I have two fathers.

My dad, Dr. K. Alan Longman, wrote a book called “Tropical Forest and its Environment” (Longman and Jenik 1974).  In it, my Dad laid out two ways of looking at tropical forest:

1. As a collection of discreet individual trees - the European forestry model, which my dad and his co-author Jan Jenik had been schooled in for many of their formative years at university.
2. As “an outstanding example of a complex biocoenosis” (an ecological community) - the Sarawak durian farmer’s model expounded by my father-in-law Encik Satom anak Sinawud who has been “enriching” the Sarawak forest with Durian trees (Durio zibethynus) all his life.

My dad - Dr. K. Alan Longman

My father-in-law, Encik Satom anak Sinawud

The first model employs a classical analytical approach.  Break the forest down into its individual parts, the trees, the leaves, the stomata, the cells, the molecules, the atoms.  It assumes that the forest can best be described by describing all its individual components separately.  My Dad got his PhD in Forestry by doing exactly that.

The second model seeks to understand the forest as an integrated system of components all interdependent on one another.  It assumes that the forest can best be described by describing all its individual components together.  My Father-in-law the Durian farmer was very successful in understanding that in order to farm the forest, he had to be part of that integrated system too.

It is the same for people. The second model also describes how we as individual people are inseparable from the larger integrated system; the family, the larger community of our neighbours, our home, landmarks which are somehow part of us, our environment, particularly the garden environment.

There was a very good reason why in the beginning God placed Adam and Eve in a garden (Genesis 2:8), and not in a home, not in a house.  The integrated system of a garden is essential for life.  Our life.  A garden supports our life in three main ways:

• A sensory connection with nature:
• The feeling of earth on our hands
• The early morning smell of rain upon fresh vegetation
• The sight of colourful flowers, leaf shapes, textures
• The wonderful taste of home-grown (garden grown) foood
• The sound of trees swaying in the wind
• A space to call our own (”my patch”)
• Ownership, responsibility and respect are nurtured
• We are free to choose what to grow, our “signature”, our “graffiti”
• We meet other people and build friendships and a community integration
• It provides growth and a sense of achievement
• Our garden evolves; we realize the whole of creation is evolving
• We see changes, variety, interesting things “appear” in the garden
• There is unpredictability, so we learn adaptability, and grow

I am glad I have had two fathers, and very glad that they both were shining models for me of how to approach the tropical forest in a way so as to encourage a better understanding of its complex integrated systems. 

The tropical forest is first and foremost a garden.  God’s garden.

Simon John Longman