Opinion
Here you can read essays I wrote entitled Optimism for the
Future and Well Being Naturally.
Optimism
for the Future
(Keynote address at Opening of the Brant Festival, Parksville,
BC March 5, 2011)
by Rob Butler
When in 1842, James Douglas set foot on the shores of what would
later be known as Victoria he exclaimed that he had landed in “a
perfect Eden,” and “one might be pardoned for supposing it had
dropped from the clouds.” Indeed, looking at British Columbia we
might think that we too had landed in a perfect Eden. The
ancient rainforest, an ocean with whales and seabirds on our
doorstep, deserts and alpine meadows, and grasslands all hearken
to a land rich in nature. The plight of nature on Earth seems so
far away.
If we look at British Columbia in a North American context, we
are indeed fortunate. Many of the large mammals have retreated
from their former range in North America. The same can be said
for Europe, Africa and Asia. The stronghold for many North
American big animals has moved north and west to British
Columbia.
We pose a great threat to nature on Earth. The human population
surpassed 7 billion people in 2010 and it is predicted to grow
for another 40 years or so. However, humanity is enjoying the
best of times. We are living longer and healthier lives. We are
wealthier and our children are more likely to survive to
adulthood. Where it took 250,000 years to reach the first
billion, it has taken only 12 years to reach 6 billion. But at
current rates, it will take 14 years to reach 8 billion and more
than 20 years to reach 9 billion when the population should
level. In other words, the growth years are behind us. But 9
billion people is a lot of humanity and it is the source of a
great and heroic challenge.
We have about 40 years of heavy seas ahead of us after which
growing demands from a burgeoning human population will ease. So
our challenge is whether we will provide for nature to weather
that storm.
I want to back up a little here and address why we need to
consider nature’s future. For me, I cannot imagine a world
without wild places and I am sure many people share this view.
But there is another case to be made. We once believed that
large predators required a healthy prey base but we now know
that the mere presence of predators dictates what other species
do in their ecosystem.
A celebrated case is the return of wolves to Yellowstone
National Park. In the late 20th century, Yellowstone
had undergone profound ecological changes. Images of the park
were very different from photos of the same location taken
earlier in the century. Elk numbers had erupted, browsing of
willow and aspen was intense and the vegetation had changed.
Ecologists at the time thought that the changes were due to
forest suppression and climate change. But the answer was to be
found in a pack of wolves.
In the late 1990s, the Parks Service re-introduced a handful of
wolves into the park in a bid to return key species to
Yellowstone. Within a few years the elk, that had up until then
had the run of the park, were afraid to go into areas where
wolves could catch them. The willows and aspens the elk had
relied upon for food were suddenly no longer browsed and began
to grow. Beaver, that had been absent from the park for decades,
suddenly found new food and returned to build dams behind which
flourishing aquatic insects attracted songbirds. The effects of
the fear from the wolves cascaded through the park ecosystem. We
now know that similar effects are happening in terrestrial and
marine ecosystems. Large predators are an essential part in
sustaining natural environments.
A world-wide movement to cities is underway. We are becoming
urban. One result of this exodus of the countryside is that
large animals have begun to return to unused lands. Wolves and
bears have arrived in parts of Europe where they have not been
seen in decades. Closer to home, the recovery of trumpeter
swans, eagles and whales is underway. This gives hope that
recovery is possible by saving wild places with wild things and
it gives optimism for our future.
There is another more personal reason to want to save nature.
For millions of years the forces of nature shaped us into
sentient beings. It should be of no surprise then that there are
strong connections with nature across cultures. There is growing
evidence that being near nature has physical and emotional
health benefits. There is also evidence that development is
enhanced among children allowed free play in natural areas. A
new relationship with nature based on an inherent necessity is
emerging in programs such as Robert Bateman’s ‘Get to Know’.
The next few decades will require innovative thinking and hard
choices. But we can start right now. If there was one heroic
thing we can do it is to do everything we can to save large
nature. And this is where The Nature Trust comes into play. For
40 years, The Nature Trust has been quietly working to protect
precious pieces of nature in British Columbia. We work with
partners in many instances to pool resources and expertise so
that every precious dollar that is donated is wisely used.
Some of our favourite landscapes and parks In BC were
established with the foresight of The Nature Trust. The great
people in its early days – Bert Hoffmeister, Roderick Haig-Brown,
Ian McTaggart-Cowan, Bert Brink and many others – established a
conservation ethic for the day. Among my heroes are individuals
who have taken up the cause of protecting lands and telling
others about it. People like Wayne Sawchuk who spearheaded some
of BC’s most important wilderness in the Muskwa Kechika
wilderness and Ruth Foster who has educated thousands of schools
children about nature. We see clearly the new challenge ahead of
us and the responsibility that reaches beyond British Columbia.
It begins with how you choose to live and when you choose to
help future generations. A simple way is to support The Nature
Trust.
Well being naturally
(Published as Mother Nature Really Does Have The Answers,
Vancouver Sun Daily Special Tuesday, February 3, 2009 as part of
the 12 Big Ideas to shape BC’s resilient future)
By Rob Butler
It is odd how a good idea can stare you in the face for so long
and when finally noticed it seems so obvious. For years we have
known that stress levels decline during visits to natural areas.
A stroll in a garden, a few weeks lounging on a beach, or hiking
in the mountains all have restorative benefits. Gardeners and
poets have written about it, hikers expound about it. Parents
often say to that letting kids outside ‘burns off steam’. Spas
overlooking languid natural settings are more popular than ever.
JK Rawlings says the source of inspiration for the Harry Potter
series came from her early childhood spent in the English
woodlands. Our wellbeing needs nature.
Medical researchers, biologists, psychologists and education
experts are beginning to converge on a suite of benefits from
living close to nature. Besides reduced stress, the findings
indicate your physical and emotional health and your child’s
development also benefit.
In November, Richard Mitchell and Frank Popham writing in The
Lancet reported that living near green areas significantly
reduced the occurrence of stroke and heart disease among
Scottish residents. The larger the green area, the lower the
heart related deaths. The reasons are not entirely clear but the
authors believe fewer heart problems are symptomatic of reduced
stress and increased exercise among people living near green
areas. And should you fall ill, request a room with a view of
nature. Post-operative recovery is fastest among patients who
can view natural areas.
Everyone knows how children are drawn to animals. Many of us
have vivid memories of our childhood spent close to nature. As a
boy, I lived with my family at the end of a road overlooking a
forested ravine in North Vancouver. I spent hours fishing for
trout, watching birds and learning about nature. My curiosity
about nature lured me to the library to learn the names and
lives of the creatures in my woods, and eventually to look
farther afield on the local mountains and beyond.
Education researchers have found positive effects on childhood
development from experiences with nature such as mine. Peter
Kahn and Stephen Kellert wrote in their book Children in
Nature that the natural world might even be a critical
element of our emotional and intellectual growth. Children seem
to benefit greatly from nature during early development. Some
research indicates that attention deficit disorder symptoms are
reduced when these children play in natural areas. The freedom
of exploring nature seems to allow these children to focus more
on tasks.
Given the benefits of nature during our children’s development,
we are nonetheless becoming paralyzed about providing them the
freedom to do so. Richard Louv in his award-winning book Last
Child in the Woods thinks we are letting fear rule our
decisions to a point that children are suffering from what he
calls ‘nature deficit disorder’.
We might think that nature no longer has a role in our urban
lifestyle but then we had better think again. We can’t sake our
evolutionary history that easily. Several years ago, zoologist
Gordon Orians and Judith Heerwagen wondered why landscape
paintings over the centuries often depicted savannah-like
settings predominated by grasslands, scattered trees along lake
shores or seashores, and distant vistas. The ‘savanna
hypothesis’ as it became known, posited that parkland settings
are reminiscent of our early African origins. They went on to
explain that parkland settings reflected habitats with abundant
food, vistas where an approaching predator could be seen and
trees that offered an escape if necessary. Orians and Heerwagen
interpreted the favorable response to savannas as an innate
response separate from culture. In other words, the ghost of our
evolutionary past haunts our brains.
We might dismiss Orians and Heerwagen’s finding as being
academic except that their research has a key message. For about
1.5 million years of evolution, modern humans held a close
affinity to nature. The natural world was our source of
livelihood, inspiration, physical and emotional being – and it
held the forces that shaped us as humans. The natural world
honed our skills of survival by rewarding those best suited with
continued inheritance. It should be no surprise that our ties to
nature are deeply rooted in our genes even if we are not aware
of the strength of these connections. And because our response
to nature is hard-wired, it is not going to go away.
These findings are especially pertinent as humans world-wide are
moving into cities. The impetus is well grounded for continued
expansion of greenways, parks, and conservation initiatives. But
we need to go farther. Our goal should be to bring nature closer
to the lives of urban dwellers. We need to fuzzy the line
between urban and rural. How to achieve that goal within a
limited land base will be a challenge for city planners.
An aim of the Imagine BC series was to advise on public policy
for the next three decades. Predicting future needs using
current information is often fraught with errors because of
unpredictable future technological advances and social
responses. However, the innate response to nature is hard–wired
into all of us and it will not change with the latest technology
or social whim. It also sheds new light on conservation.
Extinction is more than the biological demise of species and
ecosystems – it is a loss to our social, psychological and
health well being. If bringing us closer to nature is a good
thing, as the mounting evidence suggests, then public policy
should put into place principles to transform society over the
next 30 years. Here is a start:
·
Learn from others.
Examine European and American cities that have adopted plans to
bring nature into cities.
·
Think big - Design natural areas on a regional scale that follow
ecological rules.
For example, large natural areas are better than many small
areas. Link natural areas with corridors of natural vegetation.
Maintain watersheds.
·
Bring nature close to schools.
New schools should include parks or natural areas in their
design. The curriculum should be experiential with nature at its
core. Nature theory in education needs to be developed at
universities, adopted into the curriculum and new teachers need
to become conversant with nature experiences.
·
Surround hospitals with natural areas.
Parks and golf courses might include hospitals.
·
Establish green spaces
within walking distance of every citizen and link green spaces
by greenways. Small city parks, treed lanes, and green roofs
should be commonplace.
·
Invest in science.
Fund research into the interaction between habitat and well
being as it pertains to city and town planning.
Slowly we are realizing that we need to live closer to nature
for our own good. Where that journey will take us is not clear
but there are encouraging signs that more citizens, city
planners and organizations are feeling comfortable with nature
in the city.
