Now this is astragior Urbanized with Tony McManus ga the five o'clock. It's so nice to have you with right through until the Breaking program gets underway with Ross and Ross here on three at W. It's an interesting headline, these things that come across the desk, and I looked at it, and I reread it, and I reread it, and then I thought about the question and how, in fact, the power often lies in the question, not necessarily the answer. And the question is how to survive the next one
hundred years? Question mark how to survive the next one hundred years? So we're going to talk to this bloke, Simon Musto is the author of how to Survive the Next one under one hundred years. Now, we've only got about ten minutes to talk Simon. Can we wrap it up in ten minutes or not?
I reckon, Yeah, let's you're going to go?
Good Onion? Where would we start? Well?
Okay, well, okay, So it is that it's an ambitious title. Okay, of course the subtitle is Lessons from Nature. And the reason why I think this story is important is because we live in a society where people are increasingly exposed to a lot of negative news, okay, and we don't often hear the other side of the story, which is the part where we have this supportive, supporting infrastructure of nature.
Right.
And I think particularly for communities, Australia has a history obviously a very strong local community sense of belonging. We get together and we deal with problems as their care as a community. And if we learn to take lessons from nature, we open up a whole new way of thinking and it exposes us to a lot of fresh answers about how we can survive and how we can empower ourselves, particularly at a local community level.
So I mean you're right about the news cycle. We see it. We've seen it recently, prolifically this year, more recently perhaps with the flooding rains that we've seen in Queensland and New South Wales. Conversely, here in Victoria we've seen chronic drought areas in the southwest of Victoria and into South Australia. It's a really tough time for many. Is that the sort of thing that you're looking at and the things that have to be considered and should be considered.
Yeah, what I'd like people to start to do is to think differently about their place within nature. I think we have a history obviously of almost seeing environmentalism as a separate and opposite construct to development and human progress. Whereas what we're beginning to discover now is that a lot of the support infrastructure that nature provided us in the past, which we've perhaps fritted away, is able to reintegrate through restoration and provide a significant amount of economic
value back into our local communities. We're talking, you know, maybe seven to thirty times more value than we're currently getting from our taxpayer dollar expenditure if we spend that on processes that are positive. So to give you a
small example, this wonderful example of eastern barb bandicoots. So the Rosvelt Sanctuary in the yu yangs in just west of Melbourne, owned by the Odonata Foundation, was taken over in two thousand and nine by a benefactor called Nigel Sharp, and it acts as a laboratory to work out how to restore balance with an ecosystems with native species. Now, that animal used by bandicoot was considered extinct up until
quite recently. It was rediscovered in old abandoned cars in a quarry in Hamilton, and the population is now thousands of animals, and if it wasn't for that fur the rest of our sanctuary, those animals would now be extinct. More recently, what's happened is they've reintroduced them to a working sheep farm in western Victoria near Hamilton, and in just three years they have restored soil and soil water processes.
So the things you were talking about a moment ago flooding for example, So we've gone through some of the worst floods in the last few years that that area has seen, but the fence infrastructure has remained solid, so they're no longer having to spend money on fencing. Because of the surface water that longo runs away, the organic layer in the soil has increased, the potentile strength of water is increased, meaning they're getting more profit from the farm.
All of that achieved simply by reintroducing a single animal back into the environment.
Yeah, so much comes out of that. Are you based on the work that you've been doing for many, many years in writing? Are you completely devoted to the idea that young people have got this? Young people have got this even like old facts like me and many people in this audience, and go don't worry about it. You know, it's cyclical. The environment as we know it has been going on like this for millions of years. Nothing's really changed.
I think it's I think it's a chaotic situation. So my understanding of how econsistents function, you've got difference between balance and chaos effectively, and I think so we've got a diversification of views and young people obviously they suffer from a probably more negative news input or exposure to algorithms than we do. They some of them have ignored that, and I see in my own children a sense of community. They spend more time chanting to their friend and getting
involved in things. Now I think other kids suffer differently. What I am urging is to, I guess, step aside from that and start looking, just start spending some time in nature, Tony. Honestly, the start of this is just to immerse yourself back into the environment around you and actually look at it and think about what's going on. And this is not going to solve all the problems of the world without our assistance, but there is a heck of a lot you can learn about to do
yourself which can make the world a difference. If that's scaled up and I often use the phrase rewilding your mind. Okay, by reconnecting in that way, it actually brings a new way of thinking, and it's very very cathartic. It's been very cathartic for me at.
Least, oh bit it has. How did your heart and soul head into this direction some years ago, Simon, Oh.
I've always been like this ever since I was a child. I use I grew up in the UK. You can probably tell from my accent. I was actually born in Adelaide, but my parents went back to the UK when I was very young, and I just used to wander the fields of the United Kingdom countryside and the Cotswolds night and day, every working every waking hour effectively, and I try to do that as much as I can these
days as well. Today I tend to wander under the water and in the water of portfol At Bay, which is a remarkably exciting place to be.
There's been a lot of exposure and no doubt you would have seen it over the weekend with the great new documentaries coming over the future King of Australia and is sitting down there with Sir David and Sir David, who's coming up to his one hundredth birthday. I think from memory and in the future King looking at what's happening underneath our oceans. Have you had time to have a look at that and understand how important the points that Sir David has been making in that area alone.
Personally, I haven't seen the film yet and I'm a little bit hesitant. I probably shouldn't say this, but I mean I tend towards looking and immersing myself into positive actions that I can take. We're running the project at the moment called Restore the Bay in Melbourne, which is something that I think encapsulates everything I've just talked about, a way for people to take part in something where they can be part of co designing outcomes for our
own neighborhood. And again, I prefer my preference is to jump in the sea and actually see it for myself, and I think those we come to the same conclusions, right. But the thing people really want to know is what action can I take?
Yeah? What action can I take? Hits the book How to Survive the Next one hundred Years. As you speak, I'm getting lots of tickes. What in particular talks about say, keeping bees and those sorts of little things. Have you looked at that are they? I mean, I've said on this program before how important bees. We have no bees, We're all kangaroo edwards pretty much. But do you look at those sorts of things and have young people recognize how special that is for our survival? Yeah?
Possibly, I certainly mention regularly enough. The odds thing I think is that ten years ago not many people had veggie patches in the garden. No, they did not, whereas today, I don't know Tony, your friends and colleagues, but everyone's got a veggie patch today, right, it seems or something. They've grown something in their garden. And I don't find that quite remarkable because it wasn't. It didn't come about through any kind of law, or change has come about
because of something else. And I think that's that kind of mysterious underlying thing that nature does and connects with our brains in ways we really don't understand. But you see a change like that happening and you go, well, how about when did that figure?
But you could say that about to Simon how important it is for people to get at and just enjoy nature in its most basic form, I guess is just having a guard and spending time and connecting with garden.
That's right, and anything and everything we do to look after the place we live immediately around our feet and around our minds, I think is where our focus should be.
More and more, Simon, I hope we talk again. It's simply called how to Survive. I love the title how to Survive the next one hundred years, and that's even before we have children and grandchildren. How to Survive the next one hundred years Lessons from Nature. Simon must thank you for joining us nice and early on a Tuesday morning.
Simon, Thanks Tony, it's been my pleasure.
Good On. Yeah, what a book, how to Survive the Next one hundred years. There's a big thesis just there. You would have thought, have a look at it. It's available from all great bookshops. Of course, it was nice to having live of course, part of Australia Evernight