Touch the wilderness

From the dramatic peaks of mountains to precipitous edges of tortuous gorges, the sculptured red sand ridge of a wind-crafted desert to the surreal void of walking across Lake Eyre, the call of the wild has always left me wondering how all things are inter-connected and lead to "wellness" in our lives.

I remain humbled to this day, by the many naturalists, walkers and adventurers who have trodden the trails, followed their passion, experienced the call of the wild and in doing so made a contribution. People like wilderness photographers Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis who tragically gave their lives that Australian's might discover the beauty and wisdom and take greater care of the wilderness.

A prominent Brisbane businessman and visionary, once engaged my wife and I to take he and his wife into the wilderness for a few days. Relaxed over coffee at the end of the journey, beneath the half moon silhouette of Mt Warning, he concluded we were in the business of slowing people down and every business executive should join us for a wilderness escape, desirably with spouse included, for business and marriages are equally under pressure.

Later, in a monthly publication, he wrote of the great adventurer and author Jack London and his book "The Call of the Wild", about the frontier lands of Canada and Alaska. Our guest believed "remote places are essential to any one needing a regular break from the rat race of acquiring wealth at great personal cost …. that the wilderness meets the aspiration within each one of us to rediscover our souls …. that the wilderness offers immersion in silence which is conducive to beautiful thoughts beyond the treadmill of life ….it is only in silence that anyone can make vital decisions ….that the power of our chosen faith is likely to be discovered in places of beauty and grandeur".

So what is it that causes some great business leaders to revert back to nature? Why is it so, that a wealthy Queenslander should withdraw from the daily operations of his business to apply his wealth, energy and skills in the passionate pursuit of saving tracks of wilderness and old growth forests in SW Tasmania? Or a humble "bean counter" to turn away from a high-powered business career in London to nurture a Wildlife Conservancy regenerating the wilderness in Australia?

To date, much of the focus on wilderness conservation has been confined to the protection of habitats and endangered species, a worthy and timely biophysical pursuit, indeed. However, there is another very compelling issue emerging, the wellness of the human species.

Publications of the International Wilderness Journal remind us of the fact, the human race is born of the natural world in the company of the plants and animals, a primal condition.

Australian indigenous communities have spent 50,000 years finding a sense of place in the wild, living and surviving in physical and spiritual harmony with the Australian landscape in a self-sustaining way. They indeed, were and are in touch with the rhythms of the natural world.

In a relatively short time, western civilisation with its intelligence and perception has assumed, if not imposed, an increasing mastery over the wild, creating built environments, occasionally creating havoc, placing a gulf between man and nature or assuming humanly created concepts and solutions will prevail.

Meanwhile, psychologists suggest we are in danger of building a wall of rationality which feelings can't penetrate, believing emotion is something to be frowned upon.

Within Australia, I'd suggest there are now two generations that have little or no real connection with the wild – term it, nature deficit disorder. The first generation, of which I am part, perceived our wilderness (or the outback) to be dangerous or boring, uncomfortable or uninteresting. They in turn have influenced their sons and daughters into believing there are dangers or risks in nature, in getting dirty - in the pursuit of simple adventures in their lives.

For the younger generations connection with nature can be confined to the computer screen, adventure to the play station. Worst still they can choose to remain disconnected from nature through a preoccupation with technology. Sadly, technology has diluted the broader third dimension in young people's lives – the experience of emotional connection, empathy and dealing eye to eye with the feelings of others and their emotions, of problem solving. Extremism in many forms is now "entertaining" the youthful mind often with tragic outcomes.

Guests on a recent outback tour attested to the fact, their city friends and business colleagues believed any adventure beyond the Great Divide was dangerous and why bother, that the "Corner Country" is a foreign place and even the young thought maybe Burke and Wills was a rock band.

Understandably, we can't expect while welcoming migrants into our country they will come with a passionate understanding or interest in our history, wilderness or outback, so the process of disconnection with the wild is escalating with both population profile and generational change.

For instance, in an Asian culture, wilderness poses a sense of discomfort or risk, not to be experienced by an individual but within the security of a group. Sitting around a camp fire is something poor Asian people practice and therefore it is not necessarily an attractive or romantic experience as Australian outback tradition presents.

The first principle of ecology is that everything is connected to everything else and a wilderness experience can therefore be the spark that ignites greater understanding.

But wilderness is not just about the condition of the land or our recreational use of it, but importantly the relationship humans have to the larger natural world. Wilderness also symbolises human restrain and humility toward the land. The wilderness can be both experiential and symbolic. It follows that decision makers, developers, investors quite possibly, may not fully realise the symbolic importance and value of the wilderness, of human restrain and humility, without first being immersed in it.

A search of "Wilderness Therapy" in the medium of Google will reveal an almost exclusive focus on the recovery of wayward youth, placed in a challenging or unfamiliar wild environment.

My belief is, the progress of western civilisation toward a time poor lifestyle and work pressures is such, we are witnessing a "shifting space" wherein the therapy applied to youth, now has an application to adults. We have doubled our life expectancies and made wonderful inroads into common communicable diseases but conversely a whole new challenge has emerged in non-communicable diseases.

Coronary heart, diabetes, cancer have come to dominate while mental, behavioural and social problems are in rapid increase.

Indications are depression could be costing the Australian economy many billions of dollars in lost productivity each year. Mental disorder is expected to increase toward 15% of the global burden by 2020.

We are habitual worriers for the greater part of our conscious day, stressing over both important and lesser things.

As a nation we are spending more and more time separated from wilderness and in a time poor pursuit, snatching only short breaks, with barely the capacity to reach or truly immerse ourselves in the wild.

Escaping to the wild changes our focus and the mind goes "quiet".

Mother Theresa once advised, harmony is not found in noise and restlessness. Nature grows in silence. Arguably, we have to look outside the city limits, outside the concrete to get a true sense of self – essentially to look inside.

The key to wilderness therapy is that it is founded in natural self-discovery. There is no manipulation or man-contrived activities or consequences, orchestrated games or bonding, artificial stimulants, no force, no confrontation or competition in the style of a boot camp or regimented activity or in stressful physical challenges. It is simply a case of being there in the wild and becoming aware of the moment and the self in that moment.

The Australian wilderness connects us to the most ancient of lands and if we so choose, an indigenous culture which far surpasses the few thousand years of human history or events which we have become pre-occupied with in glossy international travel programs.

Our landscapes date back hundreds of millions of years, our first Australians walked the land at least 50,000 years ago, approx 90% of our plant and animal species are endemic to Australia and 40% of the country or 3 million sq kms is regarded by some studies as the most extensive, largely intact wilderness on earth, different but ranking in quality to the Amazon forest, Antarctica and the Sahara – all this, a legacy to the world, right here in our own back yard.

Wilderness is the base asset from which we can compare biophysical change and the progress of our actions and it offers a connection to ancient times and our core belonging. It is a perpetual venue for scientific discovery. The biodiversity of Australia's primitive lands may hold the secrets to potential treatments for pain relief, cancer, Alzheimers and even antibiotic resistance. Such studies do not involve the wholesale reshaping of the environment or land. The greatest proportion of prescription drugs used around the world have been derived from indigenous medical practices and plants of the wild.

Some would say, through nature there is a God. Beyond the religious reference, the spiritual benefit of wilderness is felt as we release ourselves from our ego and become connected with something timeless and universal. This giving over to something of ultimate value larger than ourselves is central to the experience. It reminds us of our primal instincts or condition to also be natural, wild and free.

Within the wilderness the individual will discover that everything in life can change and has done so for millions of years. Within the context of one's personal existence on earth, one can experience a sense of enduring, of adventuring beyond the comfort zone, enduring the walk, the climb, arrival at a vital decision or a clarity of ideas and values, while simply sitting on a rock somewhere.

The wilderness provides a sense of immensity and power, mountains, rivers, glaciers and deserts beyond our realm, stimulating awe. This power can humble us. To be insignificant within nature is comforting. Alternatively, being insignificant in a crowd can be painful. The challenges and frustrations of everyday life are much less important while in the wild than when endured in the office cubicle.

The wilderness provides a sanctuary of infinity and space not available in the confines and restrictions of a city. In the vast and distant horizons of the outback, a sense of infinity brings clarity for the mind to explore expansive thoughts. Guests on our outback journeys often talk of how much there is to discover and experience in what they expected would be a remote "featureless" landscape. Once you are there, the wilderness and detail grows on you. You become one with the place and the larger natural world, moving outside the interior realm of your own mind.

The wilderness appeals to all the senses and not just what the eye might see. The feeling of rain or mist in a forest, the purring of sea breezes in the Casaurina, a flock of birds echoing in the uncanny silence of an isolated desert, the changing of light across the landscape, the surprise arrival of a creature passing by.

Personal challenges beyond our comfort zone empower us with proof of our place and worth, contributing to our calm and spirit.

In competition with others there are winners and losers. In the wilderness we can all triumph over our personal challenges and comfort zone and in doing so, gain wisdom.