See this CTV News video coverage of AFA staff and professional arborists at Bartlett Tree Experts who locate and climb the largest Sitka spruce tree in BC’s famed Carmanah Valley. (Coverage starts at 12:58.)
April 24, 2024
By Curtis Blandy
Victoria Buzz
See the original article here.
In recognition of Earth Month in April, a group of environmental conservation advocates decided they would showcase one of Vancouver Island’s largest old-growth giants by climbing and measuring it, and capturing drone footage of the process.
Members of the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) sought out the Carmanah Valley’s largest Sitka spruce tree, which stretches approximately 21 storeys into the sky in an effort to highlight the importance of conserving and protecting old-growth forests.
According to the AFA, this Sitka in particular has a mammoth trunk, which forks into multiple stems, reminiscent of the multi-headed hydra of Greek mythology.
They noted that this tree is protected, as it grows within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in Ditidaht territory.
“This giant is by far the most spectacular Sitka spruce tree that we’ve come across during our decades-long search for big trees in BC,” said TJ Watt, AFA campaigner and photographer.
“We had been big tree hunting in the valley for two days as part of my work as a National Geographic Explorer, when, just before dark, a massive crown caught our eye in the distance. Right away, we knew we had found something special.”
The tree is 12.9 feet (3.89 metres) wide near its base, 233 feet (71 metres) tall and has an average crown spread of 72 feet (22 metres).
BC’s Big Tree Registry marks this as the largest tree in the Carmanah Valley, despite the “Carmanah Giant” being taller, and the fourth-largest Sitka spruce on record in BC.
The AFA says that two blue whales laid end-to-end would still not be as tall as this tree which has been dubbed the “Hydra Spruce.”
“Most Sitkas are tall and straight like a Roman pillar, but this one had an enormous trunk that forked into five major stems, creating a sprawling canopy like the head of a hydra,” Watt explained.
“Near the base, it would have taken seven or eight of us to wrap our arms around the trunk. Seeing it from the ground was one thing, but we knew that to truly highlight the tree’s grandeur, we would need to climb to the top.”
To climb this giant, the AFA partnered with Bartlett Tree Experts, a group of professional arborists, who shot an enormous slingshot loaded with a line up unto the canopy.
They used ropes to climb so they would not damage the tree and were able to get to within a few metres of the top of the tree’s canopy.
“I’ve climbed thousands of trees in my life, but this one was like none other,” said Matthew Beatty, Arborist and Climber with Bartlett Tree Experts.
“Even within the Carmanah Valley, where we have climbed numerous trees for scientific research projects, this is a giant among giants.”
He continued by saying he hopes that the footage and images captured during this climb inspire people to protect and advocate for old-growth groves.
The BC government continues to develop and roll out its Old-Growth Strategy, which aims to protect 30% of BC’s ancient forests by 2030.
Through these protections being put in place, AFA continues to advocate for proper implementation that will ensure protection for sites that hold BC’s oldest, largest and most at-risk trees.
Watch the video of the climb below:
November 10, 2023
By Eric Plummer
Ha-Shilth-Sa News
Original article here.
Nootka Sound, BC
A project to protect a significant portion of Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory has been pledged $15 million from the federal government, fueling an initiative to save old growth and salmon populations in Nootka Sound over the next generation.
On Oct. 30 Canada’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change sent a letter to Eric Angel, project manager for the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation’s Salmon Parks initiative. This confirmed over $15 million in funding for the project, payable up to March 31, 2026.
“I seek the highest level of environmental quality in order to enhance the well-being of Canadians,” wrote Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. “In this regard, one of my priorities is to advance conservation of biodiversity and sustainable development.”
Other funding has been secured from the Ancient Forest Alliance, the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, the Indigenous Watershed Initiative, Nature Based Solutions Foundation, Nature United and the Sitka Foundation, as well as other organizations providing expertise at no cost.
The project, which is titled ‘Mowachaht/Muchalaht Salmon Parks Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area – Old Growth Estuary Protection’, is designed to conserve critical parts of the territory by changing the tide of industrial activity in Nootka Sound.
“Salmon parks, fundamentally, is about setting things right again in this wonderful part of the world so that the chiefs are in a position to look after the ha-hahoulthee,” explained Angel during a tour of the Salmon Parks in October.
A major part of setting things right is halting logging in the designated areas. According to the Salmon Parks project application, at the current rate of harvest all old growth forests in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory will be logged in the next 15 years.
As industrial forestry developed in the region, wild salmon populations in Nootka Sound have declined by 90 per cent, according to the project description, and could become extinct in the next 20 years without serious intervention.
“Old growth ecosystems are salmon ecosystems. They evolved together,” said Angel.
“We’re witnessing another extirpation series, small extinctions of salmon throughout the Pacific northwest,” he added. “There’s no one cause of that, but old growth forests, the destruction of them has been nothing short of catastrophic for salmon populations.”
The federal funding allows the Salmon Parks project to protect 38,868 hectares of old-growth forest, areas in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory that contain “critical salmon ecosystems”, according to the application. The majority, or almost $12.5 million, of the federal funding is set aside for land acquisition costs, such as the buyouts of tenures held by forestry companies on the Crown land. Currently Western Forest Products and BC Timber Sales hold these tenures, which are legally recognized under provincial law.
A clearcut on Nootka Island. Photo by TJ Watt.
“We have to deal with the existing industrial and commercial interests on the landscape,” explained Angel. “That’s primarily forestry, and they’re going to want to be compensated.”
The Salmon Parks are already recognized under Mowachaht/Muchalaht law, but provincial designation is now necessary for the areas to be protected into the future.
“For Salmon Parks to be considered by the chief forester, or any other agency for that matter, requires some form of legislated protection,” said Roger Dunlop, the project’s technical lead and Mowachaht/Muchalaht’s Lands and Natural Resource manager.
“British Columbia made a huge mistake when they decided to liquidate all the timber harvesting land base, which means every tree in British Columbia that’s accessible,” continued Dunlop. “This is the nation’s alternative to that mistake.”
The federal funding will also go towards professional services necessary for Salmon Parks as well as external contractors and guardians from the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community to monitor and report on the designated areas.
It’s possible that Jamie James could play a leading role in this management. The First Nation’s field logistics coordinator spent his childhood on the shore of Muchalaht Inlet in Ahaminaquus, where his father taught him how to fish.
“It was really about living off the land, understanding what it meant to provide for the family but also for the community,” said James, who is concerned about carrying on the teachings of sustainability from his father, who grew up in Yuquot. “Once you start losing all of this stuff, you can no longer depend on the land to make a livelihood. That’s what scares me a lot.”
Although industrial-scale logging will no longer be permitted in the Salmon Parks, other small-scale activities can continue, particularly hunting, fishing and the cultural harvesting of trees.For James, these traditional practices are part of an interconnected way of living that he hopes the Salmon Parks will foster, a network that includes animals and people who rely on salmon-bearing streams.
“The broader part of the whole thing about the Salmon Parks, to me, is really being able to protect the landscape, the habitat, the resources, the environment – the sustainability for people that depend on all those things,” he said. “It’s the connection of all those things that depend on those resources.”
“As humans, we need to adapt to nature itself, rather than getting nature to adapt to us,” said James.
The old growth forest that Ottawa recently funded for protection is part of 66,595 hectares of critical habitat in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory that the Salmon Parks project encompasses. The First Nation hopes to have this whole area protected by 2030 – the same year that the federal Liberals and have pledged to have 30 per cent of Canadian waters and land protected.
On Nov. 3 the feds put serious money behind this promise, with the announcement of the Tripartite Framework Agreement on Nature Conservation. The result of negotiations between the federal government, the province and the First Nations Leadership Council, this brings a fund that could reach over $1 billion over the course of the agreement, shouldered equally by Ottawa and the B.C. government.
Although the Government of Canada cannot declare IPCAs in a province, the agreement could lead to such designation in a First Nation’s territory.
“The Framework agreement supports a collaborative approach to landscape-based ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation in B.C.,” wrote Cecelia Parsons, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa. “The agreement will support indigenous partners establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.”
Mowachaht/Muchalaht member Jamie James grew up on the short of the Muchalaht Inlet in Ahaminaquus, where his father taught him how to fish. (Eric Plummer)
This story was made possible in part by an award from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
December 8, 2023
By Marc Kitteringham
Campbell River Mirror
Original article here.
Over 650 square kilometres of Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory to be protected
Over 650 square kilometres of forest, rivers, old growth and shoreline are in the process of being protected by the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation on western Vancouver Island.
The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation — located in the Tahsis, Nootka Island, and Gold River region — is working to protect the area of their unceded territory with the goal of protecting old-growth forests and salmon habitats. The locations include 311 square kilometres of old-growth forests.
“We’re trying to protect the most important salmon habitat that’s left in the watersheds in the Nation,” said Eric Angel, project manager for the Salmon Parks project. “We figured out sometime ago that if we looked after about 20 per cent of the core salmon watersheds, we we backstop 90 per cent of the salmon productivity that is dependent on the land and the freshwater ecosystem.”
When they’re established, the parks will both be on land and will extend into the ocean to protect the salmon habitat there. Angel said that the old growth forest in the area is “central to the salmon’s habitat and family life cycle.
“We’re going to move out into the into the marine environment and protect estuaries and the important migration routes that salmon have to take into the open ocean. The idea is to really be doing what we can to look after our salmon throughout their life cycle … we want to eventually restore those populations to the kind of abundance that we saw say 50 or 100 years ago.”
Though they are not the first First Nation to undertake this kind of work, the idea is new enough that Angel says they’re still trying to figure out how it will all work. They are in talks with the province about establishing legal protections for the area, and will be protecting it under Nuu-chah-nulth law as well.
“Ideally … there is going to be a joint designation where the province and First Nation will come together,” Angel said. “Then we together we create a management plan for the area and then we start bringing in all the other folks who’ve gotten interests will be talking to the forestry industry into the recreational fishing industry into tourism operators and the local communities Gold River and Campbell River and Tahsis … just making sure that everyone’s on board and there’s a common commitment and understanding of how we go about doing this.”
Something else that’s needed when establishing a new park is funding. Putting land into conservation necessarily means an immediate loss of economic opportunity, however groups like the Nature-Based Solutions Foundation exist to fill “critical gaps that are essential for creating new protected areas.”
“We we set up this new organization to directly work with land-embedded communities — most significantly First Nations — but also at some point ranchers on the Prairies Trappers and Métis communities and Southern Boreal woodlot owners,” said Ken Wu from Nature-Based Solutions Foundation. “These land-embedded communities are vitally important in to establish protected areas on Crown lands and unceded First Nations lands.
“A barrier for a lot of First Nations is that if they’re gonna forego all the resource opportunities in those territories … then there needs to be support for building sustainable alternatives,” he said.
Part of that funding solution also comes from government.
“There’s been some huge announcements this fall from the feds and the province,” said Angel, referring to “The Tripartite management agreement with Canada, BC and their first Nations Leadership Council.
“There’s an old growth nature fund that the feds are putting up the money for but the province is gonna be dispersing that, there’s a conservation financing mechanism the province announced month and a half ago that’s going to help, conservation initiatives, access to kind of long-term sustainable financing.”
One of those initiatives was for projects that help sequester carbon emissions. The Salmon Parks received $15 million from the federal government to do that.
“It’s it’s an amazing area for carbon storage because I’ll go for us sequester more carbon than almost anywhere on planet Earth,” Angel said, adding that getting the funding “was life-changing. I was just in the community last night and presenting to about 60 people and there’s so many young people out there who are so excited about it … it’s for those kids that are gonna be growing up with this. It’s really exciting for them.”
Despite the immediate economic setback of not being able to harvest trees, both Wu and Angel say there is a much greater economic long-term benefit available.
Angel says that there are job opportunities for community members as well.
“We’re setting up a Guardians program,” he said. “Creating employment within the community and giving people opportunities to be participating in this is going to be really important because it’s super critical that this is a holistic vision … it represents not just looking after nature well, but it also means restoring lives for people.
Old-growth Douglas-fir forest in the Burman River valley. Proposed Salmon Park, Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory.
December 15, 2023
The Cool Down
By Jeremiah Budin
A nature photographer in British Columbia discovered one of the largest old-growth cedars ever documented off the coast of Vancouver Island — and he’s not telling you or anyone else how to find it.
TJ Watt, a co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a charitable organization that works to protect endangered old-growth forests, waited more than a year after first happening across the massive tree, which he nicknamed “The Wall,” to even tell the world about its existence, according to The Washington Post.
During that time, Watt consulted with members of the Ahousaht First Nation, who have lived in the area for thousands of years.
“It was decided that we should keep the tree’s location a secret because these are sensitive areas, and everything could get pretty trampled if word got out where to find it,” Watt told the Post.
He also took time to thoroughly measure and document The Wall. It is believed that the massive tree is over 1,000 years old, standing 151 feet tall and 17 and a half feet in diameter.
“I’ve found thousands and thousands of trees, and I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of photos of old-growth forests,” Watt told the Post. “But I’ve never seen a tree as impressive as this one.”
“It was incredible to stand before it,” he continued. “I’d describe it as a freak of nature because it actually gets wider as it gets taller. As I looked up at it, I felt a sense of awe and wonder.”
Canada’s largest documented tree, a humongous red cedar known as the Cheewhat Giant, is located in the protected Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and stands 182 feet tall and 19 feet in diameter, per the Post.
Old-growth forests play an essential role in wildlife habitat, species diversity, carbon storage, and other crucial ecological processes. However, like so many parts of the natural world, they are threatened by pollution, the effects of human-caused extreme weather events, and the logging industry.
Although trees such as the Cheewhat Giant are protected, per the Post, 80% of the original old-growth forests on Vancouver Island have already been logged, according to the Ancient Forest Alliance. That’s why it is essential that The Wall stays protected and its location unreleased.
November 29, 2023
The Globe and Mail
By Justine Hunter
New plan from the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, aided by the BC and federal governments, signals a shift in Indigenous-led conservation across the province
Backed by a $15.2-million commitment from the federal government, a First Nations community on the west coast of Vancouver Island intends to buy out forestry tenures to stop old-growth logging in selected watersheds around Nootka Sound.
The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation has declared a string of “salmon parks” in its traditional territories that includes more than 66,000 hectares of watersheds.
The parks are designed to protect critical salmon habitat by maintaining and restoring the land where it intersects with marine ecosystems. Logging can damage the rivers where salmon spawn, and deforestation has been tied to warmer rivers that reduce survival rates for young fish.
Proposed salmon parks on Vancouver and Nootka islands
Red: Proposed salmon parks
Green: Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation territory
Yellow: Nuchatlaht First Nation territory
MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: BC GOVERNMENT; HA-SHILTH-SA OPENSTREETMAP
The salmon parks of Nootka Sound offer an example of a shift that is coming across the province as a result of the new $1-billion Nature Agreement signed on Nov. 3 between Canada, BC and the First Nations Leadership Council. Significantly more land will be designated for conservation, which in turn will change how and where the province exploits its natural resources.
To meet commitments by the federal and provincial governments, BC will need to set aside more than 10 million hectares of new biologically important areas for protection from development over the next six years. Much of that will be achieved through Indigenous-led conservation projects that are now on a fast track for approval. This includes the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation plan, which will require additional funding to complete.
British Columbia has the greatest diversity of species, ecosystems and habitats of any jurisdiction in Canada, and both the federal and provincial governments have promised to protect 30 per cent of the country’s land and water by 2030.
The provincial government says there are currently 18.5 million hectares of protected and conserved areas, making up 19.6 per cent of BC’s total land.
A number of First Nations in BC have declared Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas that will be among the first in the queue for consideration by the new tripartite committee, which will decide where the nature agreement funding will go. Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault promised financing for the Mowachaht/Muchalaht salmon parks in late October, providing tacit approval of the First Nation’s IPCAs.
Five species of Pacific salmon run through the traditional territories of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, but stocks are in decline. Eric Angel, the project manager for the salmon parks, said the selected areas include some of the last remaining old-growth forest ecosystems in the region.
“What we are bringing to this is a much more creative and nuanced view of what a sustainable economy looks like in rural communities. What we’ve been doing up till now has been liquidating a one-time resource, old-growth forests. What we need to do is find ways to harvest forest products,” he said, “while we also build economies around tourism and conservation and stewardship.”
Celina Starnes from Endangered Ecosystems Alliance looks up at the big-leaf maple grove of the Burman River valley, which lies within the Mowachaht/Muchalaht salmon-park system.
TJ WATT
The village of Gold River, located in the heart of Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory, was built as a forestry community, but the last mill closed in 1999. The salmon-parks strategy will balance economic development with ecology, Mr. Angel said, and some of the funds will help develop those plans. By clearly identifying which lands must be protected, industry will better understand where resource extraction will be allowed, and what kind of activities would be welcomed.
The salmon park is home to black bears like this one near Tahsis.
Based on studies by biologists, the First Nation has determined that 90 per cent of salmon productivity in the region can be protected by setting aside 20 per cent of the watersheds – especially those where glacier-fed rivers offer the greatest climate resiliency.
The provincial government, which awards forestry tenures, has not yet weighed in on the salmon parks. However, Nathan Cullen, BC’s Minister for Land, Water and Resource Stewardship, said that his government needs to endorse IPCAs to reach its conservation targets. “Getting there would be absolutely impossible without willing First Nations partners.”
He believes IPCAs also hold the key to ensuring that this transition can be done without cratering the province’s resource-based economy. Conservation decisions will bring certainty to land that has long been mired in conflict because of unresolved Indigenous claims. First Nations communities have told him, he said, that they will be more open to extraction industries after the areas they have identified for conservation are protected. “The whole point of land-use planning is to lessen the conflict, lessen the legal challenges and increase certainty for investors while protecting more of the province.”
But that process can be expensive. The largest cost associated with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht IPCAs will be the purchase of logging tenures from industry. To implement the plan, the First Nation expects it will need to raise as much as $50-million. “It will cost money because the companies will not just say, ‘Okay, yeah, take our tenure and make a reserve.’ So everyone will need to be compensated,” said Azar Kamran, chief executive officer and administrator for the First Nation.
Western Forest Products, one of those tenure holders in Nootka Sound, is aware of the salmon-parks plan, said Babita Khunkhun, a spokesperson for the company. “While we have not had specific discussions with the Nation since the recent announcement, we work to understand and incorporate the interests of Indigenous communities through open communication and that ongoing commitment will serve to guide us going forward.”
‘We’ve been clear for a number of years now that protecting our old-growth forests is one of our priorities,’ Ms. Dabrusin says.
CHAD HIPOLITO/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Ottawa has agreed to invest up to $500-million across all projects over the life of the tripartite agreement, with matching funding to come from the province. Philanthropic organizations are also expected to contribute. It took two years to negotiate and now it could take another year to set up the committee.
Julie Dabrusin, parliamentary secretary to Mr. Guilbeault, was one of the brokers. On a recent visit to BC, she visited an old-growth forest where 500-year-old Douglas firs rival the height of the concrete towers of her home riding of Toronto-Danforth.
The trees in Francis/King Regional Park, near Victoria, are already protected, but she said seeing them was a good reminder of the purpose of her assignment, which was to help secure an agreement that would allow the federal Liberal government to achieve its “30 by 30″ commitment.
She acknowledged concerns that BC’s old-growth forests are being logged while the process unfolds. “I think that there is always an urgency to get beyond talking. We’ve been clear for a number of years now that protecting our old-growth forests is one of our priorities.”
Leading Ms. Dabrusin’s old-growth tour was Ken Wu, who heads the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and has spent decades campaigning for protected areas. Meeting Canada’s conservation targets will be “a monumental undertaking,” he said, but with $1-billion or more, and a framework that puts First Nations in the driver’s seat, the past month has given environmentalists something to celebrate.
“In the coming months and years we’re going to see – I’m certain of it – the biggest protected areas expansion in Canadian history within a province.”
November 27, 2023
The Guardian
By Sam Pyrah
Without engaging with natural environments, our brains cease to work well. As the new field of environmental neuroscience proves, exposure to nature isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity
It’s a grey November day; rain gently pocks the surface of the tidal pools. There is not much to see in this East Sussex nature reserve – a few gulls, a little grebe, a solitary wader on the shore – but already my breathing has slowed to the rhythm of the water lapping the shingle, my shoulders have dropped and I feel imbued with a sense of calm.
I’m far from alone in finding the antidote to modern life in nature. “It’s only when I’m outdoors and attentive to the wild things around me that my mind holds still,” says James Gilbert, an ecologist from Northamptonshire. Despite his job, it is not visits to nature reserves boasting rare species that provide what he describes as a “mental reset” – “simply the everyday encounters I chance upon in my daily life. These touches of wildness freshen my mind, broaden my perspective and lift my spirits.”
Such testimonies to the power of nature are nothing new. What is new is the emerging field of environmental neuroscience, which seeks to explore why – and how – our brains are so profoundly affected by being in nature.
You are probably aware of studies showing that green (vegetated) and blue (moving water) environments are associated with a reduction in stress, improved mood, more positive emotions and decreases in anxiety and rumination. But there is growing evidence that nature exposure also benefits cognitive function – all the processes involved in gaining knowledge and understanding, including perception, memory, reasoning, judgment, imagination and problem-solving. One study found that after just 40 seconds of looking out at a green roof, subjects made fewer mistakes in a test than when they looked at a concrete one.
Dr Marc Berman, director of the Environmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, taxed subjects’ brains with a test known as the backwards digit-span task, requiring them to repeat back sequences of numbers in reverse order. Then he sent them for a 50-minute walk, in either an urban setting (a town centre) or a nature setting (a park). On their return, they repeated the task. “Performance improved by about 20% when participants had walked in nature, but not when they had walked in an urban environment,” he says.
The brain boost from being in nature goes beyond getting answers right in a test, according to Prof Kathryn Williams, an environmental psychologist at the University of Melbourne. “Research has consistently demonstrated enhanced creativity after immersion in natural environments,” she says. One study found that a four-day hike (with no access to phones or other technology) increased participants’ creativity by 50%. (If you’re wondering how you can put a number on creativity, that study used the Remote Associates Test, widely used as a measure of creative thinking, insight and problem-solving. Subjects are given three words and have to come up with a word that links them. For example, Big, Cottage, Cake = Cheese.)
What might be going on here? According to the biophilia hypothesis popularised by the American sociobiologist EO Wilson, humans function better in natural environments because our brains and bodies evolved in, and with, nature. “Biophilia makes a lot of sense,” says Dr David Strayer, a cognitive neuroscientist who heads the Applied Cognition Laboratory at the University of Utah. “As hunter-gatherers, those who were most attuned to the natural environment were the most likely to survive. But then we built all this infrastructure. We are trying to use the hunter-gatherer brain to live in the highly stressful and demanding modern world.”
It’s not that life as a hunter-gatherer was easy, of course. But, says Strayer, the fight-or-flight response that we evolved to deal with it is ill-suited to the way we live now. “Most of the stress we encounter today does not require a physical response, but still evokes the same physiological reaction – raised cortisol levels, increased heart rate and alertness – which can impact immune and cardiovascular function, as well as memory, mood and attention.”
Exposure to nature activates the parasympathetic nervous system – the branch of the nervous system related to a “resting” state. This instils feelings of calm and wellbeing that enable us to think more clearly and positively, just as I experienced on my harbourside walk.
One recent theory proposes that oxytocin (the “bonding” hormone) may be behind the phenomenon, exerting its powerful antistress and restorative effects when we are in natural settings that we perceive as safe, pleasing, calm and familiar.
But if its capacity to make us “feel better” were the sole pathway through which nature affected the brain, it would only work if you regard being in nature as a positive experience. Those siding with Woody Allen when he said “I love nature; I just don’t want to get any of it on me” would not experience a brain boost. However, research by Berman and others suggests that improvements in cognitive function are not linked to improved mood.
Berman got his subjects to walk at different times of the year. “Even in January, when it was zero degrees outside and people didn’t enjoy the nature walk, they still experienced performance improvements in the test,” he says. “They didn’t need to ‘like’ the nature exposure to reap the cognitive benefits.”
Another explanation for the nature boost is something known as attention restoration theory (ART). Psychologists call the capacity to sustain focus on a specific mental task, ignoring external distractions (such as your phone) and internal ones (such as your rumbling belly), “directed attention”. And according to ART, it is a finite resource.
“The areas of the brain responsible for this kind of attention can become depleted by multitasking and high-stimulation modern environments,” explains Williams. When that happens, we can’t concentrate, we make mistakes and get stuck on problems. “But there is something about nature that engages the brain in a way that’s very undemanding and effortless, giving these areas an opportunity to rest and recover.”
It’s not that natural settings don’t have lots of stimuli, but the attention they capture is indirect and spontaneous – we are drawn by the movement of a bird or the sound of our feet padding on fallen leaves. This gentle attendance to our surroundings is known as “soft fascination”, and while we are immersed in it, directed attention can be restored. Maybe that’s why I often find myself recording voice notes, or tapping ideas into my phone, after spending time in nature.
Excitingly, neuroimaging tools such as electroencephalograms and functional magnetic resonance imaging are helping researchers to glimpse the changes in our brains in real time. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for example, uses something known as Bold – blood-oxygen-level-dependent imaging – to determine which areas of the brain are most active during exposure to different stimuli. (Like muscles, the more active parts require more oxygenated blood.) Studies have revealed a drop in the Bold signal in the prefrontal cortex (an important brain structure in executive function) during nature exposure, supporting the idea that this part of the brain is “off duty” at the time. It has also been shown that a greater number of brain areas are activated when viewing urban scenes, suggesting more effort is required to process them.
The drawback with fMRI is that it requires you to lie still, ruling out real-life nature experiences – which is why Berman is excited about his newest tool, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). “We have some idea of what the brain looks like when it is working hard,” he says. “But fNIRS enables us to shine infrared light into the brain of a person as they walk through different environments to see whether it is working harder or easier.”
“We’re not trying to create a nature pill,” Berman insists, pointing to research that shows exposure to “real-world” nature yields greater improvements in mood and aspects of cognitive performance. “We are looking at why we build things the way that we do. Now, it’s all about efficiency. But we could be thinking instead about creating a built environment that elicits the best attention, high levels of wellbeing, cooperation – we could be putting natural elements into streets, offices, schools, homes. And don’t forget that not everybody has access to nature.”
Regardless of access issues, most of us spend very little time in nature. A government survey last year found that a quarter of people hadn’t visited a green or natural space once in the previous 14 days. And yet, as the BMJ reported in 2021, greater contact with nature is associated with better cognition, working memory, spatial memory attention, visual attention, reasoning, fluency, intelligence and childhood intellectual development.
“This growing body of research is demonstrating that we can’t be healthy – that our brains do not work optimally – if we don’t spend time in natural environments,” says Berman. “It’s not a luxury – it’s a necessity.”
How to make the most of nature
Aim for at least 30 minutes. According to cognitive neuroscientist David Strayer, this is the duration needed for measurable benefits to accrue. Longer-term experiences (Strayer talks of the “three-day effect”) have additional benefits.
Forgo the tech. “If you’re focusing on your watch or phone, or wearing headphones, you aren’t engaging with your environment,” says Strayer.
Get your timing right. One study found that the boost to cognition lasted 30 minutes after leaving the natural setting, which may help you plan the best time for mentally demanding work.
Choose your venue. Not all natural environments are equal. “You want to be somewhere pleasant and engaging,” says Prof Kathryn Williams, an environmental psychologist at the University of Melbourne. “A sense of safety is paramount to positive experiences in nature, including attention restoration, stress reduction and mind wandering. A feeling of ‘being away’ – a sense of psychological distance from the things that burden you – is also important.”
November 23, 2023
Global News BC
By Paul Johnson
See this video interview with Endangered Ecosystems Alliance’s Ken Wu, discussing the BC government’s recent “unprecedented leaps forward” over the past month with its release of the draft Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework in tandem with the BC Nature Agreement.
It’s being described as a “game changer” in efforts to protect BC’s old-growth forests. As Paul Johnson reports, conservationists are welcoming a draft plan from the provincial government that would not only consider the economic but also the ecological value of our forests.
November 16, 2023
CBC Radio: On the Island with Gregor Craigie
Listen to this stellar interview with Endangered Ecosystems Alliance’s Ken Wu, who speaks about the significance of the BC government’s recently released draft Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework.
Listen to the full interview, or view the transcript below:
Gregor Craigie:
Another piece of the province’s plan to protect endangered old-growth forests was announced yesterday. The new draft Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework follows last month’s creation of a $300 million fund to purchase and protect natural spaces as parks or protected areas.
BC Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Minister Nathan Cullen says the latest initiatives will help the province protect 30% of its land base by the year 2030. For more on the significance of the biodiversity framework, we’re joined by Ken Wu, Executive Director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance. Ken, good morning.
Ken Wu:
Thanks for having me on.
Gregor:
Thanks for joining us. First of all, what exactly is a Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework? It’s a long title. And how is it a significant development for delivering the government’s promise to protect old growth?
Ken:
So this is a potentially revolutionary game-changer for conservation in Canada. Ff it comes out right, it will essentially target protection and conservation measures for the most endangered and least represented ecosystems in British Columbia. Ecosystem-based protection targets are what have been lacking not only in British Columbia but across most of the world. So it’ll essentially save the big trees instead of primarily saving alpine and sub alpine areas with small trees or no trees, as it is typically being the history of protected areas in BC.
It’s a huge game changer if it comes out right when it’s finalized in a few months.
Gregor:
So if I hear you correctly, Ken, it sounds like it’s recognizing quality rather than just quantity. You’re not just counting old trees but looking at the the quality and the age and location, and so on, of them.
Ken:
That’s right. So basically, BC has got a target to protect 30% of its land area by 2030. But if you don’t have specificity for the diversity of ecosystems with protection targets for them, then what happens, what has always been happening, and which will continue to happen, if this doesn’t land right, is saving the areas with low to no timber values.
The dominant paradigm, the paradigm that is supposed to be shifted as a result of the government’s Old Growth Strategic Review panel. The dominant paradigm has basically been to minimize impacts on the available timber supply for the logging industry from any conservation measures.
This [framework] turns [the old paradigm] on its head. It basically says that first, you have to conserve and protect the diversity of ecosystems that also includes the the areas that have been most coveted by industry. If the government does this, it is really a huge game changer.
Gregor:
Ok. And how does this draft framework fit in potentially with last month’s announcement from the province of this $300 million for conservation financing for endangered ecosystems?
Ken:
So the combination of the province’s $300 million conservation financing announcement with 1.1 billion of the Federal Provincial Nature Agreement is basically the fuel; it powers up the expansion of the protected area system by supporting First Nations in their initiatives for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA) (is a bit of a mouthful) as well as for land acquisition for a diversity of approaches to protect ecosystems.
It basically means not only are you going to expand protected areas but you’ll place them in the places, hopefully that are the most impacted by industry and the least represented in the existing protected areas system.
Gregor:
So it targets protection to where it really needs to go, and forgive me if it’s obvious Ken, but has the work of identifying where needs to be targeted first and, you know, prioritizing those targets — has that been done?
Ken:
It’s probably been done through the Technical Advisory Panel, that’s the government’s science panel that it struck up a couple of years ago to identify the most at-risk old growth, but that’s an old-growth focused panel.
We want to make sure the province doesn’t jettison its results because there are some in the bureaucracy that try to creep away from that. But there needs to be a bigger set of analysis that has to be done. [The government is] going to be appointing a Chief Biodiversity Officer who will then strike up science teams, Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees, and First Nations committees to then build targets to span the diversity of ecosystems.
Now, the issue is whether or not it will have a fine enough filter because if [the government] doesn’t target ecosystems, specifically enough there, then you still have the loopholes where you can basically save the bogs instead of the big trees where you can still save the high elevations and the low elevation. So it’s got to be fine filter enough to capture all the ecosystems including forest productivity gradients, big trees versus medium trees versus small trees, depending on the soil and the climate. And it’s got to be large scale enough based on the latest science and conservation biology that says you’ve got to protect quite a lot of these landscapes, these ecosystems, to maintain all the species and the processes, predator-prey relationships, hydrological, watershed integrity.
Gregor:
All these type of things you mentioned — loopholes — are there examples whether it’s here on the island or elsewhere in the province where loopholes and arrangements like the Old Growth Management Areas have been exploited to allow for more logging of endangered trees?
Ken:
So this keeps coming up, right? So basically, there’s two basic sets of ways you can save or safeguard ecosystems. One of them are the legislated protected areas, the hard protected areas and they’re bigger typically. So that’s like provincial parks. Provincial conservancies is a newer designation that is congruent with First Nations’ subsistence uses, co-management, and rights and title. So those are the big [designations] that exclude logging, mining oil and gas.
Then you’ve got a whole forest reserve conservation reserve labyrinth, Old Growth Management Areas, Wildlife Habitat Areas, visual quality objectives, riparian management zones — all these different kinds of designations. Some of them are weak and tenuous old growth management areas.
You can take out pieces under industry, then lobby and log those. And it happens all the time, by the way, just like like it happens hundreds, probably thousands of times across the province. So it’s a common occurrence and we’ve dealt with it in the Port Renfrew area over the years.
Gregor:
And so the devil is clearly in the details, but if it does live up to its potential, what you hope is, is coming. What do you think it would mean for some of the more contentious old-growth logging areas, like the Fairy Creek situation?
Ken:
So basically, it has to be obviously stitched together with the conservation financing mechanism. These can’t be two parallel policies that are not connected, right?
So, that’s a key thing to make sure, is that basically all this money now to power the expansion of protected areas is guided by ecosystem-based targets to make sure the deployment of those funds is [allocated] to get the most endangered and least represented ecosystems, and that could result in the protection of Fairy Creek and other high-productivity and most at-risk old growth across BC.
But in the end, it’s really important, [and it’s something] that the environmental movement doesn’t seem to quite grasp, which is that the BC government can’t unilaterally just “save the old growth.” Because of successive court rulings, not only does it require First Nations’ consent, but First Nations’ shared decision making in any legislated land-use changes on their territories is required if you’re going to save old growth and endangered ecosystems. And so the protection moves at the speed of the local First Nations whose territory it is on.
The funding can facilitate that because many First Nations have a lack of capacity and also a dependency on old growth timber industry, jobs and revenues. The conservation financing can support alternative industries while at the same time paving the path for new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. So all of it can work together.
We don’t have it yet, by the way, the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Framework is high level, it doesn’t have the legislation yet. It’s not official.
There’s a few more months yet of public input, but we are going to push hard because if we can combine the two: the funding to power protected areas expansion and the ecosystem-based targets to save the most endangered areas, then we will have a world-class protected-areas system, and BC will lead the world in conservation policy there.
Gregor:
Are you optimistic at this point, Ken, that that will happen in the coming months?
Ken:
It always takes work, right? Premier Eby, I want to give him thanks, I want to give him crystal clear thanks that he’s moving things forward much quicker than any other previous premier has. And he’s a lot bolder, along with Steven Guilbeault, federally, the Environment Minister.
It is fueling the expansion of the protected areas system across Canada. And we will see, I’m certain, in the ensuing months and years, a massive unprecedented expansion of the protected areas system in BC. So I’m optimistic.
There’s going to be an election in the fall of 2024 and they will want to have this come out, I think, if they don’t want to bleed support to the Greens and this is something that I get a sense that Eby, personally, wants to make this happen.
Gregor:
Well, Ken, I appreciate you taking the time.
Ken:
It’s good to talk to you again.
Gregor:
Thanks very much.
Ken:
Hey, thanks for having me on again.
Gregor:
Ken Wu is executive director of the Ancient Forests Alliance. It’s 22 minutes after seven. This is “On The Island.”
November 15, 2023
Victoria Buzz
By Curtis Blandy
See the original article.
BC’s government is trying to implement further steps to protect and preserve the province’s at-risk environment through a new biodiversity and ecosystem health framework (BEHF).
Right now the BEHF is just a draft proposal, but Nathan Cullen, the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, is hopeful that it will become legislation and allow for the preservation of BC’s well-known natural landscapes.
“People in BC share a deep connection to nature, from our ancient forests and diverse wildlife, to our coastal waters and mountain ranges,” said Cullen.
“Together, we are charting the next steps for conserving BC’s rich biodiversity and healthy ecosystems that support us all.”
Earlier this month the Province announced it was aiming to protect 30% of BC’s old-growth forests to align with and honour the commitments they made based on the recommendations from the Old Growth Strategic Review.
Although the BEHF is vague in its current stages, conservation activists are applauding the government’s steps towards preservation and protection of BC’s old-growth.
However, these groups warn that “the devil will be in the details.”
“If this framework results in science-based targets to protect the full diversity of ecosystems in BC, including factoring in ‘forest productivity distinctions’ to protect the classic old-growth stands that spawned the ‘War in the Woods,’ then it would up-end the traditional conservation model in BC and across much of the world which seeks to minimize impacts of conservation on industry,” said Ken Wu, Executive Director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance.
“In BC the dominant paradigm has long focused on minimizing the impacts of conservation on the available timber supply for logging, thus emphasizing the protection of alpine, subalpine, far north, and bog landscapes with low to no timber values.”
They say that it will take ecosystem-based targets for the BEHF to be effective.
“Without ecosystem-based targets, it’s like sending in a fire brigade to hose down the non-burning homes, while those on fire are largely ignored,” Wu added.
The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and the Ancient Forest Alliance both say they would like to see the government approach this endeavour with integrity and adequate funding.
See the original article here.
