Walking as an Ecological Practice

This paper explores walking as an ecological practice that addresses the land sickness caused by the new climatic regime of the Anthropocene. Building on walking as an aesthetic practice, we propose that walking can contribute with deeper knowledge about emerging landscapes and support the reestablishment of relationships with a world in environmental crisis. Walking as an ecological practice bridges ethics and aesthetics, offering a means to reorient ourselves in unhomely landscapes and redefine our relationship with a natural world that increasingly feels unnatural. The paper introduces the concept of "watershed walks", emphasising the role of water systems in shaping landscapes and highlighting walking as a tool for understanding territorial transformations. By presenting four watershed walks, we aim to demonstrate the potential of walking as an ecological practice in landscape studies, fostering a deeper understanding of unfamiliar landscapes and laying the groundwork for future design responses to them. We argue that walking fosters sensory engagement, enabling a rediscovery of landscapes rendered unfamiliar by the Anthropocene. However, we also highlight the challenge of representing the knowledge gained through walking and call for new methods of documentation and representation.