I have always attempted to interpret ecological phenomena from the point of view of theatre and performance. My impression about the ecological narrative is always shaped by theatricality, not being a scientist and expert on the subject. Those who study ecology adopt a holistic point of view very interestingly. That means the various phenomena related to climate change, fast erosion of the forest covers, the tumultuous deluges that flaunt the ecological calendar and wash away houses, farms and roads in what may be known as the wrong seasons, the melting of the snows from the Himalayas causing panic, the late fruits and flowers, physical manifestations of all those disorders all form a structure that is holistic. The greatest ecological disaster is this cumulative phenomenon.

I watched the opening of the ‘World Leaders Summit during the 26th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’ in Glasgow, UK, on November 1, trying to establish the relationship between threats and reality, promises and fulfilments. Among others, I heard David Attenborough, 95, delivering his address, which was a mixture of apocalypse and hope. I also heard the Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba promising, “Nepal aims to reach a net-zero emission by 2045” and ensuring “that 15 percent of our total energy demand is supplied from clean energy sources and maintain 45 percent of our country under forest cover by 2030.”

Each phenomenon stands out clearly, but by the same token, together, they form a structure called ecological imbalance. In ecology, there is always a balance of imbalances when it goes wrong. You go on adding even small indicators as part of the totality. A visiting guest, a scientist and environmentalist writer and active worker from Goa named Dr Nandini Velho, who works in the wilds of Assam, recently alarmed me by asking about the flower plants growing wild for some years in my neighbourhood. She asked, “How long has this Lantana Camara been growing here?” I said, “It came from nowhere and has taken over this entire area.” Then she told the story about this plant from Central and South America in 1848 and is one of the world’s invasive species. She surprised me by saying, “Lantana Camara is among the 100 of the world’s worst invasive species.” She added, “Globalisation and climate change will likely increase the threat posed by invasive plants to high-elevation biodiversity”. I never knew that even plants could contribute to ecological disasters.

Deuba spelt out the nature of the ecological disaster by evoking the threat posed by the receding glaciers and melting snow in the Himalayan region. His warning about the loss of ecology and human lives rang true in the ears of those of us who have just experienced that. Deuba, who warned, “Around 80 percent of Nepal’s population is at risk from natural and climate-induced hazards”, is the prime minister of that country; he will have to show in action how he and his politically bickering parties tackle that problem. With the responsible agencies in Nepal like the administration, judiciary, political parties and other institutions embroiled in uncanny power struggles, we are not in a position to predict how they will solve the problem or at least take the necessary first steps.

I would regard the ecological disaster as being akin to theatre. As Attenborough indicated in his opening address, humankind should act with the deep-seated belief that they can tackle the problem by turning the apocalyptic imagination into one of hope and creativity. We, too in theatre, believe that the disaster should be metamorphosed into performative art.

To highlight the above holistic ecological shape from the point of view of dramatic performance, I want to allude to the words of Robert Brustein, a playwright, adaptor, director, actor, teacher and critic and academic at Harvard and Yale universities that occur in his book Letters to a Young Actor. He says, “And people may well ask why, with so much terrorism in the world, anyone would want to see more terror on the stage. The answer is, of course, that the actor makes these terrifying stories transcendent, partly by making them understandable, partly by leaving the terror with pity.” The only option left to the people or actors of the world is to make the ‘terrifying stories’ comprehensible, to see how we can keep the world temperature at 1.5 degrees Celsius. That involves, as I said earlier, holistic efforts.

Not being an expert on the science of ecology, I take recourse to the arguments about its use and impact on art—in theatre, poetry and creative works in general. The most potent example of how the terror of nature can be metamorphosed into art and staged in life can be seen in the Newar performance of art and culture of the Nepal Mandala. Nearly each of the festivals is an example of turning calamitous mode into art. The festivals of rain, harvest, harsh seasons, calamity and celebration all show how the savvy farm culture of the Newars had found a solution to work out the balance. We in the world today have only one option left, which is to turn the calamity into art, which means not to make it worse, but to bring it within your human approach so that you can feel, touch and understand it in its totality. A critical impact of that will be to acquire the power to work by the elements of integration, not disintegration and differences.

I want to close by recalling one experience. I received an invitation out of the blue, as it were, from the Zoological Society of London to deliver a Keynote address at the Nepal Year of Conservation 2009 UK Celebration on November 24, 2009. The seminar attended by the British and Nepali scholars and performance artists was a significant event. Not being a scientist working with data, I took recourse to my theatrical and, as I said earlier, artistic experience and presented my views about the question of conservation. Using the holistic concept, I noted how we humans in Nepal breach the great covenant that we have made and maintained between the animals, birds, forests and us. That breach is at the core of our problem. The gradual erosion of trust has landed us in a difficult situation that we are facing today.

The ecological drama has a global character. But we all are part of the drama. Working towards restoring the trust and honouring the covenant made with nature and all the sentient beings is the main mantra of the survival drama that, to cite. Attenborough, again, can be accomplished with love and trust.