文／賴怡辰
科學社群平台Research Gate上有這麼一個討論串：人類移民到某個國家，經過一段時間就可成為該國公民。那麼，要到什麼階段，歸化（naturalized）的外來種（alien species）才會被在納為原生種（native species）（At What Stage Can a Naturalized/Established Plant Species Be Classified as a Native Species?, n.d.）？在愛爾蘭，一千五百年是動物成為原生種的分界點，但也有人認為，如果一個物種追溯得到引入的時間，則依照定義，它永遠都是外來種。然而，「原生」、「外來」這種以地方歸屬為理解基礎的用語，很多時候也被當權者用作排他以確立自身的歸屬正當性的手段。澳洲政府便是使用1788年英國人登陸雪梨，開始在當地殖民的時間點作為區分原生種與外來種的參照。（Gorman, 2014, p. 284）
致力於保育生物學（Conservation biology）以及生態復育的科學家認為，追溯物種的身分在復育實作上有其重要性。而針對「原生」概念備受批評的「外來恐懼（Xenophobes）」元素，他們也特別提到，對人為引入物種趕盡殺絕的保育方法是該領域中邊緣的極少數
（Richardson et al., 2008）。雖然如此，但「入侵」話語快、狠，結合社會已存在對「原生」與「外來」的想像和情緒，把「生物多樣性消減」這實際上由複雜成因牽絆構成的事件簡單化，成為得以付諸「對抗」或「消滅」行動的敘事方法（Lidström et al., 2015）。讓原生種、外來種、入侵種等詞彙在政策及大眾媒體上扮演著重要的角色，進一步塑造大眾對物種遷徙和自然環境的想像，甚至回過頭來成為人們解讀社會組成的視角（Forchtner, 2020b）。在政策與大眾媒體的宣導下，外來種被塑造成一個個隨時會暴走、佔領的特洛伊木馬，威脅著「本土生態」。而與外來種一樣，被建立在地方歸屬上的話語歸類為外來的移民們，在某些人眼中也在「不自然、不屬於」的定義下被視為破壞社會和諧的汙染物。
視覺藝術家多明尼哥‧曼加諾（Domenico Mangano）與藝術史家瑪莉‧馮‧羅伊（Marieke van Rooy）合作的短片《歸化牡蠣》（Oysters for Naturalization）便利用這種外來種與移民的類比，反過來引導觀者反省「原生」概念的有限性、並諷刺奠基在原生概念之上，排外的荷蘭族群融合政策。在這支短片中，藝術家改編申請荷蘭入籍時必需通過的「融入測驗」（Civic Integration Examination）的試券，去審查荷蘭瓦登（Wadden）海岸的日本蚵。測驗是一連串的選擇題，要這些（已經棲居在荷蘭海岸幾十年的）日本蚵們選出，在不同情境中對待周邊動植物的正確方式。其中一道題目是：「政府在你住的地方引進很久之前曾經掌管這個區域的本土物種，你會？一、與家人共謀，壓制他們；二、什麼都不做。他們有回歸的權利；三、對他們下馬威。」標準答案顯而易見，而政府以原生之名，鞏固當權者土地權利的企圖也顯而易見。觀眾同時聽見的是，一個日本蚵說著：「聽說他們覺得這裡太多我們日本蚵了，覺得我們霸佔了這個地方…但是，怎麼才能算是『從這裡來的』？我們的祖先的確從很遠的地方來，但我們已經在這裡活了幾十年，不曾離開。」
這件作品的靈感來自一個事件上的巧合，映照出荷蘭政府以原生之姿對外來種及移民態度上的相似。1970年代初期，荷蘭蚵農引進日本蚵以因應當季荷蘭蚵產量不足的問題。計畫中，日本蚵在寒冷的環境中，生長勢弱，若無特地照料，不久後會自己消失。沒料到的是，計畫趕不上（氣候?）變化，日本蚵不但在荷蘭海域適應良好，甚至往北邊擴張。同時期，荷蘭及其他歐洲國家政府開始從土耳其及摩洛哥引進勞工，而這些像日本蚵一樣，被認定「會離開」的經濟移民們，也像日本蚵一樣待了下來。現在荷蘭海岸上，日本蚵已經取代了荷蘭蚵。但就像片中的試題暗示的，近年來，荷蘭政府開始嘗試復育荷蘭蚵，要恢復「荷蘭的」生態。
原生種概念假設了停留在某個時空下的、恆常不變的「正統的」生態系統 （Charles R. Warren, 2007; Davis et al., 2011）。而像這樣視穩定為自然狀態的世界觀所提供對國家及其領土的想像，正是歐洲激進右翼（radical right）排斥移民及外來種的原因。研究歐洲激進右翼環境溝通的學者伯納·佛克那（Bernhard Forchtner） 表示，對激進右翼來說，生態系內的多樣生物們細膩的組織成相對穩定的單位。一國國境內的生態系統裡的動植物等各種生物，構成完美的平衡，因此，無論移除或引入任何生物都會威脅到這些生態系的生物多樣性及平衡。因此，相對於變動、流轉，國家的生態系需要被維持與保護（Forchtner, n.d.） 他們的生態觀強調國土之上的動植物與國家、家園的緊密聯結。國土環境孕育子民、提供社會結構基礎，一草一木及自然的運行，都有其社會上的象徵意義 （Forchtner, 2020 p.15）。如此一來，土地、生態系、與文化、國民緊緊相連，形成穩定的平衡，土生土長，成就一個種族及國家的特殊性。自然的，所有外來者、外來種的進入，都將干擾這個平衡，用「他們外來的」基因及文化來汙染、甚或進一步消滅「我們原生的」、特有的文化及種族。生物、人種、與土地緊緊相連的世界觀，讓許多人推論出「應該」與「不應該」出現在某塊土地上的人或物種。而正是在這樣的邏輯之下，「復育自然」成為用來作為驅逐「不屬於」這塊土地的他者，自然而然的手段。
由研究者及平面設計師漢娜‧魯爾曼（Hanna Rullmann）和與紀錄片導演費沙‧阿曼‧勘 （Faiza Ahmad Khan）合作的短片《棲地2190》透過記錄法國加萊（Calais）綠堡自然保留區（Fort Vert）的建成，展示想像出的自然環境如何被用來作為鞏固國家邊界的武器，審視移動、權利、以及人與非人生命的共存。
加萊位於法國北部大西洋海濱，是法國本土距離英國最近的城市之一。因此，許多企圖透過加萊港或英法海底隧道非法進入英國的人們，聚集到這個城市，在一些無人的空地上紮營，等待機會。這些大大小小的營地被稱為「加萊叢林」（Jungle de Calais），其中最大的「叢林」位在一塊原是垃圾處理場的土地上，來來去去，住著八千甚至一萬多個冒著生命危險要前往英國的人。2016年10月24日，法國政府強拆營區，26日宣布完成清除營地，緊接著在2017年春天，開始在這塊清空的營地上建造自然保留區，並計畫引回曾在當地出現的瀕危物種，恢復原本自然的樣貌。基地用圍籬圍起，禁止任人類進入以免干擾「自然化」的過程；在景觀規劃上，除了圍籬，基地外緣更將設置大型湖泊、溝渠及高聳的砂丘，「顯然就是要阻擋未來難民在此再次紮營。」
整部短片交織兩條視覺敘事描繪出這國界上的景觀。片中所有拍攝保留區的片段，都是從它邊上的一個觀察站所拍攝。這個主要是鳥友在使用的觀察站，也是民眾現在唯一能接觸這個保留區的地方（Khan et al., 2020）民眾從這個安排好的視角望去，將看見少了人類干擾的基地上「自然」回來了。但這樣設計下的「看見」卻掩蓋了更多的「看不見」。
那些看不見的，正是另一條敘事線的焦點，探問「原生」概念的有限性及其可能暗示的政治企圖——「哪一個時間點的生物組成，是『原生』的自然環境？」為將土地恢復成當地「原本」的樣貌，保育工作者找出一世紀前的古地圖，試圖重新建造從前的地景，並移走二十公分的表土，把七十年前當地的種子群從休眠中喚回世間。當然，懷舊工程更包含移走所有的後來種／外來種—難民們在當地紮營時種下的洋蔥，讓棲地得以還給「原生的」、「自然的」物種。我們不難發覺，這個計畫裡要回復的自然，是幻想中的歷史狀態，一個沒有外來者的地景、一個封閉的生態系。影片裡，自然在科學及法律文件中被歸類、立法而成為政治工具。環境政策、瀕危物種保護計畫、物種分類學，透過抽象化、建界及商品化等等一連傳的過程，構築了國家的地景。
地球上的人類等物種，本就不停的移動著。隨著交通運輸日益便捷及貿易活動等等交流的加速，生物在移動的速度及數量上，更不斷達到前所未有的尺度。物種（包括人類）移動離開不適的環境尋找條件較佳的棲息地、或幸運的在「異地」繁茂壯大，是氣候變遷、棲地干擾、政治經濟及社會結構變動以及全球化下的徵狀，卻反而成為眾矢之的，成為多元文化或生物多樣性消逝、自然棲地變遷、破壞等等改變的罪魁禍首而被仇視、打壓或消滅。
攝影師渡邊耕一（Koichi Watanabe）的作品《移動的植物》（Moving Plants），便為在歐美最有名的入侵種之一「日本虎杖」（Fallopia japonica）在歐洲、美洲各大城市開枝展葉的模樣留下紀錄，提供仇恨之外，看待入侵種的可能角度。日本虎杖是荷蘭東印度公司派駐日本的德籍植物學家菲利普‧法蘭茲‧馮‧西博德（Philipp Franz von Siebold）從日本引入歐洲的植物之一，搭上帝國擴張熱潮，民眾對外來植物的偏好，成為當時受歡迎的景觀造園植物。因此，透過種苗交易、刻意栽植，加上物種本身在溫帶氣候適應良好、以及其堅強的生命力及繁殖方式，日本虎杖很快地就溢出人們栽植的範圍，在歐洲及北美，特別是在城市及廢棄的工業區，穿破水泥擴散開來。當然，其強而有力的地下莖，也破壞了許多道路、橋梁等都市建設，成為讓許多國家頭痛的入侵種。渡邊耕一用了十幾年，循著日本虎杖的移動路線，在歐美城市裡拍下虎杖在各個地景中存在的姿態。照片中的虎杖安穩沉靜，是帝國擴張、工業化、都市化、棲地干擾等等歷史及環境元素累積而成的體現，無好無壞，從城市的角落裡擴散開來。如人類學家安清（Anna Tsing）在回應這系列攝影作品的文章中寫道，文明地景在日本虎杖的移動之下顯得不合時宜，「植物會移動，不動的是我們。一個僵化、拒絕移動的世界，正是城市裡的建築物和道路在虎杖面前顯得如此脆弱的原因。」（Thorsen, n.d.）
「世界上唯一不變事物的就是變動」這句話，在地表環境劇烈變遷的現在，是當下的現實更是可見的未來。緊抓著理想中某一歷史片段的「原生」，並將他者視為毀滅此夢土的罪魁禍首，是最方便卻也最虛幻的做法。想像力無法或不願面對變動的環境，將造成的是更多的殺謬及壓迫。
本文獲國家文化藝術基金會、文新藝術基金會贊助現象書寫–視覺藝評專案支持
English Version
A discussion thread on Research Gate, a scientific community platform, has been focusing on how immigrants can be neutralized in the country after a period of time. At what stage can a naturalized/established plant species be Classified as a Native Species? as a Native Species?, n.d.)? In Ireland, 1500 years is the cut-off point for an animal to become a native species, but it has also been argued that if a species has been introduced retrospectively, it will always be an exotic species by definition. However, the terms "native" and "exotic", which are understood on the basis of local affiliation, are often used by those in power as a means of exclusion to establish the legitimacy of their own affiliation. The Australian government uses the 1788 landing of the British in Sydney and the beginning of their colonization of the region as a reference to distinguish between native and exotic species. (Gorman, 2014, p. 284)
Scientists working in conservation biology and ecological restoration believe that tracing the identity of species is important in restoration practices. In response to the much-criticized "Xenophobes" element of the "native" concept, they have also highlighted the fact that conservation methods that drive out artificially introduced species are a marginal minority in the field (Richardson et al., 2008). Nonetheless, the 'invasion' discourse is fast and furious, combining socially existing imaginaries and emotions about 'native' and 'exotic' species, and simplifying the actual event of 'biodiversity decline', which is tied to complex causes, into a narrative that allows for 'confrontation' or 'extermination' (Lidström et al., 2015). The terms native, alien, and invasive species have been allowed to play an important role in policy and mass media, further shaping the public's imagination of species migration and the natural environment, and even in turn becoming the lens through which people interpret the composition of society (Forchtner, 2020b).
Under the propaganda of policy and mass media, exotic species are portrayed as Trojan horses that are ready to storm and take over, threatening the "native ecology". Like aliens, immigrants, categorized as foreigners by a discourse based on local affiliation, are seen by some as pollutants that disrupt social harmony under the definition of "unnatural and unbelonging.”
The short film Oysters for Naturalization, a collaboration between visual artist Domenico Mangano and art historian Marieke van Rooy, uses this analogy between alien and immigrant species to in turn lead the viewer to reflect on the limited nature of the concept of "native" and to satirize the xenophobic Dutch integration policies based on the concept of native origin. It also satirizes the xenophobic Dutch integration policy based on the concept of "native". In this short film, the artist adapts the Civic Integration Examination, a test that must be passed in order to apply for Dutch citizenship, to examine Japanese oysters on the Dutch coast of Wadden. The test is a series of multiple-choice questions in which the Japanese oysters (who have inhabited the Dutch coast for decades) are asked to choose the correct way to treat the surrounding flora and fauna in different situations. One of the questions was: "What would you do if the government introduced a native species to your area that used to run the area a long time ago? One, conspire with your family to suppress them; two, do nothing. They have the right to return; or, three, you'd give them a hard time. The standard answer is obvious, as is the government's attempt to consolidate the land rights of those in power in the name of nativism. The audience also heard a Japanese oyster say, "I heard that they think there are too many of us Japanese oysters here, that we are taking over the place...but how can we be considered 'from here'? Our ancestors did come from far away, but we have lived here for decades and never left.
Inspired by an eventful coincidence, this work reflects the similarity of the Dutch government's native attitude towards foreign species and immigrants when in the early 1970s oyster farmers in the Netherlands introduced Japanese oysters in response to a shortage of Dutch oysters in season. The plan was that the Japanese oysters would grow weakly in the cold and would soon disappear on their own without special care. But the plan failed to catch up with (climate?) change. The Japanese oysters have not only adapted well to the Dutch waters but have even expanded northward. At the same time, the Dutch and other European governments began to bring in labourers from Turkey and Morocco, and these economic migrants, who, like the Japanese oysters, were thought to be "leaving," stayed just like the Japanese oysters. Now the Japanese oysters have replaced the Dutch oysters on the Dutch coast. But as the title of the film suggests, in recent years, the Dutch government has started to try to rehabilitate the oysters in order to restore the "Dutch" ecology.
The concept of autochthonous species assumes a constant, "orthodox" ecosystem stuck in a certain space and time (Charles R. Warren, 2007; Davis et al., 2011). Such a worldview of stability as a state of nature provides an imaginary of the state and its territory that explains the radical right's rejection of immigrants and foreigners in Europe. According to Bernhard Forchtner, a scholar of environmental communication on the radical right in Europe, for the radical right, the diversity of organisms within an ecosystem is finely organized into relatively stable units. The various species of plants and animals in an ecosystem within a country's borders form a perfect balance, so that the removal or introduction of any species would threaten the biodiversity and balance of these ecosystems. Therefore, the ecosystem of the country needs to be maintained and protected as opposed to changing and rotating (Forchtner, n.d.) Their ecological view emphasizes the close connection between the flora and fauna of the country and the country and the home. The national environment nurtures the people and provides the basis for the social structure, and every plant and tree, as well as the workings of nature, has its own social symbolism (Forchtner, 2020 p. 15). In this way, the land, the ecosystem, and the culture and people are closely linked, forming a stable equilibrium that is native to the land and the country, making it unique. Naturally, the entry of all foreigners and foreign races will interfere with this balance, contaminating or even further eliminating "our native" and unique culture and race with "their foreign" genes and culture. The worldview of biology, ethnology, and land is so closely intertwined that many people infer what "should" and "shouldn't" be on a particular land or species. It is in this logic that "restoration of nature" becomes a natural means of expelling others who "do not belong" to the land.
The short film Habitat 2190, by researcher and graphic designer Hanna Rullmann and documentary filmmaker Faiza Ahmad Khan, documents the construction of the Fort Vert nature reserve in Calais, France, showing how the imagined natural environment is used as a weapon to strengthen the borders of the state, examining movement, rights, and the coexistence of human and non-human life.
Located on the Atlantic coast of northern France, Calais is one of the closest cities on the French mainland to the United Kingdom. As a result, many people attempting to enter the UK illegally through the port of Calais or the Franco-British Crossing have gathered in the city and camped in unoccupied open spaces, waiting for their chance. The largest of these camps, known as the Jungle de Calais, is located on a former garbage dump and is home to more than 8,000, if not 10,000, people risking their lives to get to the UK. In the spring of 2017, the construction of a nature reserve on the cleared site began, with plans to bring back endangered species that had been present in the area and restore it to its original natural state. The site is fenced off, prohibiting humans from entering the site so as not to interfere with the "naturalization" process; in terms of landscape planning, in addition to the fence, large lakes, ditches and towering sand dunes will be installed at the outer edge of the site, "obviously to deter future refugees from setting up camp here again.
The entire film interweaves two visual narratives to depict the landscape on the border. All of the footage of the reserve was taken from an observatory on its edge. This observatory, used primarily by birders, is the only place where people can now access the reserve (Khan et al., 2020) and from this arranged viewpoint, people will see the "natural" return of the base without human interference. But the "seeing" of this design obscures the more "unseen".
What cannot be seen is the focus of another narrative line that asks about the limited nature of the concept of "primordial" and the political intentions it may imply - "What is the biological composition of the 'primordial' natural environment at what point in time? In an attempt to restore the land to its "original" appearance, conservationists have identified ancient maps from a century ago, attempted to reconstruct the former landscape, and removed twenty centimeters of topsoil to bring the local seed population back from its dormancy seventy years ago. Of course, the nostalgia project also includes the removal of all the later/exotic species - the onions planted by the refugees during their camping trips - so that the habitat can be returned to its "native", "natural" species. It is easy to see that the nature to be restored in this project is a fantasy of a historical state, a landscape without outsiders, a closed ecosystem. In the film, nature is categorized and legislated as a political tool in scientific and legal documents. Environmental policies, endangered species protection programs, taxonomy of species, through a series of processes of abstraction, boundary building and commercialization, construct the national landscape.
Human species on earth are constantly on the move. With the increasing ease of transportation and the acceleration of trade and other exchanges, the speed and number of organisms moving has reached unprecedented proportions. The movement of species (including human beings) away from unsuitable environments in search of better habitats, or fortunately flourishing in "foreign lands", is a symptom of climate change, habitat disturbance, political, economic and social structural changes, and globalization, but has become the target of all, becoming the culprit of changes such as the disappearance of multiculturalism or biodiversity, the change of natural habitats, and destruction, and being hated, suppressed, or extinguished.
Photographer Koichi Watanabe's work "Moving Plants" is a record of one of the most famous invasive species in Europe and America, Fallopia japonica, as it spreads its leaves in major cities in Europe and America, offering a possible perspective on invasive species beyond hatred. Fallopia japonica was one of the plants introduced to Europe from Japan by Philipp Franz von Siebold, a German botanist stationed in Japan by the Dutch East India Company, and it became a popular landscape plant at that time because of God's expansion boom and the public's preference for foreign plants. As a result, through the seedling trade, deliberate planting, and the species' own good adaptation to temperate climates, as well as its robustness and propagation, the Japanese tiger stick soon spread out of the planting area, breaking through the concrete in Europe and North America, especially in urban and abandoned industrial areas. Of course, its powerful underground stems have also damaged many roads, bridges and other urban structures, making it an invasive species that has caused headaches in many countries. Koichi Watanabe has spent more than ten years following the path of the Japanese tiger stick, photographing its presence in various landscapes in European and American cities. The tiger sticks in these photographs are a quiet and serene manifestation of historical and environmental elements such as imperial expansion, industrialization, urbanization, and habitat disturbance, all of which spread from the corners of the cities. As anthropologist Anna Tsing writes in her essay in response to this series of photographs, the civilized landscape appears anachronistic in the light of the movement of the Japanese tiger stick: "Plants move, we do not. A world that is rigid and refuses to move is the reason why buildings and roads in the city appear so vulnerable to the tiger stick. (Thorsen, n.d.)
The phrase "the only thing that remains constant in the world is change" is a present reality and a visible future in the present, when the surface environment is changing dramatically. It is most convenient and illusory to cling to the "original" of an ideal historical fragment and to see the other as the culprit of the destruction of this dreamland. The inability or unwillingness of the imagination to confront the changing environment will result in more murder and oppression.
References
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