Spring of 1970 – A shift in attitudes, values, and beliefs of 20 million Americans embodied through a movement of consciousness about our planet. 

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, U.S., created Earth Day as a way to give environmental issues a voice and put them on the national agenda. In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, efforts to tackle environmental degradation and climate change have been adopted worldwide from introducing policy and legislation, to funding clean technologies and renewable energy, to manufacturing biodegradable materials. Here, we look at the honouring of this day through the decades. 

News headline from the first Earth Day, 1970 // Source: ETEE

In the decades leading up to the first ever Earth Day, industrialization took over North America and other parts of the world. Manufacturing (1900s), mining (1930s), transportation (1950s) and retailing (1970s), along with rapid urbanization and consumer culture, all played a part in developing our world as we know it today. North America was consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Mainstream North America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment seriously threatens human health.

1980 – In the U.S., this year saw significant environmental legislative achievements. Just 10 years after the first Earth Day, government protections over the environment drastically increased. By 1980, the following U.S. government acts were passed: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 

On September 11th, Paul Tinari, a graduate student from Queen’s University, launched the first Canadian Earth Day. Flora MacDonald, then MP for Kingston, Ontario and the islands, officially opened Earth Day Week, encouraging MPs across the country to declare a cross-Canada annual Earth Day. 

Through the 70s and 80s, Earth Day in North America focused heavily on pollution. By Earth Day 1990, organizers and environmental agencies shifted their focus to climate change. 

1990 – Earth Day goes global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. 

The activities of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990 presented a huge boost to recycling efforts and paved the way for the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The ‘Rio Declarations’ laid out 15 principles recognizing the impact of human activities on sustainability and committing to sustainability goals. In 1997, the United Nations Kyoto Protocol was signed setting commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide as well as establish the connection between human activities and climate change.

In Canada, this was the start of Earth Day Canada (Jour de la Terre Canada), combining efforts from both France and Canada, and the internationalization of Earth Day. Since 1995, Quebec has celebrated Earth Day through raising awareness on environmental issues. 

Earth Day Canada Logo // Source: EarthDay.ca

2000 – Earth Day goes digital. Through the power of connectivity, hundreds of millions of people in 184 countries celebrate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, with a focus on clean energy. 

By leveraging the power of the Digital Revolution, Earth Day in the new millennium meant that environmental activities and initiatives spread faster to many parts of the world. Suddenly, awareness became the greatest tool in the fight against climate change. 

2010 – This was a challenging time for the environmental community as they faced climate deniers, well-funded oil enthusiasts with a not-so-environmentally-friendly agenda, a disinterested public, and neutral politicians. The Earth Day Network repositioned Earth Day as a day for environmental activism as the right time. On Earth Day 2010, over 250,000 people participated in a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of millions of people observed Earth Day around the globe. Climate activism gained serious momentum. 

In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was drafted, going beyond the Kyoto Protocol, by setting a goal of achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050. In Canada, the French and Quebec teams joined forces to take the Earth Day movement to a new level for the French-speaking world. 

In 2018, Greta Thunberg acted as a voice for youth, by starting a protest in front of the Swedish parliament building, vowing to continue until the Swedish government met the carbon emissions target agreed by world leaders in Paris, in 2015. Students around the world quickly began following her lead, staging large protests and demanding change.

Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike // Source: DW

In 2019, Earth Day Canada formed an alliance with EcoKids to enable environmental initiatives to be carried out across all provinces and territories. That year, I remember attending a climate rally in Ottawa and feeling empowered by the movement as a young adult living in the world today. 

2020 – Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The social and cultural movements that we saw in the 1970s rose back up again as we were hit with one of the largest crises of our time: COVID-19. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic transcended almost everything in 2020 (the good and the bad), including the environment, from cancelled summits on climate and biodiversity, to a temporary dip in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, to greater awareness of the link between human health and climate change. As climate rallies and events were cancelled, Earth Day quickly pivoted from mobilizing millions on the ground to raising hundreds of millions of voices digitally. Fittingly, in Canada, the Earth Day theme was climate action with the main message being: “keeping our distance at home, but taking action for the planet together”. Now, we’re in the slow and gradual transition to a green recovery. 

Present day – The fight for our planet continues with increasing urgency. A\J has partnered with Earth Day Canada to shine a light on Earth Day celebrations through the years and explore the evolution of this day through this editorial series. This Earth Day will be spent at home, and Earth Day Canada has put together some practical, creative, and smart ideas for #EarthDayAtHome. The Earth Day Canada 2021 theme is Take Care of the Planet. The official campaign features “animals that have to clean up their polluted environments themselves”. The goal is to raise awareness about the urgency we are facing, and to encourage Canadians to #TakeCareOfThePlanet every day because it’s our responsibility to do so. 

Earth Day Canada’s #TakeCareOfThePlanet 2021 Campaign // Source: EarthDay.ca

Stay tuned for next week’s article for more about what Earth Day means for us this year, and how we can and should be celebrating the planet in the present day.

This article is part of a 3-part editorial series, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, titled ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Earth Day’. Check out the full series here!

The post Earth Day: Origins   appeared first on A\J.

Human activities have thrusted our planet into a climate emergency. This calls for an urgent need for adaptation—adjusting our natural and human systems to minimize climate hazards, exploit climate opportunities, and mitigate—the conscious actions to minimize the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and to remove existing GHGs through improving carbon sinks. Climate change is real, and the consequences are vivid. From the melting polar caps of Alaska all the way to Kiribati’s dissipating beaches, climate change stymies our livelihoods and heightens vulnerability to environmental hazards. So, why is there even the existence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? According to their official website, “the IPCC was created to provide policymakers on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options,” (IPCC, 2020). Some of the solutions often floated around by this and other giant institutions include constructing greenhouses to support agricultural food systems in drylands, building reservoirs to collect excess runoff, and providing crop insurance to tackle crop failure. In their “infinite” wisdom, these bureaucrats placed a caveat that we should adopt these strategies in ways that support the national, regional, and local contexts. Interesting, huh? But with the lenses of reality on, how can Kiribati people, who have almost nothing, adapt to their rising sea levels and dissipating coastline, build reservoirs to tackle flooding, and provide farmland insurance for farmers whose farmlands turned into water bodies overnight?

Even though there is a lot of attention to tackle climate change, Nature-based Solutions (NBS)—using traditional and naturally producing resources to mitigate environmental hazards—have been side-lined for technocratic solutions, and sometimes retrogressive—climate wise—technological innovations. Moreover, much of these current approaches are usually bogged down in faulty rhetoric. For instance, everyone wants a better environment, at the same time, also wanting the comfort of owning a luxury and eco-unfriendly car.  Who takes the buses then? It cannot work that way; you must pick your poison! In retrospect, Greta Thunberg was precisely correct when she called economic growth ‘a fairytale.’ The questions that remain unanswered are: why are we so ever focused on the use of artificial methodologies in reverting the world to a more natural state? Would it not help to use a nature-based approach instead? For instance, in the illustration of Megan Leslie—President, and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada, the need for NBS could not be more apparent:

“If you think about the increasing floods we are seeing, for example, concrete culverts and breakwaters can only handle so much water. Silver maple can absorb 220 liters of water [an hour]! If we replace all this concrete with natural infrastructure, with green infrastructure, firstly, it can handle the floods. Secondly, it’s resilient… it bounces back.” –Megan Leslie

NBS have emerged as cost-effective mitigation and adaptation strategies that simultaneously provide socio-ecological and economic benefits while boosting resilience among people. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), NBS involves the intentional use of nature for sustainably managing ecosystems and tackling socio-environmental challenges. The nature-based solutions are rooted in the oxymoronic ideals of going back to move forward, looking into naturally occurring solutions that can be humanly instigated and controlled to increase resiliency and fight climate change. These suggestions are topical as they are relevant and include reimagining green housing, utilizing natural resources for construction and plant growth to fight climate change. NBS to climate change emphasizes harnessing the myriad potentiality of nature to reduce GHGs while also adapting to climate-related stresses such as human health, food and water insecurity. NBS to climate change is considered a win-win approach. We get to protect, restore, and sustain our ecosystem while efficiently addressing an existential threat. Further, NBS can be adopted in both rural and urban settings—an attribute which makes NBS more practical and comprehensive.

Rural areas

Although climate change is omnipresent, there are differences in the intensity of these impacts because of two factors: (1) your location in the world and (2), the level of disposable resources with wealth at its core. Sadly, folks in the Global South or the developing worlds, are particularly more affected by climate change due to their heavy dependence on natural resources from which they derive their livelihoods, and their limited availability to adapt to the changing environmental conditions. As dire as these conditions may be, they are also being exacerbated by prevailing adaptation strategies. For example, to stimulate agriculture, the current use of high-nitrogen-fertilizers over time makes the land progressively barren while leaching nitrous oxide into the drainage system and polluting vital drinking water sources for millions of people. With NBS, however, simple practices like mulching (yes, good old mulching), could prove essential for revitalizing smallholder farmlands through soil moisture conservation and sustainably improving soil fertility. Typically, mulching involves collecting and applying decomposing organic matter (e.g. sawdust, wood, grass, food scraps) over arable lands’ topsoil. The best part is that mulching materials are free and readily available. This process could solve the triple problem of utilizing food waste, soil infertility, and improving biodiversity.

A smallholder farming household practicing mulching // Source: Bryan Waters

Another NBS that could be employed in these areas is the utilization of bamboo grass. Bamboo (Subfamily: Bambusoideae) is a fast-growing, drought-resistant grass. It can be the best crop that can grow in some environments. This ancient grass serves many purposes. In fact, there is evidence of its utility in building construction, making furniture, serving as windbreaks, and where native, could even be planted around your luxurious million-dollar home as a living privacy screen (you know, against those shady neighbors). In other words, bamboo is the gift that keeps on giving and there is something in it for everyone. As climate change continues to wreak havoc globally, substituting bamboo in place of plastic in privacy screens or in place of destroying mature Mahogany trees from the rainforest (which take 25 years to grow) are great strides toward reductions in carbon footprint. The bamboo plant thus serves as a stylish, classy, and sustainable alternative. As we begin to care for and incorporate bamboo use in our daily lives, we will also be indirectly preserving biodiversity since it serves as the main diet and habitat for some of the world’s cutest animals.

Locals putting bamboo to use // Source: Panos Pictures/Felix Features

Urban areas

Urban centers or cities are characteristic of high-density infrastructure—roads, bridges, airports, residential and commercial buildings, etc. Many cities like New York and Toronto, struggle with creating and developing spaces for nature. But with a switch to NBS, vegetation can be used to cover the walls or roofs of buildings in urban centers. Green roofs and walls have numerous benefits to the ecosystem and human health. Some of these benefits include insulation provision (thus reducing energy consumption), absorbing rainwater (potential to reduce floods), minimizing the urban heat island effects, and serving as carbon sinks. Green roofs and walls make urban settings aesthetically pleasing as well, which could reduce the stress associated with these busy, noisy, and chaotic systems. Roofs absorb rainwater and can cool the tops of buildings, thereby creating milder microclimatic conditions. The concept of green roofs has taken shape in some cities including Toronto, which in 2009 was the first city to promulgate a bylaw that regulates and governs the construction of green roofs.

 Green walling in urban structures // Source: WikiCommons

Green roofing in urban settings // Source: Urbanscape

Overall, NBS provide sustainable toolkits for adapting and mitigating climate change; they are available and accessible to people in all socio-economic classes. NBS is part of existing ways of life and requires minimal special initiatives to implement. They are cheaper to implement, good for the environment, utilize indigenous knowledge, and are often community based. This also leads to empowerment, which makes implementation and sustainability more feasible. Combating climate change is imperative in every dimension—politically, economically, and morally, because it embodies our collective attempt at saving the lives and livelihoods of billions of people.

This article is part of our March 2021 Western Student Editorial Series – a series that showcases the works of students in the Collaborative Specialization in Environment and Sustainability program. Read more articles from this series here!

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…including ways we can right our environmental wrongs and help nature thrive…”

I do not believe that humans are inherently bad for nature. In history, humans lived harmoniously with nature for generations, living as an intertwined part of nature rather than separate from or in control of it. In fact, even today, in many places in the world, healthy ecosystems actually depend on human intervention and stewardship to thrive.

Does that mean the problem is that humans aren’t living in harmony with nature anymore, as we should be? Well, that may be a piece of it; however, in addition to being better environmental stewards by taking measures to protect the environment, I also believe that we should be taking reactive measures to fix the problems we have already caused. This is where ecological restoration comes into play. There are plenty of things individuals can do to help the environment, including ways we can right our environmental wrongs and help nature thrive in places it used to. Ecological restoration is just that – righting the wrongs, repairing the relationship.

WHAT? – Defining Ecological Restoration

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is the leading organization in ecological restoration across the globe. SER defines ecological restoration as “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed”^[1]. In other words, ecological restoration involves looking at spaces that used to be natural areas that have been ruined in some way as a result of human activities and disturbances, and then taking measures to turn those areas back into functional ecosystems.

The process of ecosystem restoration // SOURCE: Medium

An example of this process in a community could be transforming a damaged, unused parking lot space into a city park where native vegetation can be planted. A larger scale project might look like reverting a decommissioned, highly polluted mine site back into a thriving natural ecosystem. But, wait. Isn’t this supposed to be about how individuals can practice ecological restoration? Absolutely! Ecological restoration does include large scale projects, research, and experiments, since restoration ecology is an academic field of study. But the concept of restoring natural spaces can also be scaled down to the local, household level. So let’s get into what ecological restoration has to do with YOU.

WHY? – The Benefits

Before we discuss the how, we should discuss the why. Why should you care about ecological restoration? Because it benefits you!

Restoring natural areas can do wonders for human health and wellbeing by making our communities healthier and more desirable places to live. For example, transforming degraded areas into functional, natural spaces may improve air and water quality. Ecological restoration projects could also combat climate change, since plant life takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and cools our environment.

Natural areas also directly benefit human mental health and wellbeing by providing recreational outdoor space, and making urban and suburban areas more aesthetically pleasing. Several studies, including one conducted by the NASA Earth Observatory, have shown the link between positive mental health and both the accessibility and proximity to green spaces. Green spaces are valued by many for enjoyment, boosting their mood, and inspiring deeper connections with nature. To break it down: Ecological restoration = more parks and gardens = more outdoor fun and good-looking cities = happier people.

Ecological restoration projects also usually provide increased and improved habitat spaces for wildlife. Now, I know this article is focused on why ecological restoration is relevant to people, and you are probably not a butterfly or toad looking for habitat, but hear me out. Some very important species are at risk of extinction since their habitat needs are becoming harder to meet in this era of urbanization and climate change. Many natural areas have been reduced or destroyed, and the animals who need to live in those spaces are struggling to survive in many cases. The karner blue butterfly is just one of many examples of a pollinator species that has gone locally extinct in Ontario.

The Karner Blue Butterfly // SOURCE: Nature Canada

Pollinators are especially valuable species for the health of the entire planet, so we really can’t afford to lose any more of them. It is estimated that up to 95% of flowering plants depend on pollination^[2]. In terms of plants that humans eat, that means roughly one out of every three bites of food that you take exists because of pollinators. So if pollinators can’t find habitats and continue to decline, our entire global food system could be at stake. Now that is a scary thought. Allow me to bring back the optimism. It is truly amazing that we have the capability to stop those environmental dooms from happening, and a key method to do so is ecological restoration!

HOW? – The Actions

The individual’s role in ecological restoration is simple: transform your areas with little to no diversity into biodiverse paradises, and take part in local community projects.

One great starting point for figuring out where you should do ecological restoration is identifying areas outdoors that have little to nothing growing there. The average North American lawn is a great example of this. What comes to mind when you think of a lawn? Probably an expanse of short, uniform grass. Let me explain why lawns are one of the areas with the most potential for ecological restoration at the household level.

Lawns are very common green spaces in urban and suburban areas, yet they have no ecological value. Many lawns actually do more harm than good for the environment because they require lots of water and can even release more greenhouse gases than they absorb. It is nonsensical that these precious areas of green space are being wasted on lawn grass!

The key to remember here is simply – restore your green spaces so they are welcoming to a diversity of species in order to create functional ecosystems and promote sustainability.

nstead of having a boring, homogenous lawn, you can transform that space into something more beautiful and ecologically-beneficial! Alternative lawns may look different depending on where you live and what kind of space you have available, but planting a diversity of native plants is a good start. Using a diversity of plants, meaning plants of different species, is important to create habitats. The more diverse your space is, the more types of pollinators and other species it will accommodate, and the more functional the ecosystem will be! If you take pride in the beauty of your yard, then now is the time to let your creativity shine! Check out Credit Valley Conservation’s tips and resources on how to “ecologically landscape” your lawn.

SOURCE: Hamilton Pollinator Paradise

If you don’t have the resources to completely change your lawn right away, don’t worry. You can also just let your grass grow longer instead of regularly cutting it, which can lower the lawn’s water requirements and still foster a space for pollinators. Even simply taking a break from raking leaves in the fall is a strategy to make your spaces more ecologically beneficial because leaf piles are actually super important spaces for small critters to live and hide, like butterfly larvae, salamanders, and shrews!

The key to remember here is simply – restore your green spaces so they are welcoming to a diversity of species in order to create functional ecosystems and promote sustainability.

 For those who don’t have a lawn and don’t have any areas where you can create habitats and gardens, there are still things you can do – just get involved. There are so many local ecological restoration community projects, practically across the whole globe. Finding a project near you that you can help with is just a few clicks away! Just research ecological restoration projects near you. You can also go to the project database on SER’s website to find some larger scale projects in your area if you’re interested in learning more! Many ecological restoration projects welcome volunteers with open arms. You could spend a day in nature by joining a team pulling invasive species in a natural area, or donate to a local initiative trying to turn an old landfill site into a park in your city, or even take a field trip to a conservation area! For example, the Ontario branch of SER hosts several field trips each year in order to introduce the public to restoration efforts near them. Even during the pandemic, they are hosting virtual field trips and webinars.

I study at the University of Waterloo and I like to go for walks on my study breaks. Recently, I took a walk in Filsinger Park, in Kitchener, and I found out that the Filsinger Park stream had been a restoration project. The city replaced the concrete stream channels with native vegetation to create a naturalized, functional stream ecosystem, and it is now a beautiful place to take a walk and appreciate nature! My point is, simply going for a walk and discovering ecological restoration in your city could be the first step in making your mark on the environment a positive one. Ecological restoration is relevant to you. We can all contribute to restoring natural spaces in our own backyards and communities. And by making these contributions, we can restore our relationship with nature, one step at a time.

^[1] Society for Ecological Restoration, “International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration: Second Edition” (accessed January 7, 2021) <https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.ser.org/resource/resmgr/docs/ser_international_standards_.pdf>^[2] Ollerton J, Winfree R, and Tarrant S, “How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals?” (accessed January 7, 2021) <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18644.x>

^[2] Ollerton J, Winfree R, and Tarrant S, “How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals?” (accessed January 7, 2021) <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18644.x>

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History lessons serve as a starting point to understanding what once was — that is where cartographer and activist Aaron Carapella is trying to make a difference. Carapella, a Native American descendant from Oklahoma, has spent years creating a Tribal Nations Map Series currently being used by hundreds of native and non-native schools within the United States, including the University of Montana. The first of its kind, the maps show the Americas before colonialism. They display traditional names and show tribal territories without political boarders.

“Outside colonization can lead to internal or self-imposed colonization — but only if you let it,” says Carapella. According to him, this map series is one way of stopping self-imposed colonialism.

Aaron Carapella

At an early age, Carapella went out of his way to be involved with indigenous peoples — he lived outside the native community. He attended local tribal meetings and council meetings for tribes that fought for federal recognition just to understand what it means to be a Native American living outside the community. He even joined the American Indian Movement and participated in land occupations and protests. While visiting different communities he saw a “real lack of respect for traditional names of tribes,” which is what inspired him to create the Tribal Nation Map series. Accurate visual representation of the once diverse and prominent culture is a way of reminding people “a set way of life existed before outsiders took over, before we started writing the history of this continent from the victor’s perspective,” says Carapella. 

It is no secret that when the European settlers first arrived, they brought with them disease and violence that wiped out a substantial portion of the Native population resulting in lost culture. Today the general public has a distorted opinion about the original inhabitants of this land and according to Carapella it is due to misrepresentation of the remaining native community, such as “insulting racial mascots.” It has gotten to a point where some native descendants themselves use “names given to them by outsiders, which is offensive to the native community.”

“Losing your name is one facet of why there has been a break down in traditional way,” Carapella said, which makes seeing their tribe names on maps for the first time even more powerful.

Carapella donates his work to underfunded schools and has special pricing for teachers. He believes that when teachers and professors begin to incorporate them in their teaching material, as they have gradually begun to do so, the timeline of history will change. Carapella hopes that children will no longer grow up thinking of their land as young and new but a land with a rich history of unique customs stemming from the millions of people that lived prior to colonization.

Carapella has visited over 250 native communities within the United States in addition to those in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. He believes in getting the information right from the source and incase of a dispute he always has given the last word to the tribes. It is a volatile subject, he admits, and he tries his best to remain neutral and not offend anyone in the process.

The mapmaking has hit a few roadblocks with getting in touch with remote tribes, some in Alaska and Upper Yukon area. Carapella’s research also includes accounts by explorers, anthropologist and people from the tribes who have written books about their own histories. Some of his most challenging work has been to do with “Nomadic” tribes, tribes that seasonally change location, although he does have issues with the term itself.

Carapella’s next big project is to work on a 100×50 inch map of the entire western section of the globe. He will work closely with his graphic designer to combine all his maps published so far ensuring their historically and geographically accuracy. Among his smaller projects, he will be working to create regional maps for tribes in California. This project will allow him to add more detail and break down tribal territory into subtribes and villages.  He is also expanding his reach by working on an interactive map that will give more details and correct pronunciations of the tribes as well as links to important issues and websites that can help people learn more about native history. 

While talking about current government involvement, he says that although the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States recognized 567 Native American Tribes, there are over additional 200 tribes that are fighting just to prove their native ancestry in the United States alone. Federal recognition is one way to keep them from being obliterated from the pages of modern history. Having a map with traditional names and territories is a step towards “uplifting their spirit” and restoring Indigenous hope.

Visit his website to learn more about Aaron Carapella’s work and to purchase his maps.

The post Going Back in Time appeared first on A\J.

Enter Fred Pearce. The New Wild, the latest offering from the veteran British journalist, shows Pearce turning a sympathetic eye to species and places where he believes nature is putting on a clinic of resiliency. Occasionally, this leaves him a lonely defender of detested invasive species – the brown tree snake in Guam, for example, or zebra mussels in the Great Lakes. This cheerleading is also scaled up for refashioned ecosystems like Polesie. “Radioactive wolves patrol the streets,” he writes optimistically, while “wild boars root in the cesium-soaked soils” past “strontium-stuffed mushrooms” lining cooling ponds of the Chernobyl plant, now suffused with contaminated catfish. Yet far from the post-apocalyptic hellscape many imagine, species not dependent on humans for survival have rebounded in the zone to levels greater than when humans were around. Our abandoned infrastructure, absent of people, has created suitable homes for badgers in cellars, wild boars in sheds, owls and kestrels nesting in empty apartment towers. Bears have arrived, Pearce writes, co-existing alongside Belarus’s largest lynx population. Uniquely, this microworld without us, a novel ecosystem if there ever was one, has become an ideal 21^st century habitat.

Don’t misunderstand – “nobody in their right mind would want more such places,” Pearce writes of Polesie – but its recovery, without human intervention, points a way toward what he (all too often) calls “the new wild.” Hence the book’s title. Traditional notions of conservation encourage a rigid, doctrinaire adherence to old customs of little use when dealing with modern environmental challenges from climate change, rapid urbanization, pollution, agricultural intensification and invasive species. “Dynamism and change are the norm in nature,” Pearce writes. “Ecosystems that are unchanging may be in trouble.” When he surveys conservation’s current state, Pearce is struck by how tightly the established guard clings to “old certainties” and “mythical pristine ecosystems” that no longer exist, if they ever did. Wake up, he implores: We define nature too narrowly and must let ecosystems rewild in their own way.

In many ways, The New Wild is the latest in a growing body of non-fiction attempting to reprogram our collective brains, often hard-wired to demonize novel ecosystems and discredit the potential benefits of invasives. American environmental writer Emma Marris’ 2013 book Rambunctious Garden took mainstream the idea that “exotic-dominated ecosystems [that] still look like trash to most ecologists” are worthwhile natural spaces. She spoke for a small but vocal sector of invasion biologists who believe that invasives can be vital to their new homes – stabilizing eroding soil or providing food and habitat for native fauna. Alien species often take the blame for larger problems caused by pollution and environmental decline: Tamarisk in California or Nile perch in East Africa’s Lake Victoria took advantage of existing environmental crises, Pearce writes. Less instigator and more opportunist, if we care to assign human motives.

Conservationist thinking is shifting, Marris believes. She’s not alone. After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans is a dialogue from celebrated environmental writers on what, exactly, preservationists are vigilantly trying to preserve. Can the American preservationist ideal survive American desires for suburban, two-car families? Should it survive in its current form? Preservation today is caught in the crossfire, attacked for the unacceptable economic sacrifices it may engender and by “post-preservationist” environmentalists who want humans to embrace our world-shaping powers. Environmental ethicist Ben A. Minteer and historian Stephen J. Pyne, who edited the volume from their positions at Arizona State University, brought together an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary thinkers to debate the Anthropocene and what it means for nature preservation.

In After Preservation, Marris argues that “messy nature,” which welcomes “invasive” species, is gaining acceptability among ecologists, conservationists and the general public. Railway ditches, parking lots, traffic islands, post-industrial sites – all can be wild in their own way. If that means that ecosystems and the species in them aren’t as pretty or “wild” as we’d like? Too bad. That is a cultural problem, not an ecological one. Another cultural problem with the Anthropocene is our arrogance in assuming humanity can effectively control nature, Marris writes. We try, but that doesn’t mean we’re especially good at it. Besides, “people … running around talking about how humans ‘control’ and ‘dominate’ the planet can sound like assholes,” Marris writes. It’s a stark moment of humour in a book on ecological restoration, but the point is well taken. We do, as she rightly contends, lack humility. Yet this hubris doesn’t absolve humanity of responsibility to improve how we manage the Earth, immodest as it seems. Humans have harmed more ecosystems than we’ve helped, and, in Marris’ reckoning, “we owe it to them to improve our scientific understanding … so we can ensure their continued persistence.”

It’s obvious not all agree. In a separate chapter, Dave Foreman, author of Take Back Conservation, lashes out at Marris and others whom he derisively calls “Anthropoceniacs.” Their support of humankind’s control of nature will leave the Earth as little more than Frankenstein’s lab. Humans aren’t meant to be so much as we merely happened to be, Foreman argues. So what gives us the right to continue our whole Earth-altering ways? The very need for wilderness areas – like the Polesie Reserve – is our “meek acknowledgement” that our dominion over Earth is wanting.

While After Preservation occasionally sticks its head in the clouds of environmental philosophy, Invasive Species in a Globalized World, from Loyola University ecologist Reuben P. Keller and University of Toronto biologist Marc W. Cadotte, has sewn deep roots in policy and invasive species management. Cane toads in Australia, Asian carp in America and grey squirrels in England – Keller and Cadotte’s book, edited with environmental writer Glenn Sandiford, helps bridge the gap between ecologists, economists and legal scholars sharing similar anxieties over invasive species regulation and its absence. These professional cross-purposes have stymied effective administration of challenges that, as the book’s title suggests, are worsening in a globalized world. While the 1988 zebra mussel invasion of the Great Lakes and the attendant media coverage brought greater public awareness to the ecological risks of globalization, it has not resulted in a transformation of policy. We know prevention is cheaper and more effective than eradication and yet, around the world, there are few regulations on ballast water, and no stringent port inspections, international standards or penalties to deter the intentional (or unwitting) spread of aliens.

While Pearce and many authors in After Preservation believe the crusade against invasives is more noise than science, Invasive Species in a Globalized World lends policy making and scientific heft to the “rhetorical contest” between Pearce and those who believe humans must protect native species and ecosystems from invasives at any cost. “Invasive-species policy needs unifying,” Keller et al. argue, suggesting a triage system to assess which species pose the greatest global risk in order to act before problems surpass existing meagre controls.

Human activity has profoundly shaped every corner of the globe. In a warming climate, whole ecosystems are shifting in search of familiar climes, taking countless species with them. Can we undo the harm we’ve caused? Is there value to the changes we’ve wrought? These books add to the ongoing conversation about if and how humanity should mould our planet. Yet we live in a time when previously unaccounted-for drivers of ecosystem change are shifting environmental realities faster than we can measure them. We’re left stumbling to “save” natural spaces existing nowhere but in our minds. Perhaps invasive-species policy does need unifying, but around a new model embracing the best of the preservationist ideal along with the cold pragmatism of modern conservationist thought. There’s a place for Fred Pearce in that debate.

The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature’s Salvation by Fred Pearce, Boston: Beacon Press, July 2015, 272 pages.

After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans edited by B. Minteer and S. Pyne, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 240 pages.

Invasive Species in a Globalized World: Ecological, Social & Legal Perspectives on Policy edited by R. Keller, M. Cadotte and G. Sandiford, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 416 pages.

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Some people, when handed lemons, make lemonade. Other people, like family farmer Bern Kotelko of Alberta, redefine what it means to get lemons, reframe the challenge of making juice from them, and create something far more useful and self-sustaining than lemonade. At least, that’s what Kotelko did when life handed him 500 tonnes of cow poop per day.

Kotelko didn’t just see a mountain of manure – he saw an opportunity to turn “shit into Shinola.” Or more specifically, turn it into biogas, electricity, heat and fertilizer. “I always think of my grandfather and what he taught us about agriculture,” says Kotelko. “He did things in a sustainable way. He grew his own energy to produce food because he had a team of horses and so now we’re doing it at just a little different scale and using some different technology. But what we’re doing is producing our own energy so we can produce food.”

The virtuous loop: Manure from livestock – fed with grain by-product from the ethanol plant – provides the methane used to power the plant and provide surplus electricity to the community \ nik harron.

Canada’s first Integrated Bio Refinery, Growing Power Hairy Hill, uses a “virtuous circle” of technology to link a cattle feedlot, an anaerobic digester and an ethanol plant. The ethanol plant produces wet distiller’s grain as a by-product, which gets fed back to the cattle, completing the virtuous loop.

The anaerobic digester, as well as consuming all of the cow poop, takes another 200 tonnes of organic waste each day from several area municipalities. The organic waste has three times the energy by volume as the manure. The business partners conceptualize this as adding value to both streams of waste by “mining” them for their energy. The methane produced by the digester is burned in a 2.5-megawatt electricity generator, creating sufficient electricity for the 2,500 homes in the local community of Vegreville. The generator produces what lesser thinkers might imagine as surplus – wasted – heat. But Kotelko added a fuel-grade ethanol plant to soak up this extra heat, because nothing is waste when you look at it the right way. The plant is responsible for creating 40 million litres of ethanol per year that is sold to refineries in Edmonton.

Trever Nickel is the general manager of Himark Biogas, the company that designs the technology used at Growing Power. He says that if Alberta’s “very low” carbon price of $15 per tonne were to increase to $35 or $40, there would be an opportunity to finance many more of these plants in the province. For instance, Germany offers a feed-in-tariff to producers and has over 6,000 digestors. By contrast, Alberta’s two biogas and co-generation plants (the other one is in Lethbridge) make only a fraction of the 265 million litres of fuel-grade ethanol mandated to be used in the province.

A slightly different configuration with the same creative mindset is operating in Chatham, Ontario. The Devries family farm sells corn to GreenField Specialty Alcohols, a biorefinery that produces 200,000 million litres of ethanol per year. Not only do they buy back distiller’s grain to feed their cattle, but they are planning to take the heat and CO2 created by the ethanol plant – from their corn – to heat their greenhouse and grow up to 5.85 million kilograms of tomatoes per year. Sustainability can be as simple as seeing the lemons around you in an entirely new way.

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Photo gallery: salt marshes in Atlantic Canada – click to open

Photo gallery: salt marshes in Atlantic Canada – click to open
Tantramar Marsh. Photos by Lisa Szabo-Jones

Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery Gallery

Salt marshes are “a place between the tides,” as described by Nova Scotia poet Harry Thurston. They are made of both land and water, not just wet land – ecosystems dominated by grasses and flooded repeatedly by saltwater tidal flows. They shore up the edge tensions between water and land, and offer much reflection on the settling and unsettling convergences of natural and human histories. Ecotones are transitional areas of vegetation between two different ecosystems, where boundaries shift and habitats blend into one another; and as they are terrestrial systems overlapping with oceanic systems, they are examples of the mingling of local and global ecosystems.

To think of salt marshes involves consideration of how coastal wetland ecological processes developed over millennia – establishing relationships through seasonal flux – and how quickly human actions are able to disrupt and destroy these evolved systems. Salt marshes are one of Earth’s great global ecosystems, comprising approximately 49 million hectares worldwide. Because of the interaction between tides, rivers, and natural or human tidal barriers, salt marshes are in a constant process of burying and sweeping out sediment. These processes are further affected by sea level and climate changes. The marsh forms when the deposition and erosion of sediment reach equilibrium, soil builds up, and saline-tolerant vegetation takes hold and flourishes.

Salt marshes are typically delineated by tidal range and the dominance of saline-tolerant plants such as the different types of cordgrasses. In the Bay of Fundy of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), with its capacity to tolerate regular twice-daily submersion, dominates the low marsh. In the high marsh, which experiences intermittent flooding, saltmeadow hay (S. patens) thrives, along with a handful of other low-lying plants. These sites then become nesting and staging areas for migrating birds such as willets and other shorebirds, and nurseries for fish, molluscs and crabs.

As one of nature’s rare natural monocultures, these maritime “prairies” of cordgrass (Spartina spp.) grow as high as two metres in the summer. In the winter, ice-rafting shears the stalks to stubble or flattened, tangled mats. It may be this monocultural characteristic that causes humans to devalue the ecological and aesthetic worth of coastal wetlands. The grasses stretching for hectares seem uniform in their seasonal coats of green or brown. As with the perceived “emptiness” of tundra or prairie grasslands, many see these coastal ecosystems as barren wastelands. The smell of decay adds further to this perception. Many do not think about the smaller life forms that inhabit these ecosystems and their integral part in the healthy functioning of global systems. Nuances remain hidden from distanced viewpoints.

Combined, the grasses and the built-up islands of sediment and trenches mitigate flooding and coastal and inland erosion by reducing the impact of tidal and storm-surge energy. They also act as water purifiers and important sites of primary production – the generation of plant biomass, much of which is exported to oceanic water where it becomes part of the marine food web.

In Atlantic Canada, salt marshes facilitate a high exchange productivity of nutrients. Cordgrass maintains ongoing photosynthetic activity, and the rapid rate of decomposition introduces essential nutrients into the marine food system. Relatively undisturbed by human impact prior to European settlement, many of the Bay of Fundy’s salt marshes, over long lengths of time, developed rich, deep soil. For thousands of years, they also provided sustenance for the Mi’kmaq. In the 17th century, Acadian settlers, in agreement with the Mi’kmaq, dyked much of Fundy’s coastal wetlands, turning marsh into farmlands. Following centuries of human reclamation projects, the construction of tidal barriers (culverts, causeways and dams) helped reduce the salt marsh area by 80 per cent and diminished much of the marshes’ contribution to the marine food chain.

If disturbed, salt marshes hold the potential to emit significant quantities of greenhouse gas.

Recent studies bring to light another aspect of salt marshes – which may, in the growing movement for climate action, initiate greater conservationist practices. Salt marshes are carbon sinks that have accumulated vast stores of carbon over centuries. The flip side is that, if disturbed, they hold the potential to emit significant quantities of greenhouse gas. Drainage, in particular, releases the stored carbon into the atmosphere and reduces the marsh’s ability to sequester more carbon. For some, “blue carbon” offers the hope of preserving salt marshes by communicating value through the language of economics. But how do we relate the value of salt marshes as carbon sinks, and achieve a similar appeal to restoration and conservation in non-economic terms?

Many different approaches have evolved to return the coastal wetlands to the tides – and imaginations – of Atlantic Canada. Through conveying the beauty of wetlands, painting and poetry have drawn pathways between hearts, minds and marsh. Alex Colville, Anne Simpson, G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen, Harry Thurston, Douglas Lochead, John Thompson, Ron Hayes, Basma Kavanagh, Thaddeus Holownia and John Frederic Herbin are just a few who have found inspiration in the salt marshes.

But science and industry must also play a role. A joint venture between the Irving family, Ducks Unlimited, and Acadia University monitors and manages the breach of the dykes at the foot of Fort Beauséjour. Across the bay, in the Southern Bight, a collective of working groups in partnership with St. Mary’s University and local communities have conducted audits of the bay’s tidal barriers and initiated restoration projects. In Cheverie, the Nova Scotia government and the Ecology Action Centre partnered with the Cheverie Crossway Saltmarsh Society to replace a restrictive culvert under Highway 215 and open Cheverie Creek to wider flows of tidal water. The project included, but also took an unusual turn from, traditional restoration designs aimed at attracting and educating visitors. Not only did they construct boardwalks through the marsh and build an interpretive centre, but Dalhousie University professor Ted Cavanaugh and his Coastal Design architectural students partnered with the project and designed and built a fully functioning brick shell camera obscura that overlooks the Bay of Fundy and the marsh.

Yet, the best stories are always the unexpected ones. On my last day in Nova Scotia, Mike Brylinsky, senior research scientist from Acadia University, took me out to the Avon River estuary and to Windsor, NS – the town that holds claim to the birthplace of hockey. In the 1960s, the town built a causeway, effectively blocking the inflow of ocean tides into the river. But shortly after the causeway’s completion, the estuary’s enclosed geography and the redirected tidal currents created the necessary conditions for land to form and vegetation to take hold. A marsh started to grow, and continues to grow. Today, Windsor Marsh is one of the most productive salt marshes in the North Atlantic. The town celebrates this wonder with a dedicated website and a marsh webcam. Windsor Marsh, though, is not proof that nature can bounce back after major human disturbance. In this instance, all the conditions were in place for a marsh to grow.

I found myself many times ass- or face-planted in mud and tall grass, chased by a skunk, tripped by concealed roots and swarmed by mosquitoes.

Salt marshes remain notoriously inaccessible habitats. We cannot hike them as we do mountains or deserts. In my attempts to wander out onto the marshes of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, I found myself many times ass- or face-planted in mud and tall grass, chased by a skunk, tripped by concealed roots and swarmed by mosquitoes. I misjudged ‘solid’ ground and sunk to my knees. I miscalculated embankments and belly flopped in mud. Deep trenches, mud patches, tidal pools and a fear of sinkholes prevented me from venturing far out into the marsh. How could I get up close and see the beauty – the diverse range of colours of the grasses, open my ears to the scratch of fiddler crabs, the sloosh of mummichog, small killifish, in tidal pools? It took a willingness to lose a rubber boot, spend a day with a soaker, acceptance of dirty, damp knees and scratched and bitten flesh. At certain times of the year such commitment to explore the marsh goes a long way. But, standing on the edge, mindful of where we step, this too is a form of commitment that can go far in letting these systems flourish.  

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