The idea of reciprocity and, within that, responsibility makes particular sense in the context of practices which can easily be characterised as stewardship of nature, such as gardening and
beekeeping. The Natural Beekeeping Trust, for example, emphasises the need to find a more appropriate balance between what we take and what we give:
Our aim is to be a key contributor to new directions in apiculture by developing bee- centred, treatment-free, beekeeping. Featured in many national and foreign
media, our approach is one of "giving to the bees" as opposed to "taking from the bees". This is a necessary and appropriate response to the situation in which honey bees, and all pollinators, find themselves today.19
A similar pattern is apparent in gardening literature, where the interest of the gardener in the success of plants can be taken for granted. Note the focus in the excerpts on providing food for pollinators (see Figure 11) – as opposed to a focus, typical in public campaigns to raise awareness of pollinators (see §3.1.1) on pollinators providing food for us.
19http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org, accessed 28/5/2016
Figure 11: Providing food for pollinators (http://www.gardenersworld.com; BBC Gardener’s World Episode 10, 2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes /b05vrghl)
69
For some of our participants too, the combination of feelings of concern with a sense of responsibility served as a spur to take action to reverse at least a little of the harm that mankind has done to the planet.
The world is a well-oiled machine but it is broken and I want to do something to put it right.
I wanted to give diversity back to the place. Pollinators complete the world I have made. It won’t work without them.
Moreover, reflection on the interconnectedness of the whole in which both humans and pollinators participate can strengthen the very resolve which it occasions, as it implies that even small actions may have large consequences.
Because it’s a chain reaction, isn’t it, so I mean, we need the bees for pollinating and, you know, keep the trees going and everything. Butterflies do the pollinating as well so then it’s just a chain reaction. So if I provide a few wild flowers, keep the bees happy, they keep, you know, other plants happy, as in pollinating, they will keep other animals happy because they’re their prey, so it all… it’s a bigger picture, sort of. It might just be a little thing but it progresses into more, if that makes sense.
A lot of the time we feel powerless, passive. So if you can do a little thing you get a little bit of power […] not all doom and gloom.
Seeing things from this perspective may also highlight the fact that, sometimes, our responsibility is to do less rather than more – to leave space for wildlife, allow natural processes to take their course, find a better balance between the needs of humans and the needs of nature. For a number of participants, for example, it was reflections of this kind that underpinned a preference for a more informal style of garden, including wilder areas.
I think that's what's important, is to be able to have some kind of equilibrium [in a garden]. Between the wildlife and the plants growing and the people that have to be in it.
It's quite nice just to let it go and let nature take its course, I guess, because, you know, humans have taken vast amounts from nature.
[Talking about a very formal garden] It feels wrong somehow, because, you know, like, you think of nature being quite, sort of, free and organic, and to, kind of, rein it in like that doesn’t feel quite right.
It is easy to see a fashion for wilder planting as an indication of changing aesthetic preferences. In fact, however, as some of our participants made clear, there is a strong ethical dimension at play here, an expression of a resolve to play a more responsible role as part of nature.
Would you think it's attractive? I don’t know if people do it because it's attractive necessarily. […] I don’t know that they’d see that kind of, you know, overgrown compost heap, essentially, as attractive, but they would see it as important. […] I think it's important for, you know, the diversity of the wildlife, you know.
I think it’s partly aesthetic, but it’s also… it’s, kind of, almost an ethical thing, as well, I think. It’s this idea that, you know, maybe man doesn’t have to restrict… you know, it makes me feel a little bit uneasy the way that, sort of, like, you know, that you would… you would actually, you know, corrupt nature into some kind of geometric shape, you know, when it’s not really supposed to be like that. So I suppose, yes, I mean, it’s a little bit more than just aesthetic, you know, it’s quite a… it’s quite an ethical thing as well, I think.