Growing up, like most kids, I liked fantasy/adventure series – like Narnia, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings – and I read some of those books back then. But as I grew up, I became less interested in this genre and preferred to read more realistic stories. However, lately, I’ve been craving adventure and I’ve felt drawn to reading about these magical worlds again more than ever.

The pandemic has had me cooped up in my home for quite some time now. I don’t have my own car (not like there is anywhere I am allowed to go if I did), so the majority of the time when I want to get outside, I am restricted to a distance equal to as far as my legs can take me. As a result, I’ve been walking around my neighbourhood… a lot. Trust me, I’ve become so acquainted with the surrounding streets that I could walk them blindfolded. Although I appreciate all the moments I can spend outside, and being within walking distance to parks and green spaces is a privilege, I long for the excitement of travelling to new places, exploring natural areas, and having adventures. Since I can’t do that these days, I have started journeying to fictional places in my mind as much as I can through reading.

Source: Masterclass 

My fantasy novel reading kick started this year in 2021 because, after one year of the pandemic, I was feeling more antsy than ever. Like I said, I grew up liking adventure series, but they have a whole new effect on me these days. They provide a window into a new world, full of gripping adventures, in a time where we physically can’t do any of that in our own reality. 

More and more I’ve been feeling like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit – comfortable in my house and neighbourhood but feeling like there is a part of me aching for something more, for adventure. And sadly, a wizard is not going to come to my house and send me off on a journey, so it’s up to me to push myself out the door (metaphorically) and enter the fictional worlds that exist on my bookshelf. 

I typically read contemporary fiction and literature because I like realistic stories that can offer me insights into my own life and the real world. I always viewed fantasy as more of an escape from reality – just something fun to read to forget about real life and be immersed in a new, magical world. But the more I read fantasy novels, the more I realize that these stories might actually be helping me cope with my own changing, unpredictable world rather than distracting me from it. Sure, they sometimes provide oversimplified, utopian-esque reflections of life, but I genuinely think this literary genre can provide tools and insights that can aid us in the environmental movement. 

Inspiration for Fighting Our Battles

The courage that these fictional characters display can inspire us in our own stories.

First of all, the characters in these novels overcome great feats – and also small feats, too. They fight in battles, learn skills from their mentors, travel on long journeys, face harsh climates, and do all sorts of other “adventure trope” things, generally to save their world from evil. But their feats are not entirely unlike the ones we face in our world. The courage that these fictional characters display can inspire us in our own stories. Besides the fact that our world does not have fire-breathing dragons, centaurs, elves, and other magical beings, our world is not so different from many of the fictional worlds we can read about. Sometimes it just takes a closer look to see the similarities.

Source: The Almighty Guru

I put a Lord of the Rings quote in one of my other articles to emphasize the courage that we, as environmentalists, will need on the long road to fighting for a better world, and I’m putting another one in this article. Maybe it’s LOTR overkill, but the story of Frodo and the ring has so many relevant quotes that can give inspiration to environmental and social justice activists, and particularly youth, who feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. It’s not easy to face these issues every day, but we continue to fight every day nonetheless. Looking to fantasy stories for inspiration and courage would likely benefit all of us who find ourselves feeling the ever-present weight and discouragement of the state of the world.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Connecting with the Natural World

A lot of fantasy novels take place in the outdoors and the characters often get intertwined with the elements of nature. The setting of these stories, often being in very natural places, provide a lot of natural imagery and a mystical quality to nature, which the characters experience in awe, curiosity, and wonder. The natural aesthetic of these worlds can evoke in us a greater appreciation for nature. Keep in mind – the nature in these books is not altogether fictional… it’s based on the nature of our own world, just in combination with a bit of imagination.

But many fantasy stories also include the force of nature and the environment almost as a character itself. In the book, The Name of the Wind, only the most skilled individuals in the story who study the wind know the name of it, which basically means they can call on it with their minds and control it. The point is, the wind – and also other elements, like iron or stone – are great forces that come alive and become vital pieces to the story, almost like characters. The human characters are very intertwined with their natural world – just as we are with ours.

Source: Alicia Ochoa via Art Station

Rediscovering the Magic of the World

Although reading about these magical worlds can still be a form of escapism for many, these stories can also help us rediscover the magic within the real world. I know what you might be thinking – there is no magic in our world. Well, there is definitely a magical essence of nature. Nature is full of life, energy, and beauty – and it’s so complex. Humans have probably only scratched the surface of understanding the planet and the nature around us, but being in nature is far more than understanding – it’s also feeling and experiencing, which goes beyond merely thinking about it. 

When I go into nature, I feel at peace and inspired. When I travel to a new place and experience a whole new ecosystem, I feel shocked and amazed. When I see fireflies, starry skies, colourful sunsets, beautiful birds, the list goes on and on, I feel a way that I imagine magic would make me feel – in awe. There is so much in nature to appreciate, feel, and draw energy from, and I think it’s worth rediscovering the magic in our own world to feel more connected to nature and more motivated to better protect it.

Overall, I have a much greater appreciation for this literary genre than I did before the pandemic. Now that I’ve given it more of a chance without making presumptions about it, like that it would be childish or too “far-fetched” or irrelevant to my own life, I’ve come to realize that many of these books are none of those things. They are simply a look into another world that we can experience, find delight in, and also learn and draw inspiration from. The magic of our world is all around you and maybe picking up a fantasy or adventure book will help you rediscover it.

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Far from discussing fish biology, the film speaks to the legacy of colonial oppression experienced by indigenous communities from the 16th century when Chile became a settlement of the Spanish Crown to this day. The film focuses on a Mapuche community in the south of Chile. The Mapuche people make up 84 percent of the indigenous population in Chile. They remained independent throughout the colonial period and were forced to join the Chilean state in the 1880s, under siege by the Chilean army. It took about a century for the Mapuche collective land rights to be recognized by a 1993 Indigenous Law, yet there are recurring confrontations over collective land and water rights and human rights abuses. To this day, Mapuche people record some of the lowest social and economic indicators in the country. It is no surprise to see in the film a wealthy settler family vacationing in their rural estate serviced by Indigenous employees in the house and on the property.

Chile // Source: Audley Travel

Settler colonization is a distinct form of colonization that “covers its tracks” (Veracini, 2011, p. 3). To succeed in their colonial project, settlers need to extinguish or erase the former inhabitants of the land. One of the film’s scenes illustrates the engineered amnesia that permeates the contemporary settler’s consciousness. In a casual conversation among male settlers, one of them contends: “What I don’t understand is this idea of ‘recovering the lands’. They talk about the historical debt. What historical debt? They have never owned anything!” To which another responds: “But their ancestors have.” The first man disagrees: “Noooo. They were collectors and hunters. The agricultural activity was minimum. They walk through these woods. They usufruct the woods. They were not owners.” The conversation went on as a trifle and ended in laughter.

The film is not about fish, but rather the treatment of invasive species reminds how in settler colonization projects, binary language is used to establish and justify a society of deserving “haves” and undeserving “have-nots” (Harding, 2006), of us-who-belong-here vs them-who-do-not. In one of the scenes, a boy tells Pancho that the carps “come from another place.”  Pancho explains: “Look, the carps are originally from the Amur river that divides China from Russia. They brought them here to exterminate the algae, but they didn’t tell them that they reproduced very fast.” The ironic similarity with Indigenous people’s extermination by the European settlers was not brought up in the conversation which, again, ended in laughter. In face of the threat posed by over productive invaders, Pancho justified their extermination by all means necessary, including detonating explosives in the lagoon. The violence of the method soon triggered concerns in his daughter Manena.

Violence is an underlying theme throughout the film. Pancho’s choices seem to indicate a form of internalized violence; in addition to bombing the carps, he also installed an electric fence to protect the family lakeside estate. Latent violence grows in the Ovalle household as the movie progresses with Manena realizing that not only is the carp population aggressively controlled, but their Indigenous neighbours are also being dispossessed of their land and ways of life. The film depicts institutional violence led by the state police, los carabinieros, in a raid against a Mapuche village. Inter-community violence is also visible though lopsided, as animal and human casualties are only recorded on the Mapuche side: first, a Mapuche farmer loses a sheep against the electric fence, then a Mapuche worker, Manena’s friend, loses his life, also by electrocution.

Los carabinieros de Chile // Source: Illustrado Noticias

Although this film brings to the foreground the colonial legacies the Mapuche nation faces in Chile, there are certain limitations in this representation. One of the most questionable aspects is the viewpoint from where the audience accesses the story, in this case, Manena, a settler teenage girl that in her vacation begins to perceive the injustices indigenous communities endure in her father’s land. Even though Mapuche women and men appear on screen, the privileged voice is Manena’s. This can lead us to question which voices have the power to be heard, not only in the film but in the public sphere.

Mapuche men are the indigenous characters with most presence throughout the film; in fact, Manena’s friend is the common thread that opens and closes the film. However, this is not the case for Mapuche women. Dedicated to the care work within the settler’s household, they seem to be voiceless presences with no agency whatsoever. This representation falls short given the central role indigenous women have across Latin America in standing up against both environmental injustices and gender violence, up to such a point that scholars have observed a feminization of these fights, this is, more and more women join activist manifestations. Even more so, although the protagonist of the film is a girl, the representation of all the women is an aspect that deserves consideration. Manena’s mother is a character stripped of agency by being constantly silenced by her husband who diminishes her. She drowns her sorrows in alcohol and plays no part in the family business or her children’s education.  

The Summer of the Flying Fish takes place in southern Chile, but its message is global. It speaks to institutionalized violence and systemic racism in other settler colonies including Australia, the United States, and Canada. It compels viewers to turn a critical eye on themselves. To some viewers, maybe, this could be an unsettling exercise to examine their privileges and realize their complicity in perpetuating colonial ideology. About her interest in filmmaking and politics, filmmaker Marcela Said shares that she wants to “shoot what’s invisible, atmospherical… the tension.” The film ends leaving the viewer to know more. How far will Manena go in her standup against her father? How will the Mapuche community react to the loss of one of their youths?  Said can be commended for casting light on the invisible in this atmospheric and politics-laden drama.

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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Now that we can agree on what sustainable tourism is, how can this process be turned into a development platform? That is to say – how can tourist-based economies, like Barbados, or Thailand (there is a great interview coming up soon on this), use the broad aspects of sustainable tourism as a platform to spur on their development, thus growing the country’s economy in a highly sustainable way? In order to understand this, the next segment of the article is based on a scientific paper entitled “Tourism and Sustainable Development: Exploring the Theoretical Divide”2. 

Sustainable tourism has been defined, now what in the world is sustainable development? To understand this, both of these terms, sustainability, as well as development need to be understood. Development is a loose term used to define the ways in which countries progress through different stages, moving from developing, to developed nations. The main development theory we follow is modernisation, which in a nutshell, theorises that consumption on a mass scale in places like cities will provide capital to the surrounding towns as the wealth ‘trickles down’ through the economy. This is a theory that much of tourism is based upon and the use of resorts can be a great example, as it is expected that the capital they earn will be shared around the country as workers earn money and tourists spend money on local products. Using this, tourism is essentially treated like an export – in the sense that we are bringing in foreign exchange for a product, which in this case is the destination and its amenities. This is a lovely theory, but has its issues, especially when corruption comes into play. 

The most common approach to sustainability with respect to tourism development is the holistic approach, which accepts that tourism should be integrated into national and local development strategies, however the focus of sustainable tourism development is usually inwards, or product-centred. This is because sustainable tourism strategies almost always have a very narrow focus, targeting local, small scale projects, rather than targeting unsustainable aspects of tourism at a broader scale. It has been suggested that the biggest challenge of sustainable tourism will be to provide it to a mass market. Furthermore, tourism is often implemented in such a way that countries become over-dependent on it, and even when developed in a sustainable planning framework, tourism is often allowed to become the sole provider of economic activity in tourist-based economies. This in itself is not sustainable as in order to be truly sustainable, a country must be able to diversify its revenue streams. The paper concludes with one main recommendation for the development of sustainable tourism; the adoption of a new social paradigm relevant to sustainable living. This new paradigm of living will have to be largely spurred on by education, as tourists will have to choose to seek out sustainable forms of tourism or be prepared to adopt behaviours more appropriate to the needs of the country they enter. 

*As someone who has grown up in a country whose economy is almost solely reliant on the tourist sector, I have a few of my own insights into the matter. Barbados, my home, is a highly visited tourist country. As such, you might expect that our economy is booming due to all of the foreign exchange and capital coming into the country. The fact of the matter is, according to the Financial Times, in 2018 Barbados was ranked at the fourth highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world, with this being at 175%3. For a country that is as in demand as Barbados is, if tourism were being used as a proper development platform and being done well, this should never be the case. For a country that earns as much as Barbados does through tourism, it is apparent that sustainable development is not occurring. *

Of course, scientific papers have their place and are a great basis for writing articles, however real-world experience in the current year will help understand the strides that are being taken to create tourism more sustainable as well as use it as a development platform. In order to do this, I reached out to Jeffery Smith, the Vice President of Sustainability at Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas. Six Senses have an intent focus on ensuring sustainability in every aspect possible across all of their locations and have various environmental initiatives to ensure guests as well as the communities they are based in learn and connect more with the natural world while also boosting local economies and preserving culture. The interview can be read here: 

During my research I have come across many pieces arguing that tourism may never be sustainable with respect to distribution of wealth, as the income it brings is often not shared equally; how can this be addressed?

We (Six Senses) do try to address this, one of our aims is that all of our locations where we have our resorts or hotels have policies directly for this. Local hiring policy – we try to hire local, aim for 100% which in some locations we’re almost there, in other locations it’s really hard because for some reason people aren’t interested in tourism or they don’t have the skills – but we do try. In most situations if it’s a lack of skill then we will have programs for training, and we invest in local education programs for the community with the intention of over the long term building up that skill level so we can hire people. Local sourcing is important too and we have policies to prefer local sourcing of goods and services. So if you think about all of the supplies that go into running a resort there’s a lot, Six Senses go through a couple hundred eggs a day so even just looking at eggs, if we’re using local farmers, especially if they are small scale backyard farmers that’s pretty good business for them. Not everything can be sourced locally especially if you want certain kinds of vegetables that can’t be grown locally, but we do try to source locally as much as we can. That also goes towards services too, there’s not just the people who are directly hired by the resorts, there are secondary services and third parties – drivers who pick people up from the airport, people doing local tours, sending people out on boats – all of those local partners are worked with. 

In your opinion, what must be changed about tourism for it to become truly sustainable?

The number one thing in all of the sustainable tourism webinars and in-person meetings that I’ve participated in, it seems as though the elephant in the room that people are not talking about but we’re all aware of is air travel itself. For tourism to truly be sustainable we’ve got to decouple flights and travel from fossil fuels, it’s got to be carbon 0 travel somehow to really be sustainable. No one wants to touch this issue because we all fly. Maybe the solution is solar planes, maybe blimps? 

As a follow up, what aspects of tourism make it a success with respect to sustainability?

It provides meaningful jobs to people in some locations where otherwise there isn’t a lot of industry, specifically a lot of the focus in my company is resorts. Resorts tend to be in remote locations where there isn’t a lot of industry so the resort might be the biggest job opportunity in that island or region. I think it’s also good because it opens up the facilitation of cross-cultural exchange as one of the biggest aspects of tourism that is naturally helping sustainability because it is helping open people’s eyes. People from privilege may be seeing poverty, maybe giving access to people from these remote locations – access to international travelers, people, ways of thinking and direct job training. For example, we’re teaching people English and then hiring and teaching them basic entry level job skills but that also can be a stepping stone to international careers in tourism. And we do have people in our company who I know well that are from not typical western economies who have made careers out of working in tourism and they’ve been able to travel the world from it, and they’ve left their island and worked in other place so it gives access which is important on the cultural and social side. On the environmental side of sustainability, I think it gives access to people who would otherwise be in cities, allowing them to experience wildlife, to experience ecosystems that might be at risk thus allowing them to experience them and therefore value them. It gives value to ecosystems that otherwise might end up being testing ground for new fossil fuel exploration or mineral exploration or much more damaging industries. There’s habitat protection value built into tourism without even having to try to do habitat protection, because for tourists you want it to look pristine. Once you’ve experienced the environment it’s really hard not to care, how can you go away from that experience and think that could be destroyed. It can have a profound impact on people, and there’s power in that.

How can sustainable tourism be used as a development platform? What initiatives should countries with economies based in tourism be undertaking to bring about development spurred by the use of sustainable tourism?

As an example, we have a management contract with the hotel owner that we’ve added into all of our management contracts as a provision which acts as a funding mechanism for local development. So we call it the sustainability fund and it is 0.5% of all total hotel revenue, which doesn’t sound very big but when you multiply that by all the revenue coming into a resort it’s significant and that money is set aside and is earmarked to be spent at the local level. It’s not a corporate sustainability fund – it doesn’t get pooled to the corporate office it stays at each hotel unit level and it’s to be spent at the local level on projects with direct outcomes with local communities and environment. That’s the real only restriction we put on it, it needs to stay there and can’t go to the capital city – it needs to be relevant to that location and needs to have clear objectives to have positive impacts for the local community or environment. So that would be spent on the local school down the road, equipment in local hospitals, funding local educational programming – as mentioned earlier we provide free training for local communities. It also goes to wildlife conservation research, or habitat protection, we’re reforesting one island, regrowing coral in a reef in another, turtle hatching research and conservation, it depends on that location and what is relevant there. I think that’s an important tool, and really, it’s a policy – so that’s a corporate policy but it seems to be working pretty well and we’ve done some good stuff with that funding mechanism. Back to the question of what should countries be doing? Using this as an example I suggest countries do the same – might not be at the national level, maybe should be at the provincial or a bit lower than national level, but to actually tax the tourism businesses especially the big ones, international ones like ours and then use that tax revenue, and do what we do – keep it local, spend it directly in that local community so you can see the benefits. That way those visitors can see the benefits, so when we have guests come to our hotel we’ll introduce them – do you want to meet the turtle researcher whose research you’re funding – so thanks for visiting and you are funding them and you can go talk to them. Or would you like to take a look at the equipment which you’ve funded for the local hospital. So that way there’s that direct connection which I think is more sustainable to do it that way because when money gets pooled to capital city and then spent on other projects it is sometimes goes into strange places, and can be very disconnected from the actual traveler themselves which means that they don’t get that value out of it. They don’t have that full experience out of tourism that they knew they could by visiting. I recommend taxing tourism revenue and spending it directly in the locations where the tourists visit and what’s really smart about that is that tourists use things like local infrastructure – roads, bridges, waste management, clean drinking water – tourists need that so if you tax them and spend it on that it’s just smart business. What it comes back to is destination management which is really an industry of PR and marketing, every country has destination management people working for them, any tourism economy has it and they’re marketing that destination so they’re not really managing it to the pure definition of the word they’re actually marketing – my recommendation for governments is to actually manage the destination so yes continue marketing but also track things like infrastructure and spend on that infrastructure to make sure that it meets the capacity. Taxing is never a popular topic but if it’s done well and kept local then governments would have less resistance from it

How can sustainable tourism be made more popular? Many tourists simply want to travel to exotic places for the lowest price – in your mind, how do we change these ideas surrounding cheap holidays?

The key is education, and educating all tourists and maybe even more importantly than that is educating the tour operators and the inbound travel agents – people who sell the packages so that they’re choosing carefully because they can vet a lot for their customers and maybe they then won’t always be selling the cheapest option because they know it’s unethical, so having some kind of standards and education with them. As a case study where this was a success, that I played a small role in is in elephant tourism in Thailand. About 10 years ago and before, there were 100s of elephants working in tourism in Thailand and almost all of them were doing circus shows, so circus rings and tourists pay to go watch elephants dance, do tricks etc. This wasn’t good for the elephants, they’re an endangered species and wild animals, and you could also do rides. This was the economic model that every elephant tourism venue was following, then one place opened up, then another and another, of people saying, “this is wrong, this is abusive, they have to beat the elephants to make them do tricks”. It took a few years, but by educating the public through a big awareness campaign as well as tourists coming into Thailand and people back home, a lot of awareness raising in North America and Europe and then the real turning point was when we got to the tour operators. The people with tour shops in the UK, Canada, etc. where they sell the package tours where you go as a group and they have them go place to place. That was the big turning point because just one agent could be sending a couple hundred people per year and getting them to wake up to the issue, because they weren’t aware, they thought it was fine like ‘oh that’s normal you go see the elephants do tricks’ – this is why it’s wrong and here’s a much better alternative and here are some standards we recommend you put into practice for your business and this has completely changed the industry. At first there were a lot of people who didn’t want to pay more for it, but there’s a turning point where it becomes so popular that everyone goes in that direction, and the cost difference decreases. Today the cost difference is negligible. 

What are the biggest challenges of implementing sustainable tourism today?

I think the biggest challenge is air travel which we’ve already covered, so putting that aside, there’s more awareness to be had in that industry. Once you hit a certain level of awareness there’s a tipping point and then everyone starts doing it because it’s cultural. I don’t think mainstream tourism is quite there yet. If you ask anyone working in the tourist industry if they want to be sustainable no one will say ‘no, I want to destroy the planet or local communities’, but if there was more awareness of exactly what sustainability meant and how to go about it that would help. I don’t want to say it’s a challenge, but if everyone is studying tourism at entry level jobs or training or courses, if everyone had a sustainability component to it, I think that would help raise the general level of awareness and that would make a big impact. There is a need to raise awareness on why sustainability is important, and what does it mean really, because a lot of people will say ‘yeah of course I don’t want to destroy the planet’ and then go turn on their dry cleaning machine and maybe they don’t realise that produces really bad chemicals, they just don’t know the consequences of their actions. 

Similar to the paper examined, Mr. Smith explains that consumer behaviour must be changed in order to create tourism as a development platform, stating that education plays a critical part in the process. Mr. Smith also offered great insights on how all resorts and hotels should be conducting their practices, by ensuring revenue is shared evenly around local communities. Only then can tourism be truly sustainable and used as an economic development platform. The notion of a tourism tax is also an idea that countries should consider, while no one likes more taxes, if this was the industry standard then it would simply be a built-in expense to tourism rather than a deterrent. This is all to say, please don’t sh#t where we sleep, and make sure that tourism dollars are put back into a country’s economy.

Want more stories like this? This article is featured in our next issue, Getting There: The Ecosystem of Human Movement. Check out the next issue for more!

Sources:

1. https://www.unwto.org/sustainable-development

2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669580008667346?casa_token=TJohrKHxHoYAAAAA%3Aw-0y3Kw3OvJtmevEGzYEZxo7BfGnNBY-KYk2ZtKClM8mCEFh-X1J361EnxhDLuX80wHWYodLrVbx&

3. https://www.ft.com/content/1e6db984-6839-11e8-8cf3-0c230fa67aec

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Microplastics have been found in the ocean, in the soil and in our food and drinks but they are also found in the air. They are formed from plastics being broken down into smaller pieces and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, they are about the size of a grain of rice (approximately 5mm). Indoor microplastics exist in the form of fibres. This originates from items such as clothing fabrics, furniture textiles, toys and microbeads in cosmetics.

Source of microplastics in the air

Source: Daily Mail

A study published in the Scientific Reports journal showed that the main identifiable sources of microplastics indoors are from synthetic and non-synthetic items with the predominant sources being from polyester (81%) and cellulose (4%- e.g. cotton), for each source, respectively. The study used a Breathing Thermal Mannequin which simulated human breathing in real-home case studies and it’s the first evidence of indoor air microplastic exposure to humans. It also showed that we could possibly be breathing in 11 microplastic pieces per hour, as this was the highest exposure concentration in the study. The study also stated that at this rate, for over a 24 hour period, an average male (as the mannequin used mimicked male breathing rate and surface temperature) doing light activity can inhale over 272 microplastics.

“We created something that won’t go away…It’s now circulating around the globe.” Janice Brahney, Biogeochemist at Utah State University and Lead Author of Study

Microplastics also exist outdoors. A study by Janice Brahney, Biogeochemist at Utah State University, showed that national parks in the United States have been getting about 1000 tonnes or more per year of microplastic dust. The dust travels from different geographic locations as it is carried by storms (via raindrops) and the source of microplastics can range from clothing, carpets, other textiles and even spray paint.

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Microbeads like this shown on the tip of tweezers are found in spray paint

Source: Janice Brahney, Utah State University- photo via Science Magazine

Brahney found that 30% of the particles she found were microbeads (microplastic beads). Chelsea Rochman, ecologist and microplastic researcher at the University of Toronto remarked that this was an astonishing find as this microplastic source wasn’t discussed before. Of the remaining 70% of particles in Brahney’s study that were difficult to classify, 4% were plastic. Brahney’s research team confirmed that each day 132 pieces of microplastics in the air settle on every square meter of the wilderness. With 1000 tonnes of microplastic dust yearly, that equates to 300 million plastic water bottles, as reported in Science. Brahney’s research suggested that the larger the storm, the more microplastics and heavier pieces of it were carried. However, 75% of the microplastics were deposited in dry weather rather than with regional rainstorms as high-altitude winds help move the microplastics from distant locations. It’s the small things we take for granted in our actions and purchases that have a big impact on the environment thousands of kilometres away- even if we can’t see it. Microplastics have been circulating in the air for decades and have become part of the global “plastic cycle”, Brahney said.

We know that microplastics are found in seafood and vegetables but a study shows that from eating microplastics in mussels, we can get around 123 pieces of microplastics per year/capita (in the UK) and that value can go up to 4620 particles/ year/ capita in higher shellfish consumption countries. The study compared this mussel-related value to their suggested 13,731- 68,415 particles/year/ capita from household dust (airborne fibres) that could be inhaled indoors. This shows that our indoor environment plays a larger role in our consumption of microplastics via the air than via food.

Microplastics being inhaled in indoor air outweigh microplastics obtained in seafood

Source: Science Direct

While more research needs to be done on the impacts of microplastics from food, breathing in microplastics from indoor and outdoor air can have negative impacts on human health. According to Dr. Kevin Luo, Senior Air Filtration Specialist for Blueair (a global indoor air purification brand), said that breathing microplastics in can potentially cause the formation of lesions in the respiratory system. A study on 114 human lung cancer patients who were undergoing lung resection (where a section of/ entire lung removed) for the abstraction of a tumour showed that 99 (87%) patients had microplastics in their lungs from cellulosic (e.g. cotton) and plastic (polyester) fibres.

Another negative impact is that the size of microplastics makes them easy carriers of pollutants (e.g. from viruses, bacteria and car exhaust) and can introduce them into the bloodstream through our lungs. Luo also said that these microplastics can induce cancer or result in cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases and impact the nervous and immune systems. Luo noted that children are at a higher risk as they breathe more rapidly compared to adults and often play on the floor where dust containing microplastics settle.

Now that we have this information, what can we do to reduce the number of indoor microplastics in the air? Blueair suggests the following:

1. Vacuum floors frequently to remove dust containing microplastics
2. Remove carpets as they trap plastic particles and fibres while microplastics can be released into the air from linoleum and vinyl flooring
3. Avoid synthetic clothing fabrics which usually shed their plastics fibres and for home furnishings use more natural or organic textiles and fabrics.
4. Reduce the purchase of products containing microbeads (cosmetics, facial scrubs, toothpastes, etc.)

It appears that microplastics are all around us: in the ocean, land and air and they’re getting into our bodies. To reduce the amount of microplastics in our global environment we can dispose of plastics properly by recycling and reducing our plastic purchases by considering the 10R’s to discontinue the plastic cycle in our lives.

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One of the best things about travel is that you can see there are a million ways to live a life, and most of them are very good.” Through all his years of experiencing, studying and teaching about travel and tourism, this is one of the most important lessons Joe Pavelka, associate professor at Mount Royal University, has learned and continues to pass on to his students.

Education through direct experience is in growing demand across the globe, especially in Pavelka’s field of study: tourism. More and more people seek to blend their holiday experiences with learning about the destination’s land and people, while minimizing any negative impacts.

Traditionally, tourism can promote overconsumption of goods and pleasures, and is often marked by exploitation of the destination’s people and environment. Unchecked, tourism can seriously aggravate environmental and social issues.

For example, the tourism-related impacts of coral bleaching in the Caribbean are well documented. Along with the Atlantic reefs, the Caribbean accounts for 7.6 percent of the world’s coral. This region has seen an increase in coral bleaching events over the past three decades, and while tourism is not the only source of damage, it is a significant direct and indirect contributor.

The Caribbean economy is tourism-intensive. Activities such as snorkelling, diving and boating cause direct damage to the reefs by breaking delicate and branched reefs and causing gashes to large corals. Anchors and boat groundings also cause problems, while tourists’ demand for seafood reduces the reef’s fish stocks.

Indirect negative impacts of tourism include improperly treated wastewater discharge from resorts and multiple small-scale oil spills from recreational vessels. Coastal development and increase of tourism infrastructure also adds to coral reef bleaching. This trend is observed in other coastal regions of the world as well.

The rise of cruise ship tourism, a widely cited type of mass tourism, is severely compromising local economies. In Venice, for example, overnight stays in local hotels have decreased by almost two thirds over the past 25 years. Today, only half of Venice’s yearly 20-million tourists spend the night. Additionally, tourists spend less time in restaurants and shops as cruises offer buffets, accommodation and entertainment on the ships.

However, the rise of ecotourism is making things better for both people and environment. The International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as responsible travel that “conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” The United Nations World Tourism Organization reports that nature-based tourism now represents 20 percent of total international travel, and continues to grow.

This form of tourism aims to inspire sustainability in the industry. Rather than exploiting a local ecology and culture, ecotourism strives to contribute to the local economy while teaching diversity and sustainability principles.

Getting out of the traditional “brick and mortar” schooling approach, and instead seeking practical, hands-on learning experiences can change lives.”

Knowledge sharing is an essential component of environmentally and socially responsible tourism. Getting out of the traditional “brick and mortar” schooling approach, and instead seeking practical, hands-on learning experiences can change lives. Take, for instance, Joe Pavelka’s extraordinary project, Canoes for Peru.

In 2011, Pavelka, an ecotourism professor at Mount Royal University, and his colleague Ryse Huamani, founder and guide of an ecotourism company based in the Peruvian Amazon, had an idea. They would re-introduce canoeing as a tourist activity on the Alto Madre de Dios River in the Manu Biosphere Reserve of Peru, where high-impact motorized boating has virtually replaced paddling. However, since Pavelka couldn’t find suitable canoes in South America, the donated boats would come from Canada.

In 2014 they began crowd funding, and by May 2015, Pavelka and a group of students from Mount Royal University had shipped 19 donated canoes from Calgary, Alberta, to the Manu region of Peru and along with their hosts, were shoving their Calgary canoes off the Alto Madre de Dios riverbank to start their five-day Amazon field trip.

The interactive exchange of knowledge and culture between the hosts and students was unique. Visiting students taught the local community how to canoe, while other activities included playing football and enjoying enthusiastic traditional dance performances.

The students learned more than survival skills in a wilderness setting. As Pavelka said, “The best thing is the contact and relationships the students can have with local people in a genuine way.”

The students’ feedback on this unique learning experience was telling. One student said, “I like the exchange that we had. They learned a little bit about canoeing from us and we learned so much about the jungle.”

Another shared, “The exchange of playing soccer with the local community, I really liked that. Kind of like a universal language.”

The experience challenged the students’ thinking and illustrated to them the diversity of ways different cultures can exist. And the host community learned a new way of providing an ecotourism experience for Huamani’s family-owned tourism company.

This kind of natural-based tourism not only changes the visitors’ lives for the better, but also the host region’s people and environment by promoting conservation of land and culture.

Done the right way, tourism can be a tool to create a better planet by emphasizing knowledge and experience, rather than focusing on consumption.”

Examples of responsible tourism can be found the world over, and the options are as diverse as they are exciting. In the Himalayas, Ecosphere is a tourism organization recognized for its contribution towards innovative, responsible tourism in the trans-Himalayan region of Spiti Valley in India. Their mandate includes ploughing all revenues into the conservation, economy and development of the
Spiti region.

Another example comes from the small community of Arviat, Nunavut. With only 2800 residents, the World Travel and Tourism Council has internationally recognized their local tourism industry for their contribution towards community and aboriginal tourism by providing equal benefits to both the hosts and tourists.

The company reports that on average, the Arviat community earns $3000 per tourist trip, and the proceeds are directed towards community conservation efforts, while delivering little or no-impact guiding excursions. Around 30 to 35 people from this community are involved full-time with the ecotourism program in this region.

Visitors have the opportunity to authentically experience the pristine Canadian Arctic. Depending on the season, tourists can opt for wildlife tours where they can spot animals including polar bear, caribou, muskox, arctic fox, grizzly bear and birds such as the peregrine falcon, sandhill crane and tundra swan.

When participating in cultural tours, visitors experience the traditional music of drum dancing, ayaya singing and throat singing, and they taste local foods such as caribou stew, arctic char and seal meat. Tours include a unique storytelling component, hosted in caribou skin tents, as well as visits to homes of senior citizens who grew up on that land. These residents share stories with visitors about their history, and explain how old artefacts were used as traditional tools. This productive dialogue between the hosts and tourists facilitates environmental and community learning. Truly, community-based ecotourism offers some of the richest and most in-demand learning experiences available.

Ecotourism does have limitations, as any kind of travel can be a significant contributor to climate change. However, carbon offsets, carbon taxes and slow travel are some of the ways to tackle carbon emissions. Ecotourism’s experiential learning benefits can be harnessed from local and national travel as well. Done the right way, tourism can be a tool to create a better planet by emphasizing knowledge and experience, rather than focusing on consumption.

That said, you might be wondering how to find the best ecotourism, near or far. Says Pavelka. “My answer is wherever you find people who have decided they are not ever leaving the land; that they intend to pass the land on to their children.  If you are seriously and genuinely committed to staying on the land, you will be good to the land and yourself in equal measure.”

The lessons learned through ecotourism experiences are life-long and helpful for transformation towards a sustainable lifestyle. Resisting conventional tourism and opting instead for ecotourism is not always easy, but it is essential. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is the first step towards embracing change. As the Norwegian proverb goes, “Only one who wanders finds new paths.”

The post A Million Ways appeared first on A\J.

Cranes play a vital role in the ecosystem. They balance the food supply eating both plants and animals, they are also food for large predators such as foxes, wolves, coyotes, lynxes, bobcats, raccoons, and Golden eagles. Out of the 15 crane species found in the world, 11 are considered threatened or endangered. This threat comes in the form of habitat decline and urban expansion.

In 1973, Ron Sauey and George Archibald founded the International Crane Foundation (ICF) on Sauey’s family farm in Baraboo, Wisconsin where they began to study and breed cranes in captivity. The first of its kind, this foundation grew astronomically and currently provides scientific knowledge and conservation leadership in four different continents around the world.

In most places where the ICF has worked, crane habitat degradation has been caused by human impact. Therefore the ICF has implemented unique methods to crane conservation, which include wetland conservation and providing vital income opportunities to communities that share the space with cranes. They work with native communities to understand local practices and best efforts. In addition, they educate and involve university students in their conservation efforts to allow the spread of scientific knowledge.

Grey Crowned Crane\ Photo by Shawn Olesen

Their efforts in Rwanda have introduced locals to sustainable and alternative ways to use wetlands, such as beekeeping. This provides the locals withsustainable income methods that rely on the upkeep of the Rugezi Marsh, the natural habitat for the endangered Grey Crowned Cranes. In doing so, people, landscapes and cranes benefit from these efforts. 

The ICF recognize that the future of conservation relies on educating future generations. In the past year they hosted three sessions of their International Nature School attended by nearly 500 local children, teachers, college students and staff as they explored and tested wetlands in China. Furthermore they provided 20 college students with the opportunity to design and lead a real conservation activity, founding the next generation of “craniacs”.

The ICF estimate that 50 per cent of the Whooping Crane habitat found on the coasts of Texas is at risk due to rising sea levels associated with climate change. Therefore the ICF has used sophisticated mapping techniques to identify and secure healthy long-term coastal habitats to apply conservation protection strategies through easements and purchases. These new habitats will provide new winter homes to Whooping Cranes even in the face of rising sea levels.

Throughout the years, the ICF has maintained their headquarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin and continue to pursue creating multiple self-sustaining flocks of Whooping Cranes in the wild. In the spring of 2014, 54 whooping Crane eggs were laid, the highest number produced in the entire history of the ICF. Chicks Tabasco, Pico de Gallo, Sweet Baby Ray, Honey, Sriracha, and Aioli were the first cohort to join the non-migratory flock in Louisiana. The ICF has grown in leaps and bounds and continues to strengthen its commitment to places and people cranes depend on, one chick at a time.

Support the ICF by visiting their website and following them on Twitter.

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LIFE IS DEFINED through success and failure, often in the same breath. The most successful still feel they could have done more, and even the poorest among us can be content.

LIFE IS DEFINED through success and failure, often in the same breath. The most successful still feel they could have done more, and even the poorest among us can be content.  In the same way, the global movement for sustainability is a story of pockets of success within the failure to curtail our ever-increasing demand for resources and wealth.

In a year of travel, we saw many of the failures in growth and development, but even more examples of how people and countries have risen to the challenge. We saw snapshots of people making a living, contributing to their family and community, and of the values and faith that underpin their actions.

A year is not a long time if you plan to see the world, but it is enough time to gain impressions, draw links and find common themes. Enough time to catch glimpses of what works and what doesn’t, and to cobble together an understanding of common threads and a few ideas for what can be done.

FIVE LESSONS

Distilling our experiences through Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia, these are the five most important things I have learned:

1. There is no hope.
Sustainability is a myth. Our current global economy is unsustainable and unstoppable in its drive to develop the last resources. Whether through greed or need, we will be hard pressed to save what remains once we have used up what we have. Small actions multiplied by 8 billion people, combined with the acquisitions and actions of large multinationals, ensure that the long term outlook is bleak.

2. There is hope.
There is always hope. The drive for a better life is the goal common to all people in all countries. The depth of commitment of people and organizations to help each other is amazing. The challenge is to find ways to tap into this energy in order to help us all live better with less. This is true both of western economies and of those countries that are already living with less.

What binds us all together is hope… hope that success lies ahead. Even in the darkest of times and in the poorest of countries, life breeds hope. The drive for a better life, be it through work, education, family, or faith, is universal.

3. Tourism offers hope.
For better or for worse, the impact of tourism on local societies and economies is huge. Maybe it’s the perspective of a traveler, but for so many countries, from Europe to Asia, tourism is seen as an economic panacea. We saw an endless stream of new hotels being built throughout India, Nepal, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Tourist dollars are the great hope, and indeed Western money is the best way out of poverty. Tourism accounts for 9.8% of the global economy, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. On the positive side, it helps redistribute wealth while expanding minds, but tourism can be fickle and is an early casualty in a global economic downturn.  The best examples we saw used tourism revenue to support long term community development and environmental protection.

4. A strong voluntary sector is crucial.
Healthy and resilient societies have strong voluntary organizations. We saw this in Udaipur, India, where Shikshantar is training people to become part of a diverse local economy; in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where the Cambodian Landmine Museum and Relief Centre supports effort to clear old landmines and support victims; and in northern Vietnam, where Sapa O’Chau is a social enterprise linking tourism to community development. Groups and social enterprises are a voice of social values and aspirations, they address needs, they empower voluntary change, and they create the space and opportunity for political and business leadership. Social organizations can also be a check against power, and unfortunately the ability to organize for change is under attack both in democratic and totalitarian countries alike at a time when it is needed the most.

5. Culture is everything.
Culture is the foundation of who we are. It influences our behaviour and how we respond (or fail to respond) to environmental issues. It can be our competitive advantage, or the millstone preventing change. The ability to invent, develop, and implement new approaches is wholly dependent upon the ability to nurture a culture of change within each country.

The issues are complex, and the answers are never easy, simple, or universal. The carpet of plastic we saw on roadsides across India and Southeast Asia would not be possible were it not the cultural norm to toss what was once organic and biodegradable waste aside to be food for animals. Yet, we also found that road rage is virtually non-existent in the crush of traffic on Indian and Asian streets, and that France has a remarkably more progressive cultural outlook on transportation than Canada.

ONE INSIGHT

The common thread is the realization that people are at the heart of our ability to find more sustainable solutions – not corporations or governments. Culture establishes norms and presents both barriers and opportunities; organizations build common cause and strengthen entire communities; and people can be the individual spark for change or part of a collective force for change (for better or for worse).

Understanding that people and culture are at the heart of the issues and solutions carries profound implications for both environmentalism (the fight against destruction) and sustainability (efforts to promote corporate responsibility and voluntary leadership).

The piece that is missing is to put people first. For fairly obvious reasons of funding and profit, social sustainability has never received as much attention as economic sustainability, but if we are serious about achieving results it should.

Sustainability should start with the hopes and aspirations of people and seek to meet them through less disruptive means. In short, we need to help people live better with less, a mantra that works equally well in poor countries as it does in the opulent. The challenges for each country are unique, but they all reflect the basic requirements to quality of life: shelter, food, energy transportation, community, and jobs.

On the international stage, there is hope. On September 25^th, 2015, 150 world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit will be asked to adopt 17 sustainable development goals, a dramatic increase from the eight Millennium Development Goals of 2001. The implementation of these goals around the world is the opportunity we need to connect global goals with the needs and aspirations of people.

Somehow, in each individual country, we need to transform global goals for the health and sustainability of our planet into policies and programs that will give people hope for the future.

FIVE IDEAS

Implementing global agreements is no simple matter. While in Rome, we met with Thomas McInerny, whose organization, the Treaty Effectiveness Initiative (TEI), seeks to improve the on-the-ground implementation of the over 600 global agreements that have been adopted in the past 70 years. Agreements can become mired in politics, bureaucracy, corruption, and lobbying, so it is important to have strong tools for transparency, accountability, and effectiveness.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we chanced upon Paul Forest and John Smith Gumbula in the small town of Bellingen, Australia, where they are developing Cluster, a new organic approach to internet-based organizing around values and action. Whether organized or organic, it’s going to take tremendous efforts to translate global ideas of sustainability into ideas that will help people live better with less.

Drawing from our experiences and the above lessons, I can offer five ideas. Each one is simple, yet radical: simple in that we can do it, and radical in that they require a radical shift in the way we approach the transition to a sustainable economy and society.

1. Rethink sustainability.
Honesty about the unsustainable nature of our current economy is critical, and altogether missing from the discussion of our economic and social future. 

We need to change how we look at sustainability – right down to the imagery we use to represent the relationship between environment, economy and society. The mistake was to think of it as a compromise between development and protectionist goals where each aspect carries equal weight. Sustainability is not about balancing profit and protection, it is about ensuring a solid and stable foundation to permit economic and social development.

We should think of sustainability as a triangle, or pyramid, with the environment and resources as the foundation upon which economic activity is possible. The economy, in turn, provides the potential for social development. Without the natural environment and its resources, the economy and society will collapse.

The second aspect of rethinking sustainability is to measure it. True sustainability is the ability to maintain an activity indefinitely without impacting the resource base or natural environment. Here’s an idea that came to me while on a Red Dao farm in Vietnam: S=D/I (Sustainability is defined as the Durability of a product or process divided by its environmental Impact). Indigenous cultures, such as Australian Aborigines lived for 40,000 years without significant impact – score 40,000. The terrace farming we saw in Northern Vietnam, has been sustained for hundreds of years – score 500. The plastic wrappers we saw littered across those same rice paddies have a use of less than a year and an impact that lasts hundreds – score 0.002. You can tweak the factors and develop more rigourous tools to quantify the impact, but it’s hard to fudge the results. Try it yourself on oil and nuclear versus wind and solar; on clear-cut forestry and palm oil plantations versus community forests, or on bikes and transit in urban villages versus cars in suburbia. In a world where every major corporation produces a sustainability report to promote their environmental commitment, we need a simple formula and arm’s length reporting to remind us of the distance we have yet to travel to achieve a sustainable future.

2. Start with Values.
The transition to sustainability will require substantial changes in how we live, especially those of us in the western world. This change will happen either through crisis (environmental or economic) or by choice. If we want it to happen by choice, and we do, then we need to act sooner rather than later and focus on changes people want.

We need to start with the core values that unite us as a community or country, and translate them into solutions that make us feel good about ourselves and improve our quality of life at the same time as they increase sustainability and reduce our carbon footprint. This is common sense, but it would mark a departure from the current emphasis on economic growth and profit coupled with government austerity as the key drivers of social policy. 

3. Set the Agenda.
Social organizations need to lead the way in defining social values, not government or corporations. This is far more involved than building a coalition of organizations to lobby for government policy. It requires collaboration between organizations not just to define the future we all want, but to be leaders in delivering the change.

From my past work with the Conservation Council of Ontario, I know this approach can work. Imagine the power of a national or regional sustainability agenda, backed up by community action plans across the country, that seek to engage and empower people and groups in adopting solutions that improve their quality of life and reduce our environmental impact.

4. Invest in our Future.    
The transition to a sustainable future needs funding.  We can choose to squander our current economic and resource wealth, or we invest in a sustainable future. Those countries that have used the profit from resource development and consumption to invest in sustainable infrastructure and community development are way ahead of the game.

In our travels, we saw both local and national examples of resource-based funds, such as the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, where half of the park user fees support local community development, and Malaysia’s national oil company whose revenue amounts to 45 percent of the national budget. At a time when the world is struggling to find ways to address both climate change and sustainability, the lack of resource-based transition funds (such as a climate fund) is appalling.

5. Have Faith. 
Perhaps the most surprising lesson learned on our trip was the power of faith, not so much the undeniable wealth and power of religious institutions, but the power of small faith. The Buddhist prayer wheels and the daily offerings to their gods and ancestors in Bali were just two examples of daily rituals that people to live according to their values.

Offerings on a rusty bridge in Ubud, Bali

Given that the predominant and most dangerous cultural trend in the West has been a growth in isolationism, protectionism, anger and hatred, we could all use a simple daily act of self-awareness to remind us to live a good life, to be kind to others, and to respect the environment. As we travelled, I followed a blog series by a friend and writer, Lorne Blumer, on the Birkot HaShachar, the Jewish morning blessings, and the role they might play in helping us – Jews and non-Jews; believers, agnostics, and atheists – live with more gratitude, presence, and even compassion.

A daily ritual of awareness, whatever form it takes, reminds us of our values, and to make the most of our lives and of each day.

EPILOGUE

Now I am back home in Canada, I am asking myself, can we implement this approach here? Can we rekindle our nation’s commitment to leadership in social sustainability? Can we find the leadership, vision, and tools to guide Canada over the next century? Canada has a proud history and culture as a compassionate country. We can and should be a leader in new approaches to sustainability.

Certainly, everything I wrote about last year in The Next Wave has been reaffirmed and strengthened through the year of travel. The time is nigh for a new wave of leadership in supporting a voluntary transition to a future of our choosing: the future we want.

Here are five things we could use in Canada – key signs of leadership based on implementing the United Nations goals for sustainable development:

1. A public vision of the future we want, a coalition of senior organizations across Canada to translate the UN sustainability goals into a Canadian vision and a national voluntary sector plan of action and leadership.
2. Federal, provincial, and municipal sustainable development strategies to mirror and implement the UN sustainable development goals in Canada.
3. Community action plans: a commitment from every municipality to support local groups and volunteers through a community network and action plan.
4. Renewed international aid: a new federal commitment to support the sustainable development plans of developing countries through transparent and accountable processes.
5. Transition funds: resource or carbon-based funds to ensure that a significant portion of Canada’s wealth is used to invest in the future we want.
6. Beautiful ideas: innovative and integrated solutions that address multiple goals.

Each one of the first five tasks is a major challenge, but we cannot hope to even come close to a sustainable future unless we learn to think big, and cooperatively. The last one is organic, the opportunity for all aspiring entrepreneurs, social ventures, and activists to come up with solutions to help us all live better with less.

Sustainability has to start at home. Time to step up our game, Canada.

The post Rethinking Sustainability appeared first on A\J.

AIRPORTS EVOKE MIXED FEELINGS. Few of us enjoy serpentine lineups, running along moving sidewalks checking our watches, or unpacking our belongings for security personnel. Yet some of the most interesting spaces we’ll meet on our journeys are the airports we rush through.

From Japan’s Kansai airport built on the ocean, to Jedda’s state-of-the-art terminal for transporting thousands of pilgrims to Mecca, to Denver’s lounges adorned with apocalyptic murals, airports tell us a lot about cultures. They can also reveal a lot about our relationship with nature. Never mind the carbon footprint of flying; from location, to construction, to the people flowing through them, airports drastically change a landscape and the populations, human and wild, that live there.

Runways require enormous swaths of land. The average runway for commercial jets is around three kilometres long, and major airports have up to half a dozen. Denver International, mid-sized as airports go, is twice the size of Manhattan. To accommodate them, forests are felled, farms and wetlands paved, and communities relocated.

Take Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, whose name means “the golden land.” In the 1970s, the Thai government purchased 3,400 hectares of river floodplain to develop the city’s second major airport. Formerly known as the “Cobra Swamp” (Nong Ngu Hao), this wetland was an important way station along the East Asian migratory bird flyway. It was also home to white-eyed river martin, Siamese Bala shark and other endangered species.

Thailand’s government envisioned the airport as the nucleus for a new economic centre “as big as Singapore.” The imagined aerotropolis has been slow to emerge, but Suvarnabhumi has doubtless been a gold rush for Thailand’s economy as a gateway for commerce, ecotourism and beach getaways.

From location, to construction, to the people flowing through them, airports drastically change a landscape and the populations, human and wild, that live there.

Yet its site on a former wetland continues to haunt Suvarnabhumi. Bird-airplane collisions plague the airport. In 2009, a landing aircraft flew into a flock of painted storks; seven hit the plane, denting the nose-cone and damaging a wing. Thai authorities responded by trying to eliminate birds from the area. Concrete and artificial turf replaced grass. Nearby wetlands were filled in to eliminate avian food sources such as fish and snails. Chemicals and noise were used to deter birds from entering flight paths. The efforts had some success – as far as flight safety is concerned, at least. In 2006, 104 species of birds were found on airport lands. By 2014, the number had dropped to 79.

Exotic animals remain an unhappily familiar sight at Suvarnabhumi, however. The Thai gateway is a hotspot for illegal wildlife smuggling: 11 otters were found alive in a suitcase in 2013. Sadly, Suvarnabhumi isn’t the only air hub that facilitates trafficking of rare species, particularly in regions where their protection is lax. Airport gift shops give rural communities new sales outlets for handcrafts made from local woods, corals or shells – but seldom question the source of those materials.

Expediting tourism to exotic areas can also damage the ecosystems that attract the visitors. The Galapagos Islands saw about 1,000 visitors a year in the 1960s. After the addition of a second airport, the number jumped to 80,000 in the 21st century. After recovering from near extinction in the 1930s, Baltra Island iguanas are now often spotted as road-kill from increased tourist traffic.

Suvarnabhumi \ Anam Ahmed

The upside of “airside”

Airport researchers call all that flat land around runways “airside.” North American airports sprawl over more than 3,300 square kilometres of it – enough to cover half of Ontario’s Algonquin Park.  All this airside provides habitat for red-tailed hawks, blue herons, red-winged black birds and killdeer. Stormwater holding ponds attract waterfowl like ducks and geese. Field mice, jackrabbits and woodchucks, drawn to vegetation, attract foxes, coyotes and predatory birds.

While many North American grassland birds are losing habitat to urban fragmentation, airports may be providing alternative habitats. The authors of Wildlife in Airport Environments calculate that as little as 50 hectares of airside grassland may enrich species diversity in developed landscapes. Montreal’s largely abandoned Mirabel airfield has been turned into pasture for 350,000 managed honeybees. Advocates for threatened monarch butterflies point out that milkweed – an essential host for monarch larvae – could flourish around North American runways.

But bird strikes aren’t the only danger to people when wildlife and aviation meet. A few wasps may have brought down Birgenair Flight 301 shortly after take-off from the Dominican Republic in 1996, killing 189 passengers. Investigators concluded that mud-dauber wasps nested in the aircraft’s pitot tubes while it was parked on the tarmac, disabling the air-speed sensors. Unaware of their flight speed, the pilots lost control of their aircraft. (Ground crews are now supposed to cover pitot tubes on aircraft parked for any length of time.)

Anam Ahmed

Symbolic places

The airport terminal is unlike an earlier generation’s train station. Places like New York’s Grand Central Station draw visitors for their neoclassical architecture and accessible commerce. Suburban airports, by contrast, have become what Alistair Gordon describes as “vacuum-sealed” experiences, where passengers are funneled through “super-insulated” concourses (the average one runs nearly half a kilometre in length) into “shadowless holding tanks … oblivious to the outside world.”

This impression is by design. Airports are in the business of selling flying in a time when air travel is fraught with anxiety, inconvenience and climate guilt. Once past security, passengers enter a stateless transit zone. Lounges and cafes offer anonymous diversion on the way to the gates that beckon us to global escapes. Travel-themed ads reinforce the image of the universal globetrotter, with promises like “Your destination just got closer” (Boston Logan), or “We see tomorrow” (Vancouver International).

Nonetheless, airports also serve as symbolic gateways to their host cities or nations. No worries if you only got as far as shopping in Singapore. Before you board your flight at Changi Airport you can still “visit” a range of Malaysian ecosystems that include orchids, cacti, rainforest and butterflies, thanks to its air-conditioned indoor “Nature Trails.” Beyond the airport’s doors, of course, deforestation continues to chew away at the biodiversity of southeast Asia’s actual jungles.

As big countries develop, domestic air travel burgeons. While Brazil is still “a country of few roads,” observes Hugh Pearman, architecture critic for The Sunday Times of London, it has developed “a complex network of internal flights and is building to accommodate them.” Environmentalists may cringe at the thought of rainforest disappearing under taxiways, but Brazil is simply following other countries’ lead.

In 1972, Canada’s federal government expropriated 7,430 hectares of Ontario farmland to create a second major Toronto airport. The purchase turned the hamlet of Altona into a ghost town, removed some of Canada’s best farmland from family ownership, and forced the hasty (and ultimately unnecessary) excavation of a Huron ancestral site. Community resistance stopped the development, and 2,000 hectares in the Rouge River Valley were turned over to the province for parkland. But the rest remained in the federal government’s hands and in 2014, then-finance minister Jim Flaherty announced that it was again available for airport and commercial development.

So the next time you’re catching your breath after the hike from check-in to gate, take a moment to look beyond the UV-filtered glass, past the busy tarmac infield, to the landscape beyond. We’re unlikely to forgo air travel entirely any time soon. But we can work on ways to make its touchdowns and takeoffs less devastating to the environment. We can explore better ways to share airside space with wildlife. And perhaps as travelers, we can recall the impacts that ripple out from the boarding lounge before we book another flight to the far side of the world – or across the province.

You don’t need to hop on a plane to discover yourself. Learn more about the 100-mile Travel Diet at ajmag.ca/TravelDiet.

Visit ajmag.ca/GreenGetaway to learn about other planet-friendly options you can choose to see the world.

The post A Natural History of Airports appeared first on A\J.

In Verona, that most picturesque and fabled town, we ate horse. It was a cultural challenge, not a culinary one. The pastissada de caval was superb. As our waiter explained, horsemeat may have had its origins in tough times, but today it has everything to do with taste, not necessity. It is a regional specialty.

This is not an article about who has eaten the weirdest foods; there are many stranger foods out there, I know. It’s about the link between food and culture, and how food defines our quality of life. We are what we eat, but we are also how we eat.

We are what we eat, but we are also how we eat.

Now four months into our yearlong world tour, we have travelled around France, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Turkey, and are just plunging into the culinary deep end that is India. In each country, every single meal is a snapshot of the culture of food, whether we eat at restaurants, grab street food, or shop and cook for ourselves.

It’s been a smorgasbord of images and impressions, little vignettes making up the big picture. Many are things we have tasted or experienced in Canada, but never with such vibrancy: village markets across Europe and the spice market of Istanbul; the cheeses of France, olive oil and fresh pasta in Italy, the gyros of Greece and the doners of Turkey; the lokum (Turkish delight) in Istanbul; and the rich, spicy sauces of India.

Turkish Lokum, The Real Turkish Delight \ Chris Winter

In every town we visited across Europe, there would be at least one local market a week, and if we were fortunate enough to go with a local host they would sweep us through the market to their favourite stalls, telling us why this sausage or cheese or sweet was better than the rest. The markets offer freshness and quality at good prices, so it is no surprise that people plan their meals around them.

Every market, from the smallest village to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, is a collection of independent vendors catering to the needs of the people. Each market is a reflection of the local culture and economy. In France, you’d be guaranteed a fine array of local artisanal cheeses and charcuterie, while in Greece and India the stalls focus more on local vegetables, fish and feta. You can learn much about a country from its local markets.

Every country and every culture we have visited has its own national cuisine, from street food to the kitchen. Cuisine takes the simplest of foods and transforms them into a celebration of life. With the same ingredients, we can eat like peasants, or dine like kings. It all depends on attitude.

There is no better example than pasta. Made from the most basic of ingredients – flour, eggs and water – it is a poor person’s staple transformed into a national love affair.

The more food [is] part of our enjoyment of life, the more care will be given to the quality of food and food systems.

In ­­­­Lucca, Italy, tucked away down a little alley, we toured the Martelli family factory, makers of one of the world’s best artisanal pastas. We learned all the steps involved in making pasta by hand, and how the texture and shape of the pasta affects its ability to hold a sauce. We had to agree, it was a very tasty pasta indeed. A little side note of Canadian pride: Martelli’s uses the finest Canadian Durum Wheat flour.

If there is a lesson that has emerged from four months of eating our way around the world, it is this: enjoy food. The more food rises above being a simple necessity of life to be part of our enjoyment of life, the more care will be given to the quality of food and food systems.

We all know how local and sustainable food is intrinsically better, healthier and has a lower carbon footprint than food produced globally for mass consumption. But when we focus on the enjoyment of food, we get even further. I saw this first hand several years ago when I was working with the Live Green Toronto community animation program. We found that we got much better results by leaving our climate action mandate in the background and focusing on solutions people wanted, such as local food from community gardens.

For a national specialty, we have maple syrup. Maple syrup is our international culinary calling card. We are carrying a bag of maple candies with us on our trip as a symbol of Canada to offer people we meet a taste of Canada. Beyond maple syrup, our cultural association with food is quite weak. For street food, we have hot dogs and poutine. Our neighbourhood farmer’s markets in Toronto are mainly a luxury at the moment, but they are a step in the right direction towards reinvigorating a love of food. So how does Canada compare? Are we a country that loves our food? Do we have a national cuisine and an abundance of local markets? Or are we predominantly a nation of fast food and supermarkets?

Martelli’s Pasta: On the Production Line \ Chris Winter

Another problem is that, over the years, we Canadians have lost our connection with local food. Prince Edward Island, for example, is a tourist magnet but its small towns and local markets have lost business in favour of a quick drive to larger supermarkets. Malpeque Bay may be world renowned for its oysters yet there are no restaurants to be found in Malpeque, and just one small oyster restaurant down at the bay outside the Cabot Beach Provincial Park.

Canada is, however, rising to the challenge. PEI has an excellent promotional campaign, Local Flavours, and the Toronto area Greenbelt is promoted as a great area for recreation, tourism and local food (and food tourism). Many fantastic non-governmental organizations are also working to support healthy food both locally and nationally, including Not Far From the Tree, Field to Table, and the Land Food People Foundation (formerly Local Food Plus). You can find other examples on the Canada Conserves factsheet on Good Food.

Canadians are beginning to rediscover farmer’s markets, artisanal foods and fine cuisine. We enjoy eating local, be it the vegetables and fruit we grow in our own yards or community gardens, the fruit from pick-your-own farms, or local produce from roadside stands or farmers’ markets.

Give us time, and we will figure it out. Canadian chefs are among the world’s greatest, and they are developing the best in fine Canadian dining with an emphasis on the local terroir. Who would have known that the bountiful crop of berries from the humble Saskatoon bush in our front yard is highly prized for sauces in fancy restaurants such as Canoe in Toronto?

Over the years, we Canadians have lost our connection with local food.

If you are worried that the rest of the world are better food lovers than us, fear not. Here is Canada’s culinary edge: we embrace culinary diversity like no other country we have seen, because we are a country that embraces cultural diversity. Over the course of our journey so far, we have often joked that our trip around the world could have been accomplished at a fraction of the cost by eating our way around Toronto. That culinary diversity is partly at the root of the explosion of fine neighbourhood restaurants and cafes across the city.

Very few countries in the world offer up culinary diversity and fusion like Canada does. Try finding good sushi in Italy, or a gyro in Turkey. We Canadians do enjoy our food, and it turns out we are quite good at doing so.

Our trip around the world has been, in part, an investigation into the culture of sustainability. I believe our ability to tackle climate change and other major issues is as much dependent upon our attitudes as it is on technology and policy. We have seen that there is no better example than food. A love of food creates opportunities for innovation and support for policies to protect farmland and support local, sustainable farming.

Four months into our trip, I have a longing for Canadian Saskatoon berry and apple pie and I can’t wait to try some of the flavours and tricks we have learned on that Canadian staple, the good old backyard burger.

The post We Are How We Eat appeared first on A\J.

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

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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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