Build An ARK

The Story of the birth of the Ark. One fine morning last year, I was sitting at my desk, designing a garden, when a fox ran across the garden in front of my window, into a patch of brambles. Quickly after the fox, two hares followed in pursuit and soon a little hedgehog scuttle along after them. All these creatures were running away from something, and it was like the reverse of the Ark stories I had heard as a kid. When I went to investigate, what was happening, it turned out that the neighboring field across the road was being cleared by a digger. A house was being built at the top of the field and the owners had gone in and cleared out years of growth, communities of native plants that were a home for many families, wiped out in an instant. This cleared ecosystem across the road was to be replaced with a pretty, fashionable mixture of non- native plants that would support little life and give little sanctuary. I immediately realized I had done the same thing myself many times over. At that moment, ‘We are the Ark’ was born. • Mary Reynolds, Ireland 2019.