Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist and architect who lived and worked during the greater part of the twentieth century. While he is nowhere near as famous as a Warhol or a Picasso (unjustifiably so, in my humble opinion), most people with at least a passing interest in art have at some point likely stumbled across photos of his fascinating buildings, such as the Hundertwasser House in Vienna.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser had strong feelings about nature and humankind’s place within nature. Rather than try to usurp or control the natural flows and contours of the environment, he believed that humans should strive to change our behaviors so that our interactions are guided by these natural flows.
In his short essay, There Are No Evils In Nature. There Are Only Evils Of Man., Hundertwasser lays out in brief detail exactly what his views are regarding the role humanity should play in its interactions with nature. In a few short words, Hundertwasser eviscerates the largely held Cartesian view that nature is nothing but a ball of wax that humans should mold according to their needs. The complete text of that essay can be found here on the official Hundertwasser site. Or, for my readers’ convenience, I will post it below.
Correcting a stream only has evil effects, which are expensive in the end: the lowering of water tables, the destruction of forests, the transformation of large areas into steppes, no regeneration of the water, which runs off too fast.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser, “There Are No Evils in Nature.
There Are Only Evils of Man.”
There Are No Evils in Nature.
There Are Only Evils of Man.
When man thinks he has to correct nature, it is an irreparable mistake every time.
A community should not consider it an honour how much spontaneous vegetation it destroys; it should rather be a point of honour for every community to protect as much of its natural landscape as possible.
The brook, the river, the swamp, the riverside wetlands as they are, the way God created them, must be sacred and inviolable to us.
Correcting a stream only has evil effects, which are expensive in the end: the lowering of water tables, the destruction of forests, the transformation of large areas into steppes, no regeneration of the water, which runs off too fast. The river wetlands can no longer fulfill their sponge-like function: the absorption of excess water and slow feedback in dry spells, like a good piggy bank in times of emergency.
The regulated brook becomes a sewer. Fish die, and there are no fish in the brook because they cannot swim through the regulated channel. Floods, with all their devastating consequences, all the more after regulation. Because too much water runs off too quickly, converging in great quantity without any chance of being absorbed by the earth and the vegetation.
Only a stream with a high waterline flowing irregularly can produce pure water, regulate the water household and conserve the fish and animal populations to the benefit of man and his agriculture.
Now, almost too late, this age-old adage is being recognised and the courses of rivers and streams, which had been straightened in concrete channels, are being destroyed in order to restore the previous irregular state. What irony!
So why regulate a stream if you have to deregulate it afterwards?
Hundertwasser, May, 1990