally and locally.
Gill Burke
Photo: Judith Adjani
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