Love and vision: the story of Kathleen McArthur's care for wallum country

Abstract: In Wild Dog Dreaming, published in 2011, Deborah Bird Rose writes about 'Anthropogenic extinction' as 'a fact of death that is growing exponentially.' She notes that 'we are entering an era of loss of life unprecedented in human history' and states that '[t]he question, of course, is: if we humans are the cause, can we change ourselves enough to change our impacts?' (2) Rose moves on to quote Michael Soule's observation that '[p]eople save what they love', and asks with him, '[a]re humans capable of loving, and therefore of caring for, the animals and plants that are currently losing their lives in a growing cascade of extinctions?' She follows this question up with another, more imperative one, '[h]ow [are we] to invigorate love and action in ways that are generous, knowledgeable, and life-affirming?' (2) In interview three years later, Rose reiterates this view, urging her audience to take this moment, this challenge of the Anthropocene, 'to enhance our capacity for love, for care, for keeping faith with earth, keeping faith with life.'