GUEST POST: John Read on the lessons lockdown has to offer
John Read is used to working remotely, and often in accidental isolation. An ecologist and author, John lives on South Australia’s largest privately managed nature reserve with his wife, children and endangered malleefowl and marsupials.
We asked John to write about his experiences living and working in the most remote parts of Australia, and how things have changed (if at all) as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
John Read is an ecologist and author, passionate about informed and pragmatic approaches to environmental and animal welfare issues. His ecological research has featured in over 120 scientific articles and he sits on a range of scientific advisory groups. He has also published three acclaimed books on topics as diverse as desert ecology, saving an indigenously owned tropical rainforest and cross-cultural attitudes to war.
This Covid hiatus from normality is an experience I treasure.
I’m already struggling with the return of increasingly crowded schedules, school lunches and our one-hour-round-trip drives to the school bus each morning and evening.
Don’t get me wrong. The effect of the disease, particularly on vulnerable people and those without access to optimal healthcare is traumatic, and the burden on health care professionals, educators, leaders and those whose livelihoods have been lost or threatened has been overwhelming. I miss not playing and watching sport, social interaction, and being able to hug my elderly mother.
However, the tautologous ‘self-isolation’ presents few extra challenges for those of us 
living and working in remote Australia. It’s not uncommon to only come in contact with a handful of people a week anyway. Perhaps the biggest changes I’ve had to make are the cancellation of my ecological field work: the planned reptile and mammal surveys and especially the planned translocation of threatened warru (rock wallabies) in the APY Lands.
But the upsides of departing from hectic work plans have been illuminating. I've been enjoying uninterrupted quality time with my girls home from boarding school for a month, planting 250 trees at a restoration site, ticking off those ‘rainy day’ jobs that have been neglected for years, exercising every morning instead of driving hundreds of kilometres, and reading inspiring books that I would have never had time for. I’ve learned so much starting my first interactive blogs (www.johnlread.com), including feedback from nonagenarians on how they coped with and benefited from comparable crises. This hiatus has allowed me to nurture ideas for more creative writing, for ecological research, for conservation innovations. But beyond these tangible improvements, the biggest upsides for me have been philosophical.
Witnessing our political leaders and public responding seriously to advice from medical and scientific experts to curtail a risk hopefully paves the way for a more enlightened, sustainable future. Never before have I seen society forgo social freedoms and absorb financial losses to such an extent for the greater good.
April road-tested a global environmental detox, a month of adherence to more sustainable lifestyles. Observing the environmental benefits of reducing fossil fuel usage and pollution and trials of novel arrangements for work, schooling and medical diagnosis has been inspiring. Typically I’m guiltier than most of cramming my days so no sunrises are wasted, but simply having time for increased reflection, like a non-sectarian Lent or Ramadan, has been an unexpected blessing that I’m keen to continue.
With a week before and after standard school holidays, April wouldn’t be a bad month to reserve for an annual pit stop from the rat race. The weather is great for exercising and exploring and a perfect time between summer and winter sports to visit regional areas and host country shows. I’m already wondering if we could do the same in ‘Covitober’, a great time to start the growth for Movember, just as less work meetings in April could be a great lead into ‘Embrace your grey May’. We could combine other benefits or consequences of less face-to-face meetings and commutes. Teachers could plan their student free days for the first or last days of these months, but otherwise attending workplaces should be discouraged. Working from home a few hours a day, along with reading, writing, imagining, debating, camping and family walks would be encouraged.
A planned slowdown without a health crisis would accommodate social interaction, especially with our elderly and infirm. Imagine though the debates about which sporting, cultural and manufacturing pursuits should be permissible?
Realistically, instead of a month-long hiatus we could hybridise the best aspects of face-to-face and remote access, so we (and our global environment) can enjoy many of these newfound benefits without the dramatic health and economic sacrifices that have been made.
Maybe one day a week our students work from home, another day our public servants, and the next our accountants and lawyers? Wakefield and other publishers and book stores could pick their day off, electrical retailers too – we don’t all need to be ‘working’ and available all the time. Never again will we have to imagine the benefits to traffic congestion, pollution, the stress of better structuring our work.
But clouds with silver linings can also herald a storm. I do now worry about the threat of 
imposed or entrenched xenophobia, our fear of the health risks of interacting with or visiting other cultures. Ironically, forefront in my concerns are the threats to the largest uninhabited island in the South Pacific. Tetepare Island and its virgin rainforest and turtle nesting beaches has been conserved by landowners in return for tangible benefits, including payment that they receive from ecotourists for guides, food, scholarships and carvings.
Like many other conservation projects, especially in developing countries, Tetepare is dependent upon visitors who are inspired by wild places and contribute to their preservation. With travel banned, managers and volunteers repatriated and recently unemployed landowners returning to the provinces, Tetepare is facing renewed pressure from unsustainable harvesting, logging and resettlement that threaten to undermine 20 years of conservation activities. Even countries like the Solomon Islands, with no recorded Covid 19 cases, are suffering right now and need our support as soon as we can.
It might be like calling a footy match at three quarter time when your side is only 2 goals up, but I reckon we’ve pretty much beaten this Covid beast here in Australia because we followed the advice and instructions of our experts.
Of course there will still be more Covid cases, and there will always be risks of other diseases that we need to remain vigilant and prepared for, but again if we train and equip our professionals and frontline health workers we will overcome those threats too. Hopefully we have also been given sufficient insight into the benefits of embracing technology and reducing commuting and unnecessary face-to-face time to usher in a smarter work-life balance so we don’t have to wait for another unplanned emergency, with all the anxiety and pain they bring, to enjoy these quiet times again.