The Green Gazette June/July/August 2021 by TheGreenGazette

June/July/August 2021

The Mother Tree Saving Lonesome Lake Sustainable Reality Got Bats? Magic Greenhouse Zero Waste Birth Sprout Kitchen Food Hub Restoration Planet Mexican Sea Turtles Challenging Colonialism A Mother’s Plea Cariboo Gatherings Staying Connected Green Burial Options Zero Waste at FullFILL Urban Upcycle Owl Trade New MTB Flow Trail www.thegreengazette.ca

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Contents Features

Saving Lonesome Lake By The BC Parks Foundation

Making the Dream of Sustainable Living a Reality By Jim Cooperman

Guardian of the Vegetables: The Magic Greenhouse

The Zero Waste Birth

Blue Mindfulness Healing for Mexican Sea Turtles

By Terri Smith

By Oliver Berger

June/July/August 2021 l Issue #57

Publisher / Lisa Bland Editor-in-Chief Senior Editor Jessica Kirby Contributors Oliver Berger, Sage Birchwater, Lisa

Bland, Jim Cooperman, Ryan Elizabeth Cope, Guy Dauncey, Peter Ewart, Nicola Finch, Tera Grady, Amber Gregg, LeRae Haynes, Bill Irwin, Jessica Kirby, Shawn Lewis, Vanessa Moberg, Alexandra Morton, Dianne Noort, Amy Quarry, Maggie Ranger, Stephanie J. Rousso, Venta Rutkauskas, Chris R. Shepherd, Terri Smith, David Suzuki, Ron Young

By Stephanie J. Rousso

Climate Change and the Next Generation: The Mother's Plea By Jessica Kirby

Book Release: Not on My Watch By Alexandra Morton

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: 4. Publisher's Letter: Choosing 100% Recycled Paper 5. Book Release: Finding the Mother Tree 8. The Town That Beat Loneliness 10. Potato House Project Update 14. Got Bats? 18. Good Green News (for a Change!) 20. Long Table Grocery: The Work of Living a Life That Matters 21. Sprout Kitchen Regional Food Hub 21. Recipe: Quinoa Chocolate Cake: From the Long Table Kitchen 22. Science Matters: Leading Thinkers Call for Fossil Fuel Halt 24. Beyond Acknowledgment: Challenging Settler Colonialism 26. Cariboo Gatherings 28. Becoming Waste Wise: Solid Waste Management Planning 29. Staying Connected: Isolation Impacts on the Elderly 30. Natural Burial: Speaking up for Green Options 32. Green Business Williams Lake: FullFILL Williams Lake 34. Green Business Williams Lake: Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle 36. Conservation Conversation: Many Hands Make Enjoyable Work 38. Restoration Planet: We're in This Together 40. Skywatch with Bill Irwin 41. Opinion: Fruitful Protest 42. New Destination Flow Trail Coming Soon 44. BC Wild Berries: Unfit for Human and Animal Consumption? 46. Lightning Struck: It was Not a Dark and Stormy Night

Advertising Lisa Bland Creative Director Stacey Smith Ad Design Jill Schick / Stacey Smith Published by Earthwild Consulting Printing International Web exPress Inc. Website Design / Stacey Smith Technical Support Cover Photo Douglas fir and Western red cedar

forest in the Great Bear Rainforest, Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, near Bella Coola, BC. Photo: Jesaja Class Photography www.jesajaclassphotography.com

Paper Rolland Enviro® Print, 100% Post

Consumer Waste, Acid Free.

Ink Novavit 950 Plus Bio is a vegetable

based ink made from renewable raw materials with high colour.

www.thegreengazette.ca info@thegreengazette.ca The Green Gazette is published by Earthwild Consulting. To subscribe email info@thegreengazette.ca or visit our website at www.thegreengazette.ca © 2021 all rights reserved. Opinions and perspectives expressed in the magazine are those of authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the ownership or management. Reproduction in whole or part without the publisher’s consent is strictly prohibited.

47. An Invitation to Race the River 48. Who Gives a Hoot? The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 3

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PUBLISHER'S LETTER —

Choosing 100% Recycled Paper By Lisa Bland

Print is not dead, but virgin paper should be. Dear Readers,

e’re back, and we are glad to be publishing a summer issue of The Green Gazette. After taking a break because of the economic downturn and COVID’s effect on many businesses (the advertising from which we are 100% funded), producing this issue is a welcome new beginning as the spring blossoms into summer. Many of our favourite writers are back with contributions, and the community support and enthusiasm from new and returning advertisers continues to grow. We genuinely feel we were missed. Much has happened collectively and individually during the pandemic, and I’m sure you’ll find something in this issue that resonates. Whether dealing with elders in a complicated care situation, struggling with loneliness and isolation, contemplating leaving city life, creating a more sustainable or zero waste footprint, or finding peace and joy in simple pleasures, like access to fresh garden produce and wide open spaces, there’s no doubt the past year has been transformative. It is my hope that we can re-emerge with renewed commitment to what matters in our hearts and collectively forge a greener path into the future. For the past nine years, the co-ordination of more than 50 issues of The Green Gazette has been an uphill battle, economically speaking. The truth is a profit model bottom line has not been our priority. Creating a collaborative and hope-filled community publication has always been the goal, and the struggle to exist as a green business in a capitalist world is a commitment that sometimes translates to putting values ahead of profit. While there are many levels of ‘greenwashing’ present in our world, falling into cynicism about ‘the way things are’ doesn’t lead to change. Action leads to change. Since moving to a magazine format in the spring of 2019, The Green Gazette has been printed on 100 percent recycled paper with vegetable-based inks through International Web exPress, a printer based in Coquitlam, BC. While there are printing options that offer up to 50 percent cost savings, such as printing on non-recycled paper, outsourcing outside of BC, or using lower percentages of post consumer fiber, we decided that if we are going to call ourselves a green magazine, we wanted to create a product that meets the highest green standards. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) (fsc.org) certified, 100 percent post-consumer sustainable fiber The Green Gazette is printed on is called Rolland Enviro® Print, or Rolland Enviro® Satin (impacted recently by supply chain issues), when available. Rolland Inc. operates out of St. Gerome, Quebec, and is the only paper mill fuelled mainly by biogas energy from a local landfill and, in combination with its 100 percent post-consumer content and de-inking without chlorine, it is the most environmentally friendly paper manufacturer in North America. By comparison, other papers are generally manufactured using fossil fuels, and the use of virgin papers has a significant impact on biodiversity and, in certain regions, species at risk. Using a tonne of Rolland Enviro® Satin or Enviro® Print saves the equivalent of 24 trees, 1,773 gallons of water, and 3,402 lbs of greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more at rollandinc. com/sustainability/our-certifications/ LISA BLAND Publisher/Editor-in-Chief The Green Gazette

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Protected forest on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Photo: Lisa Bland

Vic Noble is general manager at International Web exPress. He spoke to me about changes in the print industry over the years and the decline in the use of FSC certified paper in the publishing industry. “Print is not dead,” Noble says. “Paper is still a huge part of our lives and will continue to be.” He describes the way some businesses and municipalities have tried to go solely online, cancelling their print publications and guides, but soon returning to print. “People have to be driven to websites,” Noble says. “They don’t automatically go there, so a successful business needs a combination of both.” In the 90s, everyone was using recycled paper when it was a fad, and today, many people are gung-ho about going green until they find out what it costs. “International Web exPress used to be an FSC certified printer, but we stopped in 2010,” Noble says. “The cost transferred onto our buyers at 20 percent more for printing but virtually no-one wanted to do it. If enough people demanded it, we would get it and the costs would go down.” The industry’s challenge is assembling the critical mass required to prompt all the mills to slowly change over. But demand is not there yet. As an affordable compromise, many publishers looking for greener options end up going with cheaper options, such as 30 percent post consumer waste paper. “The 100 percent recycled paper used for The Green Gazette along with using vegetable rather than oil-based inks is as enviro friendly as it gets,” Noble says. “You wouldn’t want to eat it, but you could—if you’re really hungry. You could throw this paper in the garden and use it to line the bottom of your compost.” Web exPress may not be FSC certified, but it is as green as it can be. In the company’s 2020 diversion report, the Sustainable Material Management Group of Cascades Recovery certified that International Web exPress achieved a 100 percent diversion rate, with a total of 467 metric tonnes of material recovered, landfilled reduction of 1,831 cubic yards, carbon dioxide emission reduction of 1,974 Te CO2e, and a savings of 13,084,860 litres of water, 1,955 barrels of petroleum, and 7,619 mature trees. The Green Gazette hopes that in leading by example, we can make a difference. As with many great products, people need to get behind them or they will disappear—and so will our magazine. If we don’t push for greener changes they aren't going to happen. If we care enough to push collectively and politically, we can make a difference. We’re doing it with plastic; let’s do it with paper. If you would like more info about how support our work, spread the word, or to donate, contact me at info@thegreengazette.ca. Have a great summer! -GG

www.thegreengazette.ca

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BOOK RELEASE —

Finding the Mother Tree

DISCOVERING THE WISDOM OF THE FOREST By Dr. Suzanne Simard Published May 4, 2021, in Canada by Allen Lane Canada

A world-leading expert shares her amazing story of discovering the communication that exists between trees and shares her own story of family and grief.

r. Suzanne Simard was born and raised in the rainforests of British Columbia and has forged a lifelong relationship of love and respect with the trees. This relationship was the driving force behind her decision to dedicate her life to better understanding the forest and the network that connects the plant life within. With humour, emotion, and the narrative drive of a lifelong storyteller, Dr. Simard takes readers on an intimate journey of ground-breaking scientific discovery. Linking her research to her personal experiences, she recounts her life’s work uncovering the Wood Wide Web, the underground mycelium network that connects all the trees and plants within a forest. It is a network that allows them to share not only nutrients, but also information, all of which originates from the hubs called Mother Trees. Readers will journey with Dr. Simard into this massive experiment, from dramatic encounters with wildlife to the ground-breaking “Aha” moments in a lab, from learning how to use this network to promote plant growth to understanding what this network can teach us about combatting climate change. Dramatic, funny, touching, and evocative, Finding the Mother Tree offers an intimate and personal look at discovery. This book is not about how we can save the trees, but about how the trees might actually save us. Dr. Suzanne Simard is a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia where she currently leads The Mother Tree Project and co-directs the Belowground Ecosystem Group. Dr. Simard has earned a global reputation for pioneering research on tree connectivity and communication, and for studying the impact on the productivity, health, and biodiversity of forests. Her work has been published widely, with over 170 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Ecology, and Global Biology, and she has co-authored the book Climate Change and Variability. Her research has been communicated broadly through three TED Talks, TED Experiences, and articles and interviews in The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Globe and Mail, NPR, CNN, CBC, and many other news outlets. She lives with her two adventurous daughters and their wild and crazy extended family in the mountains around Nelson, British Columbia. For more information about where to purchase, please visit www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/602589/finding-the-mothertree-by-suzanne-simard/9780735237759 -GG

Author, Dr. Suzanne Simard. Photo: Brendan Ko

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 5

SAVING LONE

BC crowdfunding campaign successfully protects

onesome Lake is a place where Grizzly bears gather in autumn to feast on spawning salmon and Steelhead trout, serenaded by a chorus of migratory birds, including Trumpeter swans saved from extinction on these waters. The poetically named Lonesome Lake rests in a dry valley at the wild heart of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park and is an area of exceptional ecological importance. It is part of an area known as the Chilcotin Ark, flanked by the Chilcotin and Coast mountains and graced with endangered old growth stands of Interior Douglas fir. Lonesome Lake feeds the Atnarko, a river system connected to one of the most important wildlife migration routes in BC: a “super-highway” for grizzlies, moose, and 140 species of migratory birds. “Lonesome Lake is a sparkling gem in the wilderness crown of the Chilcotin Ark, spanning 560 kilometres from Tweedsmuir Park to the Fraser River and across the Chilcotin Mountains—the length of the European Alps,” said Ric Careless, vice-chair of the BC Parks Foundation. “Lonesome Lake is of international conservation significance, especially to the North American wildlife community. When we learned this historic property in the heart of the park was for sale, we had to act.” That historic property was the backdrop to one of the most remarkable wildlife rescue stories in history. A century ago, Trumpeter swans were hunted nearly to extinction for their elegant, white plumage. The decimated global population dipped to only 100 swans, with one-third of them wintering at Lonesome Lake.

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In the 1920s, a pioneer couple saw the wintering swans starving and dying in frigid temperatures and began a super-human mission of mercy. Ralph Edwards, an ingenious homesteader dubbed “The Crusoe of Lonesome Lake”, wife Ethel, sons Stanley and John, and daughter Trudy, packed sacks of barley for miles to starving swans in the dead of winter, then broke lake ice to feed the desperate birds. Supported initially by the Canadian government in 1925, Trudy (eventually along with her daughter Susan) continued the Trumpeter feeding program at Lonesome Lake for over 40 years. In 1957, Edwards’ biography, Crusoe of Lonesome Lake by American writer Leland Stowe, became a North American bestseller. The swan saga captivated North America with television appearances, Reader’s Digest and Life magazine making the family famous. Ralph received the Order of Canada in 1972 for his work with the swans. The “Crusoe” clan is long gone from Lonesome Lake and nature has taken the place back. Earlier this year, Ralph Edwards’ granddaughter Susan put the original homestead of 153 acres up for sale. The BC Parks Foundation (BCPF) began a fundraising campaign to raise $695,000 to protect the property. There were fears that old growth forests, animal habitat, and the swans themselves could once again be at risk with helicopter or floatplane traffic in the area if the lands were sold commercially to private interests. Hundreds of British Columbians, Canadians, and international donors responded, helping BCPF cross the finish line a week before the deadline.

ESOME LAKE

globally significant wilderness in the Chilcotin Ark.

Grizzly family in old growth Interior Douglas fir along the shores of recently protected Lonesome Lake. Photo: Ric Careless

“Once again, we are overwhelmed with the incredible generosity and dedication of so many people to preserving our most precious natural areas,” Careless said. “The protection of this site in the heart of the Chilcotin Ark will ensure that Trumpeter swans and other wildlife continue to thrive at Lonesome Lake without disturbance. Now, with the protection of Lonesome Lake ensured, we plan to expand efforts to preserve other fragile and important areas in the Chilcotin Ark.” The Chilcotin Ark is a lesser-known ecological complement to the higher profile Great Bear Rainforest, home of the famed Spirit Bear. The Ark drapes across the rain shadow on the eastern side of the Chilcotin and Coast mountains. As a result, the Ark features dry forests and grasslands that support high numbers of wildlife. Caribou, mountain goats, big horn sheep, moose, deer, and thriving populations of grizzlies, cougar, bobcat, wolves, and migratory birds are all resident in the Chilcotin Ark. In addition to wildlife values, old growth Interior Douglas fir forest, found at Lonesome Lake, is the least protected of BC’s 16 major ecosystems, which scientists refer to as biogeoclimatic zones. The Chilcotin Ark features 10 of BC’s 16 zones—the most of any wilderness region in BC. Because of these values and the saga of the pioneer family who saved a species, Lonesome Lake has tremendous historical and ecological significance. In a world of disappearing species, Trumpeter swans are a notable conservation success story. The largest of all North American waterbirds

now thrives across the continent. In BC, major populations overwinter at Comox on Vancouver Island and in the Fraser Delta. “This story has inspired so many people, for so long,” says Andy Day, CEO of the BC Parks Foundation. “It shows that while humans have caused much damage to our environment and other species, we are capable of reviving and protecting them.” Lonesome Lake is the latest successful fundraising campaign by the BC Parks Foundation, the official charitable partner of BC Parks. In past years, donors have enthusiastically answered the call to help the BC Parks Foundation purchase and protect threatened ecological treasures, such as Princess Louisa Inlet, a fabled fjord on the Sunshine Coast; Ballenas Island, a rare plant sanctuary off Parksville; and, with partners, the Edziza Plateau in northern BC. -GG The BC Parks Foundation’s mission is to protect, enhance, and sustain public parks, while promoting widespread, respectful use, enjoyment, and stewardship of these cherished places. Each year there are more than 26 million visits to B.C.’s provincial parks. You can learn more about their work by visiting them at bcparksfoundation.ca, or via their social media channels: Instagram @bcparksfdn and Facebook @bcparksfoundation.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 7

The Town That Beat Loneliness

e feel loneliness personally, but it is not a personal problem. For millions of years, our ancestors lived in close communities where everyone knew each other and helped each other out. It is only very recently that family and neighbourhood connections began to dissolve. It seemed to start in the 1970s, when people used their increased incomes to buy cars and televisions, divorce each other more often, and live further away from their parents. Not all marriages are good, not all parents are kind, and not all neighbours are friendly, so for some, this was a relief. But when those connections dissolve, what arrives in their place? Among other things, loneliness. In Britain, in 2011, 51 percent of people surveyed said they wouldn’t normally ask their neighbour for help of any kind. Seventy percent didn’t know any of their neighbours’ names, and only six percent said there was a strong sense of community where they lived. In America, in 2018, 40 percent of people said they often felt lonely, a proportion that has doubled since the 1980s. How can we turn this around? Every community project, street party and sports team helps, but something more is needed. I believe the secret to the problem has been found in the small Somerset town of Frome (pronounced Frume) in England, population 28,000. When people are feeling isolated and depressed, they tend to go to the hospital’s emergency department more often. A doctor may only have ten minutes to see each patient, so it’s hard to tease out an underlying condition that may have its roots in loneliness. In Frome, Dr. Helen Kingston and Jenny Hartnoll set out to change this, to create a community where people would be supported to be creative, active, and resourceful in response to their own needs and the needs of others. Working out of the Frome Medical Practice, they mapped the resources of the whole community and then created an online directory of all local community services and non-profits—and there are a lot of them. They set up five weekly Talking Cafés where people could meet (in preCOVID times) and talk about anything that matters to them, and they set up peer support groups for everything from macular degeneration to dementia, running 250 groups a year. This enables the doctors to have social prescribing at their fingertips: “Join this support group and sing in the choir once a week.” They then invited people to train as Community Connectors. In a twohour training, they teach people how to listen compassionately and how to use the community directory to guide people toward a group or resource that might interest them, such as a choir, a walking group, or a support group. Since 2017, they have trained 1,500 people—five percent of the town’s population—to become Community Connectors. Once they are trained, they don’t do anything particular, but when they

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ty He a

Loneliness. At the start of the pandemic, a survey found that more than half of Canadians felt lonely and isolated. Among young people aged 18–34 the feeling rose to 68 percent. Loneliness is often accompanied by a feeling of shame, that you ought not to be feeling this way, that you ought to feel happy and connected.

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Article by Guy Dauncey

i un m m o #C

Image: healthconnectionsmendip.org

bump into someone, they know how to ask, “Can I help you?” and listen compassionately to the answer. If the conversation goes that way, the Connector might suggest a local group or resource that might help. If each of the 1,500 Connectors has 20 such conversations a year, that’s 30,000 conversations a year. “The more people who are there who know what’s available, the more we can all support each other as a community,” Hartnoll says.

We feel loneliness personally, but it is not a personal problem. For millions of years, our ancestors lived in close communities where everyone knew each other and helped each other out.

The new relationships are enabling people to overcome loneliness and isolation, and they are also reducing hospital workloads and costs. Between 2013 and 2017, in all of Somerset, emergency visit costs rose by 29 percent. In Frome, by contrast, emergency admissions fell by 17 percent and costs fell by 21 percent. Wouldn’t it be great if every community in Canada could do the same? To learn more, go to the Health Connections Mendip website (healthconnectionsmendip.org), and read The Compassion Project: A Case for Hope and Human Kindness from the Town that Beat Loneliness, by Dr. Julian Abel and Lindsay Clarke. -GG Guy Dauncey is the author of Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible. His website is www.thepracticalutopian.ca. The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 8

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 9

Potato House Project Update

"THE OLD LADY IS GETTING NEW UNDERPANTS!”

Article by Amber Gregg

think it is safe to say that the little white and blue house in the downtown of Williams Lake, otherwise known as the Potato House, is a familiar sight in the community. This historic site has been revitalized into an abundant garden space, the only drivethrough compost location in Canada, and a home for the collection of artifacts that demonstrate decades of culture in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. If you have not toured the house as a student, you have likely participated in the drive-through compost program, stood in line to get a bag of black gold soil amendment, visited the site to tend to your community garden plot, or attended one of our popular community events. The house has not only become a welcome environment for plants and bugs of all kinds, but it has also become an inviting space for families and community members to come together. In 2020, the top floor of the house was completely transformed from a small, cluttered space to an airy and open meeting space complete with

Newly renovated meeting space on the top floor of the Potato House built by local father and son operated business The Carpenter, using locally sourced materials. Photo: Mary Forbes

a gorgeous, reclaimed table and chairs. New windows were installed to improve ventilation and help keep the space at a comfortable temperature, and an emergency exit will soon be installed to allow for maximum safety. This project was made possible by the Northern Development Initiative Trust, Community Halls and Recreations Facilities Fund, and Heritage BC’s Heritage Legacy Fund. This space will eventually be available for use by local organizations to host meetings, and we are excited to share it with the community. The momentum of the upstairs renovation project has carried on into 2021. Earlier this year, we were thrilled to learn that the organization had been approved for a sizable grant (written by the incomparable Project Alchemist, Joe Borsato), to perform some major restoration work on the house. We are in the process of working with local contractor The Carpenter to replace the Potato House’s failing, damaged foundation. The plan is to remove and replace the current one with a fresh new one. To quote our Executive Director, Mary Forbes, “The old lady is getting new underpants!” In addition to the new foundation, we plan to upgrade and install utilities and services to make the house safe and comfortable for year-round use. All work to the house will have the original character of the house in mind and will use the most sustainable materials wherever possible to reduce the environmental impact of the work. With each project that we complete, the Potato House increases its value as a community asset. The members of the board of directors and the talented team that carries out the day-to-day activities of the organization have poured countless hours of work into creating this unique space. We look forward to seeing residents throughout the summer while we work on the site and will continue to provide updates on the construction plan as we move along the process. We want to assure residents that our compost services will continue throughout the duration of the work on the house and if there are any changes, we will update you as soon as possible. As always, thank you for your continued support, and if you have any questions, contact our team at grow@ potatohouseproject.com. -GG Amber Gregg is the program co-ordinator for the Potato House Sustainable Community Society. Amber is a long time Cariboo resident and enjoys getting outside with her family as much as possible. This Potato House has been revitalized into an abundant garden space, the only drive-through compost location in Canada, and a home for the collection of artifacts that demonstrate decades of culture in the Cariboo Chilcotin. Photo: Oliver Berger

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The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 11

Making The Dream Of Sustainable Living A Reality Article & photos by Jim Cooperman

Jim and Kathi Cooperman

he dream of “living off the land” helped influence my decision 52 years ago to move to the Shuswap and live on a rural property above the lake at Lee Creek. It was just a few years ago that significant progress was made to realize that dream, when there was just one week between consuming the last of the stillgreen garden produce and when the new greens were ready to eat from the greenhouse, along with the asparagus and the parsnips that overwintered in the garden. Growing our own organic food, while challenging and time-consuming, does provide multiple benefits. Although it can be physically demanding, gardening is more productive than a gym workout, given we are sustained

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by the fruits of our labour. Five decades of tilling the same land has also included much experimentation and learning, as we try new crops, use different methods, and as pests, inclement weather, and diseases take their toll. During the summer, our vegetarian meals are a cornucopia of salads and vegetables direct from the garden, including some unfamiliar varieties. In addition to the standards, like peas, corn, beans, onions, cucumbers, beets, peppers, tomatoes, and all the cruciferous vegetables, our specialty is the artichoke. In just the last two years we added a new vegetable to our list: fennel. It is resistant to most pests, easy to grow, and can be planted throughout the summer for multiple crops.

Key to being able to consume homegrown veggies year-round is having effective storage methods. I built our first root cellar out of cedar logs in 1973 and used dynamite to blast out the rock in the hillside where it was built. It lasted over 40 years, until the logs finally rotted away. Our new cellar is made of concrete and faced with rock. Stored there during the winter are potatoes, beets, leeks, carrots, kale, Brussels spouts on the stem, and apples. In our freezers, we have corn, peas, raspberries, currents, melon, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, Haskap berries, pesto, and soups. Since freezing lowers the nutritional value of the cruciferous vegetables, we make soup out of the cauliflower and broccoli. As well, we found fennel soup to

A mid-summer image of our garden.

be one of the tastiest. Other soups include vichyssoise, squash, and pear-parsnip. There is nothing like a hot, homemade soup for lunch on a cold winter day. Some vegetables, such as onions, garlic, and winter squash, only need a dry, cool place in the house for storage. Canning and pickling are the other two key methods of storage, and pickling has an added health advantage because fermentation adds to one’s gut healthy bacteria that aids in digestion. In addition to canned whole tomatoes, we have tomato chutney, paste, salsa, sauce, and a soup base that includes garlic and onions. The green beans are pickled, along with carrots. Instead of sauerkraut, we make kimchi, which is so good in sandwiches and with eggs in the morning. Our tomatillo salsa tastes best on tacos and enchiladas. Beginning in late summer, the food dehydrators are busy drying fruit and herbs, including basil and rosemary. We make our own herbal tea from dried mint, rose petals, and lavender, and it tastes better than most teas from a store. The most recent addition to help with storage is perhaps the simplest: a used fridge in the garage where the cabbage keeps until spring. Another way we add homegrown nutrition to our meals during the winter is by growing sprouts in a jar and shoots under the lights when we begin starting new plants in March. Last year, for the first time, we grew Romano beans and found these very delicious and easy to grow, harvest, and store in the freezer after a brief parboil. This year we will be growing the pole variety to reap a larger harvest. Finally, we have found a delicious protein to add to our winter diet, allowing for some dinners to be almost fully homegrown. Thus, it is possible for nearly complete self-sufficiency in the Shuswap, where a large variety of produce can be grown. Animal husbandry is, of course, another key part of living off the land. We do have chickens for the eggs, and back in the early 1970s, we raised goats and sheep. Now that we are primarily vegetarian, there is no reason to

include farm animals, but that means I need to haul in manure. For the last few decades, it has been mostly goat manure, which is one of the best because it does not contain weed seeds. I combine some of the manure with garden waste, comfrey, the kitchen compost, and the chicken manure to make compost for the garden, which goes into the holes when I plant bedding plants; is used to side dress the heavy feeders, like broccoli and artichokes; and is used to cover the garlic after it is planted in October. There are many variables in gardening, including when seeds are planted indoors to go under the lights, when the greenhouse is planted for an early greens crop, and when seeds are planted in the garden. For the last 11 years, I have kept a journal for keeping track of the planting to help as a guide for each new year. One goal is to time the planting of the cabbage to ensure it is ready to harvest at the latest date possible to reduce the time in storage. Many crops are staggered to allow for successive harvests throughout the year. Our gardens produce far more veggies than we can consume, so we give the excess away to friends and relatives who do not have gardens. Growing excess food can also be an insurance policy, in case of crop failures, damage from weather events, raids by deer, and other losses. It seems like the longer we garden, the more pests we have to cope with, including the carrot rust fly, root maggots, aphids, and white fly. Fifty years ago, we were part of the “back to the land” movement, and there are likely many of us still enjoying country living. It is refreshing to see the revival of this movement as more young people are farming and selling their organic produce and products in their communities. Governments need to develop policies and benefits to help more young people become farmers, given the many obstacles caused by the high costs of land and the many regulations. Most farmland in British Columbia is under-used, while most food is grown, raised, or processed outside of the province. Once we are free of the virus, food security should become a key issue. -GG

Fifty years ago, we were part of the “back to the land” movement, and there are likely many of us still enjoying country living. It is refreshing to see the revival of this movement as more young people are farming and selling their organic produce and products in their communities. Jim Cooperman was a provincial forest activist with the BC Environmental Network during the turbulent 1990s. He now focuses on local issues in the Shuswap, where he has lived on a rural property for 50 years. His bioregional book, Everything Shuswap, is a local bestseller. Visit his website at www.shuswappassion.ca.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 13

Big Tree Bat House. Photo: Dianne Noort

Little brown bat, myotis lucifugus. Photo: Wikimedia commons

Got Bats?

Article by Dianne Noort

t was the first time Julie had come to stay overnight at my cabinhouse. Through raising teenagers at the same time, we had become best friends. Then, Julie moved away from the Cariboo and a few years later we moved, too, to a magical spot in the woods in Horsefly, BC Of course, Julie came to visit, and it was that night we made an important discovery. With a lavish August sun setting over the lake, Julie and I climbed into my hot tub, each of us with a glass of chilled chardonnay. She sighed, sinking her shoulders down. As we chatted, we heard a peculiar scratching at the edge of my cabin’s tin roof. Then, something seemed to fall out. Julie and I peered into the looming darkness in stunned disbelief as we counted over 90 small brown bats, dropping and gliding silently above to feast on the multitude of mosquitoes and other insects. Strong myths raise many fears, vilifying bats as hosts to disease. Could my little piece of paradise be tainted? Can people coexist with bats? I was warm to the idea of their dietary choice. That could be mutually beneficial. By mid-September they were gone, and all activity ceased. I stuffed copper ribbon into the ridges on the corrugated roof and installed three bat houses. Excluding bats can be done safely and without harming them if certain measures are put in place, during the time they are away. Uncertainty lingered, however. Was copper ribbon the right material to stuff in? Would they move into the bat houses? Toward the end of April, I had my answer. They were back in my roof. I wanted to think the best of the bats; however, I needed more information. Thankfully, my research led to a community bat program (CBP), which operates under the mandate to educate landowners about conserving this vulnerable species. I registered my colony through the CBP website. When I say this out loud, a smile breaks onto my face, stemming from a yearning to in some way take part in animal conservation. Within 24 hours a volunteer called, deftly congratulating me, and setting up contact with our regional educator. One Tuesday morning I spoke with Bill Gilroy from Scout Island Nature Centre in Williams Lake. He enthusiastically informed me that my house roost is a maternal colony. They love the heat of a metal roof while raising their pups. Did I know they are called ‘myotis’ bats, named for their little mouse-like ears? Bats are not aggressive, nor do they claw or destroy their roosts. Bats can carry rabies and should therefore never be touched with bare hands. The CBP is on the lookout for signs of white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease harmless to humans but responsible for the deaths of millions of bats. WNS was detected in Washington State and soon it will likely be here.

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• BC has 15 species of bats, the greatest diversity of any Canadian province. • The location of bat hibernation sites is a mystery. • Bats mate in fall but females store the sperm until spring. This is called delayed fertilization. • Bats cannot carry coronavirus. • See www.bcbats.ca for where to get a bat box or bat box plans. Both human and environmental health is intertwined with all the fauna with whom we co-exist. My summer visitors now ask, “How are the bats?” Some do live in the bat houses. When the pups begin to fly in August, we do our official count—only 58 this year. Bill Gilroy agrees that the fires of 2017 affected them. Julie feels like a bat godmother, and we are both curious about whether the colony will rebuild. Time will tell.

What You Can Do to Help • Report known roost sites, dead bats, and unusual late winter/early spring bat behaviour (e.g., bats flying during the daytime) to info@bcbats.ca or 1-855-922-2287. • Work with local groups to conserve bat habitats (e.g., old trees and buildings, water bodies) on your property and in the community. • Participate in habitat enhancement programs (e.g., box installation) to help bats. • Educate your friends and families about bats and their benefits and encourage them to be stewards of these important species. • Bats are important, are in trouble, and need your help. Learn more at www.bcbats.ca Dianne moved to the Cariboo 26 years ago to be closer to nature. She is a natural living inspirationalist. Follow her on Instagram: @hairsadream.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 15

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LOCAL FOOD QUESNEL —

Guardian of the Vegetables: The Magic Greenhouse Article by Terri Smith

My greenhouse sanctuary. Photo: Terri Smith

ne of my favourite bits of gardening advice comes from Eliot Coleman and goes something like this: If your garden is a place you want to spend time in, you will spend more time there and consequently, it will become even more beautiful, and you will want to be there even more! After market gardening for seven years, I didn’t always want to spend time in my garden. For the first few years after I moved to Quesnel from Williams Lake, I almost had to force myself to tend my new garden space that was full of quack grass and other weeds and just seemed so daunting. But over the last few years, I have finally begun to listen to the advice I always give in my gardening workshops, and my garden has now become my favourite place! Last year when the world shut down, it seemed that everyone discovered gardening again. I think this has been one of the silver linings to this whole strange time in the world. In April, I suddenly found myself with even more time than usual, and I began planning a completely new

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approach to my garden and greenhouse. Combining both permaculture and biodynamic growing methods, I even surprised myself with the lush oasis I created that produced more food than ever before! Our greenhouse was the one I had used for market gardening, and for the first few years after I arrived here, I actually left half of it empty because it was just too big for the two of us. In January of last year, we were heading home from a walk and approaching the greenhouse across the meadow and I lamented that I really was not making good use of the space. “It’s 800 square feet!” I said to Mark. “That’s way too many tomatoes!” Mark laughed and replied that it was the same size as the house belonging to one of our closest friends, and that simple comment made me rethink my whole idea of the greenhouse. “I need to grow some rooms in there,” I replied. As spring slowly arrived, we set up a squash arch from pieces of my smaller, unused greenhouse, and I began drawing elaborate plans for how to move away from the greenhouse-on-a-grid, as I had always grown it, to create meandering paths and plant communities. We placed old barrels throughout the space and filled them with water that warmed up all day and then radiated heat back out at night. I planted basil and peppers and tomatoes around the barrels, and as a result, I had peppers and tomatoes earlier than ever before and basil that lasted longer into the fall. I filled every inch of my greenhouse space, and in between the plants I seeded clover to fix nitrogen and to act as a living mulch to conserve water and keep out weeds. I combined so many different flowers and vegetables and had so much fun experimenting with different combinations of plant communities. One of the unexpected things that made me so happy was the bees! In previous years, every evening when I would go out to close the greenhouse, there would be several bumblebees trapped near the top and I would spend way too long holding up a rake until each one would land on it so I could lower it out the door and let them fly away. Last summer, though, because there were so many flowers in the greenhouse, the bees stayed low to be near the blooms and flew in and out of the doors without flying too high and getting themselves trapped. I also had a few saucers of water filled with pretty stones where the bees could safely drink without risk of drowning, and instead of bees becoming trapped in my greenhouse, I found that many of them just decided to live there full-time. There may have been massive upheavals and a global pandemic going on outside, but I found it was hard to stay anxious when each morning I was greeted by cute little bumblebee butts peeking out of the marigold blossoms! Beneath the squash arch I made myself a little reading nook, and in that rainiest of summers it became my sanctuary. Lying on my mattress, snuggled up with a cat, I could gaze up at the squash leaves above and feel all my troubles melt away. This year we plan to set up a bathtub beneath the squash arch! If you need me, I’ll be in the greenhouse. -GG Terri Smith is an artist, educator, gardener, burlesque performer and sometimes reluctant writer living in Quesnel, BC. She teaches workshops on gardening and needle felting and can be found on Facebook at: Road’s End Vegetable Company, or: Something Magical.

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NO TIME LEFT TO WASTE —

The Zero Waste Birth Article by Oliver Berger

e had everything set up: birth pool, vapour barriered Among the piles of machinery and monitoring devices, my trashy mind floors, hoses, heaters, towels, and music. spotted the garbage cans. ‘Black Holes’ we call them—looming vortexes We are pregnant and making the choice to have a sucking in all kinds of things never to be seen again. home water birth. It felt right, and luckily for us we had I know hospitals create a lot of waste. Everything must be kept just received Cariboo Midwives to the region, and they took us on. sanitary to the utmost standards; everything must come packaged and There is a lot to plan. Mentally, you must be prepared to use your sterile. I get it. space for something that is usually reserved for a hospital. Firstly, you What really blew me away, though, was how fast we filled those order a birth pool. Which one? Next, you better make sure you have a two significantly large garbage cans within the next six hours. Plastic hose with access to hot water because you ain’t filling that pool with package after plastic package, disposable absorbent pads the size of your outside cold-water tap. Now, you want to protect your flooring. You small blankets, and soiled tissues like an army of meteorites kept getting have hundreds of litres of standing water in an open pool. Who knows drawn into the gravitational pull of the mighty garbage cans. what could happen? Your mattress, couches, chairs, Swiss ball, yoga Where were our reusable towels now? mat, and any other potentially These garbage thoughts were useful areas should be prepared not at the top of my mind during for liquids. our key moments, buuuut… I Normally, many of the items would be lying if I didn’t tell you used during home birthing are they crossed my mind a fair bit. considered one-time use and We had put a lot of effort into get immediately disposed, even our home birth to make sure we towels and sheets. Luckily, would not create any more-thanour midwives were super necessary waste. accommodating to our zero After hours of heavy breathing waste home birth plan and and concentrated awkward supported our concerns. bodily movements, we had a I created solutions for each beautiful baby girl to hold in our one. The birth pool could arms. Nobody understands that be reused, for us or another moment until you feel it. It is pregnancy. I used end-of-theamazing. roll pieces of vapour barrier I had Now, she rests. collected over the years from Food comes in later and once construction jobs. Amazingly, I again my brain tweaks towards had just enough to cover what Styrofoam bowls with plastic was needed. Any other spillage lids, single use cups for drinks, concerns would be handled by a and those tiny I’ll-never-usecollection of towels we acquired them condiments that will get from friends and family. thrown out whether you use Of course, I had to have a waste them or not. I wonder why in a diversion station too: a large bin building with a full commercial for the textiles we would wash kitchen we cannot have real and reuse, a recycling box for dishes and cutlery. So, I load up all the plastic packaging from the packaging and extra food in the medical devices that the our bags to take home to reheat, midwives might use, and finally, reuse, and recycle. Those black a small can for unknowns. That holes had enough, as far as I was was it. Feeling pretty confident concerned. with my set up, I could now focus Currently, this is the way we 100% on my partner and her provide a healthy birth. The Time to go zero waste, baby! Photo: Makarena Sánchez needs. nurses and staff are seriously It was a long, very magical phenomenal; it is the waste evening. Supporting my partner’s upper body with my arms as she creation part we need to work on. It is up to us to ask the system to do floated in the pool with exhaustion is a moment I remember well during better. Did you know our local hospital is one of a few in Western Canada all the other duties of tracking contractions and keeping warm tea and that does its own laundry service on site? hot water bottle and ice on tap and massaging shoulders and adjusting As for the two heaping piles of trash that were created for our birth, lighting and keeping the music going and holding hands and steering we now have a tiny human who eats the zero mile diet straight from clear… mom with zero packaging. She is already setting the bar. -GG It was not for lack of trying, alas, the call had to be made to pack up our go bags and head into the hospital. Oliver Berger has a 39-year degree in life, enjoying school from birth to After a painstaking wait for the epidural to set in, we could both get the present in the Cariboo area. Constantly venturing around this Earth some rest. It is funny, the term ‘rest’; it is just the lower swell of the on a quest to learn new skills, Oliver’s priorities include dedication to and next wave, the calm before the storm, you could say. It was during that education about the management of society’s leftovers. bottom swell that I had a good chance to look around the delivery room. The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 17

Good Green News (for a Change!) FIVE STRATEGIES TO FAN THE GREEN FLAME

Article by Ryan Elizabeth Cope

Coronavirus is (still) here yet we (still) persevere.

his might be our new, collective mantra as we welcome a new year with many of the hallmarks of 2020. Many are hitting a fatigue wall with the ongoing pandemic, and it can be hard to remember what day or week it is. And yet, there is much more to be hopeful for this year, as opposed to last. Thankfully, many of the shifts we made in 2020, like growing our own food, supporting local businesses, and helping out our communities (locally and globally), have stuck with us and have become permanent new habits. At the same time, we’re not where we thought we’d be a year ago, and so it’s important to be thinking about how to persevere. With that, read on for five strategies to help keep your spirits lifted and your greeny-green mission alive as we enter into our second pandemic summer. Now more than ever, it is important for us to be keeping our cups full, so we can be of service to ourselves, to each other, and to this incredible planet we still call home. As The Green Gazette’s publisher, Lisa Bland, says, “It all adds up to fuelling the green flame!” It might be a murky time, but there is light out there.

A fresh feast gleaned from the backyard and local Farmer's Market. Photo: Ryan Elizabeth Cope

taking on the world’s stress, hunkering down, eating chips. Good for a short period of time, not great for the long haul. But as the snow melted away and we are greeted by spring, the warmer weather continues to encourage us to get outside and reclaim our favourite activities, whatever they may be. Outside activities fuel us up to be more resilient creatures. By clearing the fog from our brains and going for a walk or simply absorbing sun, we’re preparing ourselves to tackle the hard work of living through an unprecedented time.

Celebrate all things edible and green. This year has felt like the year that will truly never end. Winter seemed… longer, somehow (even if it actually wasn’t). All the more reason to get excited about the return of fresh, green veggies, foraged mindfully on forest walks, or gathered from hard-working farmers at our local markets. It is hard to put one’s finger on the magic and joy that fresh spinach or first-of-the-season nettles and asparagus bring to one’s soul. They are, in a word: delicious!

Find awe and wonder in a simple seed (See "Good Green News" in the Summer 2020 issue of The Green Gazette). Last year, we talked about the amazing surge of home gardening, as people around the world transformed their yards, patios, and living rooms into veritable greeneries. This year, we’re getting granular and focusing on seeds. Seeds are magic. Anyone who has ever sprouted something (accidentally or on purpose) can attest to this. Seeds feed on nutrients in soil, mixing water with time and resulting in shoots that then reach for the sun, unfurling leaf after leaf on stems, and eventually bearing fruit. Being able to watch a seed make this magnificent journey from our living rooms into the warmth of summer seems particularly amazing—and comforting—in a time where so much is uncertain.

Go outside: fuel for resilient living. It has been tricky (to say the least) navigating a pandemic and staying mentally or physically well. So many of us have gone into fight-or-flight mode (including yours truly),

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Slow down to witness the pace of change. While it has been a struggle for many of us to stay in one place for over a year, there have been some very significant benefits to staying close to home. The biggest of all is

that we are noticing the pace of change at a much more micro scale than in years past. We’re noticing flowers we’ve never noticed before, the changing seasons, even weather. And we’re getting to know our own backyards. We live in such a beautiful and diverse part of the world! Whereas before, we might blur through these things or look forward to trips away, this time is asking us to look around at what’s right in front of us.

Narrow the focus (to stay sane!) In the age of COVID, attempting to maintain sustainability values has been, well, a struggle. There is more take-out packaging than ever before, masks are becoming the new form of street-side litter, and it can feel hard to even remember reusable grocery bags when our main concerns are staying healthy and alive. These days, little tweaks can make all the difference, especially when so much is out of our control. One such tweak is avoiding excessive food packaging, where possible. This might look like kindly declining chopsticks, forks, or condiment packets in favour of using your own items from home. Or politely ask for alternative take-out packaging options. In some cases this is not possible, but sometimes restaurants have multiple types of packaging and the switch is easy. -GG Ryan Elizabeth Cope is a Kelowna, BC-based advocate for healthy oceans and healthful living. She blogs at Seven In the Ocean (sevenintheocean.com) where she shares sustainability success stories focused on plastic reduction and everyday earth heroes.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 19

Long Table Grocery

THE WORK OF LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS Article by Amy Quarry, Owner, Long Table Grocery

Amy Quarry in her shop, Long Table Grocery in Quesnel. Photo: Northern Persona Photography

ife as an entrepreneur often feels like I’m on a roller coaster between chaos and despair with only occasional moments of hope. Every day, any number of minor things go sideways— the freight doesn’t arrive, the internet is down, something breaks, or someone calls in sick. Someone always needs to be paid, and there is never enough money. We are always running out of ingredients, and the garbage needs to be taken out again. The floor is muddy, and I can never find a Sharpie. There isn’t a single day that I don’t forget to do something I said I would do, and I rarely seem to be able to answer my phone, let alone return messages. I never even get close to the bottom of my to-do list, yet it grows by the minute and my inbox is a tsunami of unread messages. We always have too much of one thing and not enough of another. There is always someone I am disappointing and something to apologize for. There are days I don’t know how I am going to make payroll. And that’s just the small stuff. Never mind the big things the business has experienced, like record-setting wildfires and world-wide pandemics. And yet. And yet we still have generous and loyal customers. We still laugh every day. We still

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launch new things. We still send out orders every week. We still turn the lights on and unlock the door and chat with our customers. The day goes on and so do we. We laugh and cry. We show up for each other. We lose focus and begin again. We make do with not enough (for now, anyways). We turn nothing into something. We Create. Have vision. Problem solve. We are inspired and discouraged, often both in the same day. We make changes. We move forward and back. And forward and back. We support each other through illness, death, and divorce. We celebrate babies and weddings and birthdays. Sometimes we have a win. Sometimes we fail and must grow in our capacity to admit we are wrong. Some days we fantasize about packing it all in and moving to Spain. We cry, sleep on it, and try again. Fail again. Want to give up. Don’t give up. We keep trying to be better. We know we are not alone. We will try again tomorrow. And I wonder at the end of the day, isn’t this really the work of living a life that matters? The work of building something that lasts? To just simply return over and over to the task at hand. To do the next right thing. And the next. To fail and fail and fail and maybe sometimes succeed. To care and to sustain our caring in the face of apathy and self-interest. To show up

for those who need us. To believe our dream is possible in the face of dire and immense uncertainty. To meet the day with compassion for others and grace for ourselves. The work of building a business isn’t about orders, or transactions, or boxes on a shelf. At the end of the day, the actual tasks we do in our work are irrelevant—what matters is how we show up for the process. How do we bring ourselves to the table, and what do we have to offer others? Who is not at the table and what can I do to make a place for them? What does my community need from me to be fed today? What matters is how we do this work of building a community. What matters is how we do the work of building relationships. What matters is how we do the work of building ourselves. -GG Amy Quarry is an entrepreneur, communitybuilder, maker, graphic designer, and localist. She loves her small town and strongly believes in the resilience of a community built together. Long Table Grocery is a locally-owned independent food hub providing good food that is sustainably sourced and locally-rooted in the Cariboo region of BC.

Sprout Kitchen Regional Food Hub

At Sprout Kitchen, food entrepreneurs can make a range of products, including baked goods, frozen foods, dehydrated foods, canned goods, and much more. Photo: Amy Quarry

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CARIBOO FOOD PROCESSING

prout Kitchen, a member of the BC Food Hub Network, provides space and support for emerging and existing food entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground or to scale their business for new markets. Sprout Kitchen serves the area from Vanderhoof to 100 Mile House and offers new and established food businesses and community groups access to shared processing infrastructure, including processing, packaging, and testing equipment; cooler and freezer storage; food business advisory services; product development services; analytic services; applied research opportunities; and education and training related to food processing and food safety. Through Sprout Kitchen, food entrepreneurs can make a range of products, including baked goods, frozen foods, dehydrated foods, canned goods, and much more. Producers can connect with processors, and food entrepreneurs have the opportunity to build their businesses alongside one another, encouraging an inclusive and supportive regional foods economy. Sprout Kitchen will bring more opportunities for area farmers, ranchers, and wild harvesters to increase revenue by adding

value to their products, and food entrepreneurs will be able to access training and support to get their products to markets across the province. “The Sprout Kitchen Regional Food Hub is creating more opportunities for Cariboo food processing businesses to increase their production and sales, expand their networking, and use local ingredients,” says Lana Popham, MLA, Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries. “Thank you to everyone involved in creating Sprout Kitchen. Your work will help small businesses and farms in the region grow and strengthen food security for communities in the Cariboo Regional District.” Food processors wishing to use the space can now request rates and register for membership at sproutkitchen.ca. A grand opening will be planned when covid-19 restrictions are lifted. Sprout Kitchen is an initiative of the City of Quesnel, made possible by generous funding from the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Northern Development Initiative Trust.

Quinoa Chocolate Cake From the Long Table Grocery Kitchen INGREDIENTS 130 g 120 g 50 ml 1/3 cup 5 ml 2 130 g 110 g 1 tsp 1 tsp

white quinoa, soaked overnight butter coconut oil almond milk vanilla eggs coconut sugar cocoa powder baking soda salt

METHOD 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease and flour a 9 x 13 glass pan. 2. Cook soaked quinoa with 2 cups of water until a bit mushy. Cool slightly, keeping warm enough to melt butter. 3. Combine butter, coconut oil, quinoa and almond milk in a blender and blend. Add eggs and vanilla, blend until smooth. 4. In a large bowl, sift coconut sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix thoroughly. 5. Pour into pan and bake for 45 minutes. 6. Dust with icing sugar, top with cocoa whipped cream, or frost as desired.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 21

—

SCIENCE MATTERS —

Leading Thinkers Call for Fossil Fuel Halt Article by David Suzuki

n 1970, to make the world safer from humanity’s worst self-destructive impulses, most nations joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. (Only India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Sudan are not signatories.) Now the world faces a threat as great as or greater than nuclear weapons: global warming. That’s led to calls for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Recently, 101 Nobel laureates—in peace, literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, and economic sciences, including the Dalai Lama—signed a letter to world leaders endorsing the proposal. “Climate change is threatening hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods across every continent and is putting thousands of species at risk,” they write. The letter points out that burning coal, oil, and gas is responsible for 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution and that “pollution, environmental, and health costs associated with extracting, refining, transporting, and burning fossil fuels… are often paid by Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities.” It also notes that the Paris Agreement doesn’t mention oil, gas, or coal and that the industry—funded by major banks—continues to expand. By 2030, 120 percent more of these fuels will be produced than is consistent with meeting the agreement’s aspirational goal of keeping global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels. As the laureates write, “The solution is clear: fossil fuels must be kept in the ground.” The letter calls for ending coal, oil, and gas development expansion; phasing out existing

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production in a “fair and equitable” manner; and investing in a transitional plan to “ensure 100 percent access to renewable energy globally, support dependent economies to diversify away from fossil fuels, and enable people and communities across the globe to flourish through a global just transition.” This isn’t the first time leading thinkers have joined to urge humanity to resolve environmental problems. In 1992 and again in 2017, top scientists issued “warnings to humanity.” The first, signed by 1,700 scientists, including most science Nobel laureates, warned, “Our massive tampering with the world’s interdependent web of life— coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change—could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.” It called for action in areas including, “ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine life depletion, ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity destruction, climate change, and continued human population growth.” Twenty-five years later, more than 15,000 scientists issued a second warning, noting, “with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse.” That warning pointed to the increasing threat of climate disruption from fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and agricultural production and to the growing mass extinction crisis. When will we heed these voices of reason?

When will we stop listening to those who have been telling us for decades that “we can’t stop using fossil fuels overnight” as they ramp up production and make no attempts to stop at all? Why do politicians continue to talk about their climate commitments while buying and supporting fossil fuel pipelines and other infrastructure, and expanding production of fracked gas and oilsands bitumen? We talk about the urgency of the climate and biodiversity crises, but we act as if we have all the time in the world to address them. The COVID-19 pandemic threw the world into a crisis with immediate impacts on everyone, but it also taught us important lessons and gives us an opportunity to change. It’s shown that we can resolve crises and develop solutions rapidly if we come together and spare no expense. It’s shown that prioritizing the human-created economy over human and planetary health has dire consequences and only prolongs the crisis. The world has paused to deal with a critical health emergency—also rooted in environmental degradation. It’s a chance to reset and to start governing our lives in ways that won’t lead to possibly deadlier pandemics, to a planet heated beyond its ability to support healthy life, or to continued mass extinction. We must devote everything to resolving these interrelated crises. We’ve been warned. -GG DAVID SUZUKI is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation senior editor, Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Blue Mindfulness Healing for Mexican Sea Turtles Article by Stephanie J. Rousso

new scientific discipline engages the intersection of our brain with our only one Mother Ocean. Neuro-conservation is an emerging field, proposed and led by Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, the author of Bluemind. Nichols scientifically explains how water heals us and empowers our creativity, happiness, and compassion for life. Dr. Nichols also founded Grupo Tortuguero de Las Californias (GTC), a non-profit sea turtle network in Northwest Mexico. Nichols’ work inspired my current PhD research that feeds into my new business venture: Blue Turtle Sustainable. My research aims to continue the legacy Nichols started by working with remote artisanal fishing communities to protect sea turtles. Native and indigenous fishers from the Mexican state of Sinaloa help me collect data on sea turtle bycatch. ‘Bycatch’ is the term used when species other than the target are accidentally captured in fishing gear. Due to the growing issue of unregulated bycatch, five species of sea turtles in the eastern Pacific are considered endangered in Mexico and either vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered internationally. The main reason being entanglement in fishing gear, hooks, ropes, and nets. Estimates suggest that over 60 percent of seafood imports into the US and Canada originate from Pacific Mexico. If you watched SeaSpiracy, you know the doomed outlook on our ocean. Yet, it is not the entire story. Many small coastal communities, like the ones I am privileged to collaborate with, are taking initiatives to heal our only one Mother Ocean. Before bycatch became an issue, many of the fishermen I work with were former sea turtle poachers. Yet, the GTC program opportunities have changed them from poacher to protector. My PhD research and business take a novel and innovative approach: to empower coastal communities in ocean conservation with alternative economic opportunities through responsible travel and seafood. We can still eat delicious seafood, (including vegan option seaweeds) packed with omega 3, while supporting coastal communities who are making a positive difference. My PhD research aims to study the bycatch data collected by fishers, create maps of “hotspots” (high density interactions between sea turtles and fishing gear), and identify refuges for sea turtles. In these turtle refuges, fishers will self-monitor and employ best fishing practices by using circle hooks, traditional fishing nets, and reduced soak times, all of which reduce bycatch. To offset an economic loss, we are creating a specialty seafood market with premium prices and educational materials to consumers. We are even working with fishers and chefs to sustainably harvest edible seaweeds and create delicious omega 3 packed vegan/vegetarian products. Taking the neuro-conservation approach, we want people to feel good about their seafood choices knowing that their purchase is supporting ocean stewardship, seafood transparency, and proving new opportunities for ocean sustainability for the next generation. We are rolling out our Pachamama Seafood Market in La Paz, Mexico, a fabulous nature travel destination. With every purchase, we include information about our research and the ocean stewardship of the Indigenous and artisanal fishing communities. We are also promoting travel experiences for conservation tourists and academic groups. The groups participate with fishers as citizen scientists to measure, weigh, photograph, tag, and release the sea turtles. Each sea turtle receives a name, and we send the information as an adoption certificate to each traveller/student. My passion is ocean mindfulness, which plays with Dr. Nichols’ neuro-conservation principles. Before releasing each sea turtle back into the ocean, I lead a guided meditation for compassionate healing for ourselves, the turtles, the fishers, and the ocean. We are reminded

of our oneness, connected through one drop of seawater, and to move forward with awareness for this connection through breath. Afterall, sea turtles are reptiles with lungs living in a marine habitat. Each breath is intentional, so can each of our inhales and exhales be intentional for collective healing with our only one Mother Ocean. -GG Stephanie J. Rousso, MS, is a marine ecologist, yoga addict, neuroscience junkie, and oceanpreneur. You can follow her progress and support her work by signing up for her newsletter at www.BlueTurtleSustainable. org. She is currently seeking board members and conservation travel and academic groups. If you would like to donate field equipment and supplies to support her research, please contact her team at info@BlueTurtleSustainable.org for a current wish list of gently used or new items. Namaste.

The release of a sea turtle by Adalberto Garcia, a fisher captain from La Reforma. Adalberto works with Stephanie J. Rousso and Blue Turtle Sustainable to help capture bycatch data on sea turtle populations in the region. Photo: Keegan Sentner

Stephanie J. Rousso and a sea turtle in Sinaloa, Mexico. This turtle was captured, tagged, and released to collect data through the Grupo Tortuguero monitoring program. Sea turtles are mindfulness teachers in understanding their adaptability, resilience, and solitude. Photo: Keegan Sentner

TheGreenGazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 23

Beyond Acknowledgement

RITUAL AND ART ON AND ABOUT THE LAND TO CHALLENGE SETTLER COLONIALISM Article by Venta Rutkauskas

ingle file, ten women snake the trail above the ‘Fraser’ River. They move along the dirt track up ‘Desous’ Mountain in Esk’etemculucw in the unceded territory of the Northern Secwepemc First Nations. They are mothers, friends, they are white women of European descent, they are climbing, and they are learning. I am one of them, raised in Canadian privilege, a white body with blue eyes, granddaughter of displaced persons from World War II. I put one foot in front of the other, moving towards something intangible on the mountain. I am thinking about decolonization. I was taught by Curandera Grace Alvarez Sesma to make an offering of tobacco to the guardians of the land when a walk begins—at times, I forget to do so right away, and remember only when I am halfway along the trail. Other times, like this day on ‘Desous’, among community, I can feel foolish or shy, doubting that I should be the one to initiate the practice. The doubts are shallow. Truly, it is such a small gesture made to the land that holds and feeds us, the land that excites and inspires us. The offering doesn’t feel like enough, but I will continue because it is an embodied practice catalyzing a paradigm shift. As we ascend, eyes scan the river valley: The beauty of the spring landscape is a song of nourishment. Green has bubbled up through the winter’s crust, and it stills our breath. We coo over wildflowers, naming them like our kin, sharing stories and scientific facts about the species. The ten women climb the mountain to offer gratitude, to gather and heal on the earth’s body, to remember that knowledge leaps out from canyons and rivulets, mosses, and old trees. Social justice movements have taken decolonization beyond the concept of removing an imperial ruler from an occupied land. Today, current ideology recognizes the existing and ongoing psychological, economic, and cultural inequities in settler-colonized nations like Canada. It centres and defends Indigenous voices and rights because they are the Peoples most affected by the colonizing regime and its extracting appetite. Scanning the colonial system uncovers swathes of the population relegated to marginalization. Who has not been touched by a colonized mindset and encouraged to consume, conform, and disengage from land-base, culture, and ancestry? The reach of our current systems of economies and governance can be as unfathomable as the canyon we come upon as we hit the mid-point of the ascent up the mountain—sheer cliffs of brilliant stone drop deeply to the canyon floor, carved out so long ago and seemingly permanent. But rock and water hold teachings of change. Though we are living with systems that serve a powerful tier of society, the wisdom of the land, held by Indigenous Peoples as law, indicates that sustainability and reciprocity are the only path for survival. It is easy to dismiss the group of women gathering stones, ribbons, and flowers for ritual on the mountain. Hippies, or witches, what impact can their actions have? I have a cultural memory: my Lithuanian ancestors were some of the last pagan Europeans to be Christianized in the 14th century. The state ordained a system that divorced land and spirituality and shunned land-based practices that informed intelligence and interconnectedness with place. The whole of Europe crept towards materialism, and now we are witness to another cycle, tearing the land away from Indigenous ‘Canadians’. Our practice on the mountain is a remembering that we know alternative ways of being. Art and ritual carry the multi-dimensional awareness that material is more than matter—it is energy, webs of relatedness and relationships. In my work with the Community Arts Council of Williams Lake, we practice decolonizing by collaborating on upcoming projects like ‘We Acknowledge’, where local settler artists will engage with Secwepemc mentors to create work around the question: What is my role and responsibility as a visitor to Secwpemculucw?

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Rocks wrapped for ritual. Photo: Allison McAssey

Mentors, like Floyd Dick of Esk’etemc, extend a hand to the artists and individuals willing to learn and explore the protocols of this territory. Our aim is for the artists to analyze the stories the predominant culture narrates, attending to the knowledge that these stories have served a purpose, and often, the truth was not readily revealed. It can be uncovered. Take in work created by BIPOC voices, learn. Enroll in University of Alberta’s free ‘Indigenous Canada’ course, or a Deyen’s ‘Canadian History Through the Lens of Indigenous Women’. Read from a growing body of Indigenous authors, like Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (As We Have Always Done). Open to story that has been flowing beside the information superhighway all along. Ten women descend ‘Desous’ mountain, alert to the networks of reciprocity. I know many of you are mountains ahead of me. Many are walking the path, divesting step by step. -GG Venta Rutkauskas is an arts organizer, integrative energy healing practitioner, and writer living on unceded Secwepemc territory near T’exelc. To learn more about We Acknowledge and other arts-based reconciliation projects, contact her at williamslakearts@gmail.com.

Climate Change and the Next Generation THE MOTHER'S PLEA Article by Jessica Kirby

Community-funding music video project in Williams Lake asks individuals to take action against climate change.

other Earth stands on a frozen lake holding an hourglass. Her expression is stern, but her eyes are kind. “Hey, hey you … what the hell are you doing? … Times running out … this house is burning …” The lyrics from “The Mother’s Plea” beg us to pay attention and take action for the planet in this community-funded music video project created in Williams Lake. The video features singer-songwriter Shannon Zirnhelt, several children from the Williams Lake area, and Shannon’s neighbour Susan Lovejoy as Mother Earth. Its creation was a collective effort between Shannon, the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS), and a youth-led club from Williams Lake called Third Planet Crusade. Third Planet Crusade is co-run by Ella Kruss (13) and Julia Zirnhelt (13), both of whom appear in the video. Shannon wrote “A Mother’s Plea” in the fall of 2019 after the federal election when she felt the urge to speak up because of the way climate action is so often part of campaigning platforms but tends to fall silent once the votes are cast. “I came up with the melody and the song came from the perspective of Mother Earth needing our help and being a mother myself,” Shannon said. “I feel that songs come through me, rather than thinking of them as my own. This song was gifted to me so I could share it with others.” Creating a music video to accompany the song was always part of Shannon’s vision, and when she was able to access community grants from the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society, the Community Arts Council of Williams Lake, and in-kind donations from community sponsors, suddenly her vision became a reality. “Julia Zirnhelt is my niece, and I have joined her climate strikes, so I thought it might be a good fit to do the video with them,” Shannon said. “I think it really worked to include the generations." As a community outreach project, the video serves as an invitation to encourage additional community-based support for the important work of climate change mitigation and adaptation. As a youth-involved project, the endeavor was to strengthen youth’s understanding of the connection between arts and culture and communicating ones' passions and beliefs. “It was important to include children in the video because they are taking on the problems created by the generations that came before them,” Shannon said. “I really believe the change will come from them. They will provide leadership, and we can follow them.” Ella says youth are an essential part of climate justice because they are the future and the next generation to inhabit the earth. “If we don’t act now, we won’t have a future,” Julia adds. “We can bring a different perspective to the world, a perspective of climate action and justice,” Ella says. “Our future is being destroyed by climate change, and it is important we talk about that and let people now just how drastic climate change is.” Ella and Julia recently held a panel discussion with local teachers to discuss ways to better present climate change education to youth. On the panel, Ella and Julia discussed their experiences as youth in the climate movement and explained to teachers how they struggled learning climate change. “Our hope was that our experience will help them expand their outlook on education and climate change,” Ella

Julia Zirnhelt and Ella Kruss of Third Planet Crusade. Photo submitted by Shannon Zirnhel

said. “We also talked about how they can support youth in the climate movement and what the bigger picture of climate justice looks like.” “The teachers were really into it and I felt heard,” Julia said. “The main point that I was trying to get across was that teachers need to be brave and take a stance so they can talk to their principals or whoever is above them about getting better resources for teaching about climate change.” Third Planet Crusade has important plans brewing for the rest of 2021, beginning with more climate strikes, the first of which is planned for June. The group is also planning a climate sit-in June 18 in front of the school board office to demand better climate education in the school district. Looking to the future, Ella and Julia have important messages for their community: “It doesn’t have to be a battle between the climate activists and the resource industry workers,” Julia stresses. “If we start moving away from those kinds of jobs, there will be other jobs to replace them, like work at solar or wind farms.” “Let your voice be heard,” Ella said. “Come out to actions and talk to people about climate change. It is something we need to be discussing every day, something that is pressing. I still have hope that this issue can be fixed but not without people all on the same page.” Locally, the resources for change are readily available. Shannon recommends contacting an organization like the CCCS or the Potato House to find out how to connect and engage. “Either of those places could probably give you a list of 20 things you can do today,” Shannon said. “People see this as insurmountable so they choose to do nothing, but there are so many little things we can do—buy food with less packaging, eat local, take up gardening, ride a bike once a week, educate your kids.” Shannon intends to apply for another grant next year and is considering another video project, again working with Third Planet Crusade and CCCS, but this time expanding the project to include environmental education at Big Lake School and song writing projects with children. “Keep it simple, and lead by example,” Shannon said. “That is the best way to evoke change.” Check out the video at: youtube.com/watch?v=P5XtkMIthm0 Learn more about Third Planet Crusade at facebook.com/thirdplanet. crusade Discover Shannon Zirnhelt’s music at: shannonodonovan.bandcamp. com/ The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 25

Cariboo Gatherings Article by Maggie Ranger

iving in the Cariboo we are surrounded by an abundance of flora and fauna. Spring and summer are the busiest time for an herbalist, gathering, foraging, and harvesting medicinal plants. There are many medicinal plants growing in our backyards in the Cariboo, and the trick is to take note of the different microclimates in our region. You may miss an opportunity to harvest in one area but can simply travel to a higher altitude to find the same plant at an earlier growing stage. For example, wild roses bloom on the west side of the Fraser River first, then in the Williams Lake river valley, next in 150 Mile House to Horsefly area, and lastly in Likely. In our travels to harvest plants, we are mindful of the regions and the people of those lands—Tsilhqot’in in the west, Secwepemc east of the Fraser River, and Carrier in the north. It is important to respect our First Nations neighbours, and it is good practice to ask permission from the people with a gift of tobacco, sweet grass, or preserves, where possible. One can also gift the items to the land where you are harvesting. If you are gathering plants, remember to only take some of the herb, shrub, berries, or mushrooms. It is important to only harvest less than one-third of a particular plant in that patch. Summer is the best time to harvest leaves and flowers, as the plants energy is stored here. The energy and potency of a plant begins in the roots in spring, moves into the leaves and flowers in late spring and summer, and returns to the roots in the fall. It is good practice to treat plants in a sacred manner and thank each plant, telling them your intention before harvesting, and offering tobacco or sage before beginning to harvest. Always take with gratitude and humbleness and with great care not to damage the rest of the plant. Harvest away from roadsides or near places where pollutants, such as herbicides, are spread. WILD ROSE “The world smells of roses, the sunshine is like powered gold over grassy hill sides.” This quote by Maud Hart Lovelace embraces the essence of early summer when wild roses are flowering. Wild roses (Rosa acicularis, Rosa nutkana) are my favourite plant to harvest. I love picking wild rose petals and being immersed in their heavenly fragrance. Rose petals are a sedative, antiseptic, nervine, great for digestive and to build up your immune system, full of antioxidants, stress reducer, heart medicine, and they truly soothe the soul. Roses can be made into rose oil, petals can be dried for tea, and rosehips can be eaten or dried for their high vitamin C content. STINGING NETTLE Stinging nettles, Urtica dioica, while readily available during early and late spring at lower elevations, can be found at higher elevations during the summer months. Early nettle leaves are rich in minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. They are a great spring tonic and strengthen the kidneys, lungs, intestines, arteries, and adrenals. They are delicious steamed and eaten, dried for tea, or made into an infusion. “The whole plant is powerfully medicinal from the roots to the seed,” says herbalist, Juliette Levy. SELF-HEAL The Self Heal plant, Prunella vulgaris, with its stunning, bee-shaped purple flowers, is a delight when it pops up through the grass during the summer. It has large, flat leaves and can be found in lawns, forests, and meadows. The purple flower can be harvested and infused into oil and used for skin conditions, burns, scrapes, and infections. It can also be dried and used as a tea or made into a tincture and has been used for inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s, colitis, diarrhea, colic, and sores in the mouth and throat. ARNICA Arnica montana is found throughout Cariboo forests in the summer months, and has soft, hairy leaves and a radiant yellow flower. It is a beautiful sunshine yellow flower in the forest with a bright, pungent

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Photos submitted by Maggie Ranger.

smell when harvested. Arnica flowers can be cut up and infused into oil and made into a balm or oil used for massage, bruises, sprains, muscle damage, aches, and pains or as an anti-inflammatory. Note: Do not use on open wounds or consume orally unless as a homeopathic remedy. If I dance all night, and my knees feel like buckling, I rub on some Arnica and I’m good by morning! I have only touched on a few medicinal herbal plants growing around us. There are so many more. It is a blessing to hold and share knowledge of plants and to harvest plants in the Cariboo. Get your baskets out, make some tea, and discover the world of plants around you. -GG Maggie Ranger is a chartered herbalist from Horsefly, BC, and produces teas, salves, tinctures, and many other products gathered in the Cariboo Region and from her garden. To see more visit Earthdancebotanicals.com

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 27

Solid Waste Management Planning PART OF THE CARIBOO REGIONAL DISTRICT’S SOLID WASTE INFO SERIES: BECOMING WASTE WISE Article by Tera Grady

ll garbage and recycling programs and services for the Cariboo Regional District and its member municipalities, Williams Lake, Quesnel, District of 100 Mile House, and District of Wells, are developed, approved, and implemented through the region’s Solid Waste Management Plan (Plan). Each Plan spans ten years. The current Plan will be updated over the next two years. The BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy providing principles that regional districts are encouraged to include in Plans, some of which are: • minimize waste generation; • prevent organics and recyclables from disposal in landfills; • support user pay systems to provide incentives for waste reduction, and • promote pollution prevention hierarchy: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Public consultation for the region’s Plan update will be ongoing for the next two years. It starts on June 8, 2021, with the first of six

virtual public meetings. The one-hour public meetings will be hosted online (also accessible by phone) and will provide Cariboo residents with context and background on the Provincial guiding principles and include examples of strategies for working towards each principle, as well as challenges specific to the Cariboo. The public meetings will also provide a forum for residents to raise solid waste concerns and to offer suggestions for improvements, or changes to the current solid waste services. Throughout the month of June, Cariboo residents will be asked to complete a waste and recycling survey as part of the consultation process for the Solid Waste Management Plan update. Ideally, the survey will be completed after attending a public meeting, but it can be completed independent of the meetings. The survey results will provide the region with guidance for waste management options to consider and investigate for feasibility. When the initial phase of consultation is completed and future options have been investigated, Cariboo residents will be asked to participate in a second survey to evaluate

the feasibility and cost of new solid waste diversion programs and provide feedback on their preferred options. All Cariboo residents and businesses generate waste, and each one makes a choice about how much they generate and how they dispose of it. The region and member municipalities may be able to provide options for waste diversion (composting, recycling, beneficial re-use) but only resident and business support and participation will make them successful. The region’s task is to determine what waste diversion programs are feasible for the Cariboo, what strategies, methods, and systems best fit those approaches and will encourage participation in the resulting systems. Please visit carboord. ca to view the solid waste public meeting schedule for June and to access the online survey (available in June). Don’t miss this opportunity to have your say! Learn more by following us on Facebook at facebook.com/caribooregion or by visiting us online at carboord.ca. -GG

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN REVIEW 2021 Residents of the Cariboo Regional District, Wells, 100 Mile House, Quesnel, Williams Lake

Have Your Say!

WE WANT YOUR INPUT!

Visit cariboord.ca/TalkLessTrash to learn more

Join us at virtual events in June to learn about waste reduction and diversion programs. Fill out our survey and you could win one of ten- $100 local business (of your choice)

gift certificates. Raffle draws will be held for North, Central and South residents.

Take

the

Survey!

Register ahead for an online presentation @ cariboord.ca/TalkLessTrash  Tuesday June 8 at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. or 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.  Wednesday June 16 at 12:00 – 1 p.m. or 7:00 – 8 p.m.  Thursday June 24 at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. or 5:00 – 6 p.m. Learn about existing and new programs plus weigh in on:  promote pollution prevention hierarchy - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle  keep organics and recyclables from disposal in landfills  support user pay systems to provide incentives for waste reduction

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Staying Connected

ISOLATION IMPACTS ON THE ELDERLY Article by Jessica Kirby

Jessica Kirby and her family celebrating her Nan's 90th birthday through the window at her care facility. Photo: Jessica Kirby

solation is a funny thing. As children, we fear it, sure there are monsters lurking where grown-ups are not, deeply feeling being relegated to our rooms when we’ve misbehaved, left feeling like our parents’ room is an ocean away at night, in the dark, as our dreams unfold. In adolescence and adulthood, we go a few different ways. Some of us stay in the mindset that isolation is difficult, and we fill our lives with varying degrees of intentional connection with others. We might love being alone and seek it most of the time; we might like alone time, and seek moments of isolation, for instance in the woods; or, we might fear it, always needing the steady presence of another to feel safe and stimulated. Later in life, the pattern shifts. Our elders begin to see isolation in a new way—as separation from their families and control over their lives. Being alone but physically or mentally incapable of travelling to see family, take themselves out for lunch, or even get their own groceries, takes a toll on a person. But it is our connection with others—even for those who prefer a life in relative solitude— that enables us to survive and thrive. Aging leaves the elderly vulnerable to social isolation, which has health consequences, such as cognitive decline, depression, anxiety, and heart disease. Toss in a pandemic, and the situation worsens. Normally heightened fear of declining health worsens under the threat of an invisible virus that is plaguing the evening news and, in many cases, keeping loved ones away. In facilities when there is an outbreak, the isolation requirements are much more

stringent than the 10-14 days afforded the rest of the population, and being alone at home can leave the elderly feeling closed in, forgotten, and vulnerable. Caring for an elderly loved one during the pandemic means taking some important steps, the most important of which is to keep yourself well. Wash your hands, wear your mask, sneeze into your elbow, sanitize the shared surfaces in your home, and above all else, keep your bubble small. We are all suffering, we all miss our friends, but if we don’t keep to the rules, we are going to be in this state for a very, very long time. Practise social distancing, but not social isolation. Of course, visitation should be limited with the elderly at this time, but it doesn’t hurt to call, stop by and visit on the porch or by phone through the window, or if your loved one is tech-savvy, Zoom is a fabulous option. Keep elders involved and give them purpose. Create projects, like knitting scarves for the family in anticipation of winter, sorting family memorabilia and photos, writing out family recipes, or calling them up for opinions and advice give elders purpose and a sense of belonging. While we have so much going on in these pandemic times, we must stay connected with our elderly, but if we can’t, we can help them engage in activities that help them manage the effects of isolation. Science proves that elderly people who remain stimulated and engaged in purpose-driven activity are fall less likely to suffer the health effects associated with isolation, and there are ways to help them do this, even from afar.

Pursue hobbies and interests. Provide materials for crocheting, knitting, sewing, and other handicrafts, which, besides helping with depression and loneliness, help preserve dexterity, alleviate the symptoms of arthritis, and keep the mind sharp.

Stay active. Though ability will vary, elderly people who stay strong and flexible have improved cognitive ability, selfconfidence, and emotional stability. Set your loved one up with books or videos on Tai chi or chair yoga and encourage them to take walks or wheelchair into the sunshine every day to help to keep the blood flowing, the confidence building, and the heart in good condition.

Prepare nutritious meals. Whether cooking for oneself or having a meal service prepare food, elderly people have specific dietary needs that, when met, can help battle fluctuations in brain function, combat depression, and improve mood. Drop off food, arrange for a meal service, or challenge your loved one to a Zoom cook-off or family dinner.

Connect, connect, connect. Although this can be difficult, especially given the current state of things, regular connections with loved ones, like phone calls, Zoom meetings, dropping off care packages to facilities or homes if contact isn’t possible, sharing music, art, or creative time all promote a sense of well-being and hopefulness. There is no better thing you can do than help your loved one know you are there, you are thinking of them, you will get through this together, and you will be there when this is all over. -GG

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 29

Natural Burial

SPEAKING UP FOR GREEN OPTIONS Article by Nicola Finch

Shrouded body prepared for green burial. Photo: Larkspur Conservation at Taylor Hollow, Tennessee USA. www. larkspurconservation.org

eath has been a hot topic in these pandemic times. Perhaps you’ve considered your own death or worried about people you love dying. More people have been actively engaging in conversations about death and dying. More people have been getting their end-of-life planning in order. These conversations naturally include decisions about disposition—what you want done with your body when you die. Burial and cremation are the two options we currently have in BC. Our population

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is aging and, naturally, dying. We are also dealing with increased deaths from the opioid crisis and the pandemic. Seventy-five percent of British Columbians are choosing cremation and BC needs more crematoriums. In many communities, funeral providers are having to transport our deceased loved ones to the nearest crematorium, which can be hundreds of kilometers away. Some are even transported over the border to a crematorium in the United States. In Smithers, the nearest crematorium is a 250 km drive to Terrace. Conventional (fire) cremation is the only option

we have. So far. There is growing support from within the funeral industry and from the public to allow for a gentler, more environmentally friendly cremation process known as alkaline hydrolysis or aquamation/resomation. Natural organic reduction or human composting is another option that is gaining support, but these changes will not happen quickly or easily without pressure from the public. There are two stand alone green burial cemeteries in BC; however, only one of these (on Salt Spring Island) is open to the public. Denman Island’s Natural Burial Cemetery is

limited to past or current residents of the island. There are nine hybrid green burial sites within conventional cemeteries in BC. Most of our cemeteries are managed by our municipalities. There is no green burial option in the municipal cemeteries of Williams Lake or Quesnel. Green burial (also known as natural burial) is nothing new. It’s as old as human civilization. At its most basic, green burial means no embalming, no grave liner or vault, and direct earth burial in a biodegradable container or shroud. But it is so much more than that. Those who prefer a green burial often prefer the idea of a home or family led funeral. This is a more hands-on approach to death where family and friends are reclaiming the whole process of dying and tending to our own beloved dead. Green burial grounds are also importantly about protecting sensitive ecosystems and preserving the land in perpetuity. When I talk about this aspect of natural burial, I feel the weight of Indigenous grief. This land we call BC is covered with sacred burial grounds that have not been protected, honoured, or preserved. We have built our houses, our shopping malls, and our industrial plants on the bones of native people, and we continue to disregard and disrespect these sacred places. Our government protects our settler graveyards, but ancient Indigenous burial sites do not fall under this same protection. We have much work to do. Establishing a new green burial cemetery

in British Columbia is no different than establishing a conventional cemetery. All cemeteries answer to the regulatory body of Consumer Protection BC. Creating a new natural burial cemetery is expensive, complicated, time consuming, but doable. One day, I hope to see a stand alone green burial cemetery available to every community in BC and a range of earth friendly disposition options available to all British Columbians. These changes will not happen, though, without pressure from the public. Until more natural burial grounds are established, we can, at the very least, lobby our local municipalities to include hybrid green burial sites in our municipal cemeteries. It doesn’t require a huge piece of the cemetery. Some hybrid green burial sites have been created on less than an acre of land. We have to ask or it won’t happen. Call your municipal office, your city hall, your town council, or your regional district office, and ask to speak to the person in charge of cemeteries. Ask if you can have a green burial in your local cemetery. If the answer is no, ask if green burial is being discussed and if they have an idea of when you might expect to have a green burial option available locally. That’s it. It’s that easy. We just need to ask and keep asking. Natural Burial in BC is co-hosting two events in June with The Death Doula Network of BC. The first part is for folks who are working on or wanting to establish green burial sites

in Canada. Part 2 is for anyone interested in learning more about green burial. Join us. To learn more visit greenburialbc.ca and ddnbc.ca -GG Nicola Finch is a death doula with a particular interest in natural burial and death literacy through education. She is the founder and president of Cariboo Community Natural Burial Association and co-founder of Cariboo Community Deathcaring Network. She and her husband, David Finch, are small business owners of Touch Wood Rings and Touch Wood Memorial Rings.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 31

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GREEN BUSINESS WILLIAMS LAKE —

FullFILL Williams Lake

TAKING RECYCLING TO AN ALL NEW LEVEL Article by LeRae Haynes

Daniella Gastaldel helps take recycling to an all-new level with her business, FullFILL in Williams Lake. Photo: Jesse Madden Photography

aniella Gastaldello is a young, informed ‘hippie’ transplant from Vancouver Island who has embraced her new home in the Cariboo, bringing to life her vision, passion, and commitment to the environment, and to leaving the planet a cleaner, better place for her children. Her new business, FullFILL Williams Lake, has been open since November 2020. She offers a wide range of refill products from skin care to floor cleaners, helping to reduce plastics in landfills and taking it to the next level: reducing plastics in recycling.

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You can bring in your own containers and get refills on many household cleaners, shampoos, conditioners, hairspray, laundry products, bath and beauty products, and more. There is a retail aspect, too, with things like laundry strips, baby items, dog treats, beeswax food covers, reusable zip top storage bags, and refurbished second-hand clothing. Customers can get containers, lids, and dispensers for their refill needs, or they can bring their own from home. Gastaldello says that there have been refill stores on Vancouver Island for years, and that when she moved to Williams Lake, she thought

the community would welcome one here. “People here were talking about a refill store and expressing an interest for quite a while and the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” she explained. Daniella and her husband have three young children. “My logger husband, who has become a reformed waster in progress, was my biggest push to do this. He really encouraged me to do it. ‘This is you,’” he told me. She helps take recycling to an all-new level: reducing plastics in the first place. “Given that stats show that the actual number of plastics

that gets recycled isn’t that much, and that plastic production has never been higher, it’s important—crucial, even—to reduce the amount that goes into recycling,” she said. Before opening FullfILL Williams Lake, Gastaldello ran a licensed day care in her own home. “It was always my personal challenge to lower how much refuse went in my bin,” she explained. “Most everyone else on the street had an overflowing bin every week. I was home every single day with my own kids and my day care kids in diapers, and mine would only be a quarter full every week. I thought I could do better.” She added that the garbage was under control, but not being convinced that standard recycling is the answer, she decided it was time to reduce the amount of recycling items. “I had at least one overflowing bin of recycling every week, and thought, well, how about I cut out that crap?” She set her personal challenge to lower her recycling bin size every week. “We recently moved to 150 Mile House and in four months only had one garbage bag to haul in,” she said. “And our recycling was cut in half just by making little changes and by being more conscious about what I’m buying and what I’m using,” she said. “Refilling, using laundry strips instead of buying plastic laundry jugs, having kids use reusable containers and snack bags, and making your own things at home.” An avid gardener, she also builds her own compost, repurposes items for her own

household, enjoys canning and preserving her own bounty, and infuses her own vinegar. When it comes to running the store, she said that the process has involved reaching out to as many quality local vendors as possible, partially to reduce the carbon footprint of hauling products long distances. “I look for people with the same vision as me—people who work to reduce their waste before it gets here. I look for products that are free of parabens and toxins, and who have many fragrance-free options,” she added. “My products range from natural to certified organic and also appeal to those who simply want the refill aspect without the organic price tag." “I think education is key. I’m learning something new all the time, and my goal is that every time someone comes in here, they learn,” she explained. Gastaldello has made connections with the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society and is making plans for more education, starting with kids. “We’ve taught them water conservation, composting, and recycling. Now it’s time to teach how to reduce recycling. This needs to be the number one way of looking at things,” she said. “You can recycle all day long, but the key to making change is to reduce the need in the first place. Why recycle when you can reduce?” FullFILL Williams Lake is located in Delainey’s Mall at 271 Oliver St, offering free delivery

weekly to Quesnel (pick up at Bouchie Lake Country Store) and 100 Mile for North and South Cariboo residents. For more information, you can visit FullFILL on Facebook or Instagram, at fullfillwl.ca, or by phoning (250) 616-4494. -GG LeRae Haynes is a freelance writer, song writer, and instigator of lots of music with people of all ages in the community. She fearlessly owns 10 ukuleles, clinging to the belief that you’re not a hoarder if you play them all.

My products range from natural to certified organic and also appeal to those who simply want the refill aspect without the organic price tag.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 33

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GREEN BUSINESS WILLIAMS LAKE —

Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle

CREATING NEW OUT OF OLD & REDUCING WASTE Article & Photos by LeRae Haynes

eauty, history, craftsmanship, and an artist’s eye come together at Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle to create artistic furniture, furnishings and yard décor out of old items. The pieces that Sheri and Shane Marsh have refinished and refurbished from used and discarded things are charming, practical, full of character and history, and unique, and they are guaranteed to enhance your home and delight your soul. Located at the bottom of Fox Mountain Road a few minutes out of Williams Lake, the store is hard to miss with the historical building, large windows, and a beautiful bright yellow door. Response to the store and to the whole concept of creatively repurposing old things has been great, Sheri Marsh said. “People are much more aware of what they’re buying and what they’re disposing of and the impact that manufacturing and landfill disposal can have on the environment,” she said. “They still want nice things for their home and want it to feel comfortable and beautiful. They want a place where you rejuvenate, relax, and energize. It doesn’t matter what your style is, you can find something here that appeals to you and speaks to you.” In the shop you can find things like dressers, side tables, desks, shelves, mirrors, kitchen tables, shelves, signs, chairs and mirrors, garden and yard décor, planters, pots, and much more. Each piece has been reclaimed and reborn. Each piece has been sanded, painted, repaired, and improved. Decals and drawer handles, shelves, hinges, and trim have been added for an all-new look. Marsh said they bring in related handcrafted products that fit the store’s niche. “Because of covid we can’t travel to estate sales and auctions right now, so we go with things like fair trade fair pay baskets from Africa made by a family, for example,” she explained. “We also carry items like handmade soaps and home décor items from local vendors.” Sharing the store space is the Thrift Bucket, which carries secondhand vintage clothing that is washed, pressed, mended, and ready to go. Education is big at Urban Upcycle, including how to refurbish your own pieces for vintage and distressed looks. They sell things like chalk paint, transfers, and waxes, and they also pass on tips and ideas to make something old and dated look exciting and new again. Marsh envisions offering future classes on how to refinish and refurbish. “If you find a piece that you like at a garage sale or a share shed—it speaks to you but you’re not sure how to fix it up and make it yours—bring it in and we’ll refurbish it for you, or show you how,” she said. Things they don’t use they pass on to local thrift stores. “I come from a background in nursing where you put yourself out there constantly for others; you look for ways to nurture and fill your cup and renew your energy to get going again,” she said. “I always enjoying fixing up and painting furniture with my husband just for ourselves. It was my therapy. I’ve always loved garage sales and going to flea markets to see what treasures I could find.” She said they finally decided you only live once. They sold their house in Quesnel and bought the building at the bottom of Fox Mountain and got the shop going. Her creative mind and artistic touch and Shane’s wonderful woodworking and carpentry skills make them a perfect fit for Urban Upcycle. The couple have a large family of kids and grandkids, and children are always welcome at Urban Upcycle. “Every child who comes in goes home with a free book, and on

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Sheri and Shane Marsh of Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle.

Saturdays we have free popcorn for kids,” Marsh said. She has gone into schools to do talks on upcycling and do fun projects with students. “Kids are naturals at this,” she explained. “You can set anything in front of them and they can think of something cool to do with it. It’s astounding.” “I love seeing things like old plastic bags being knitted into floor mats, or a broken chair upcycled into a cool shelf,” she added. “We don’t have to toss things—we can remake them into something else.” She has started a memory box of treasures she finds in the old furniture, stuck behind drawers, or tucked away in the back of a desk. “I have found things like a dance card from a ball in Vancouver from 1914, anniversary cards, and a handwritten invoice from a set of encyclopedias where each volume sold for $1.97,” she said. “We always let the person who sold they item to us know about it.” At Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle they responded to a need when they opened the shop, and people were ready. “We used to be such a disposable culture, and I think we’re getting away from that as we get more educated as a society and understand that a disposable society is simply not sustainable,” she said. “We’re just getting started here and haven’t even hit our stride yet. We’re excited about the future. We don’t all have to be huge activists. We can do little things that make a big difference.” Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle is located at the bottom of Fox Mountain Road. For more information you can visit the store on Facebook or call (250) 318-7741. -GG LeRae Haynes is a freelance writer, song writer, and instigator of lots of music with people of all ages in the community. She fearlessly owns ten ukuleles, clinging to the belief that you’re not a hoarder if you play them all.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 35

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CONSERVATION CONVERSATION —

Many Hands Make Enjoyable Work Article by Amber Gregg

he past few months have been busy here at the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS) in Williams Lake. There is a faint light at the end of the pandemic tunnel; however, our team has become comfortable adapting to health and safety guidelines as we teach classes, plan projects, and attend small events. We have accomplished so much in the past few months, in fact, that activity around CCCS has started to feel almost normal. If I had to guess, I would say that part of that feeling is because of the partnerships we have formed with likeminded organizations and businesses, which make it seem like we are hardly lifting a finger yet accomplishing a lot. Many of you know Jenny Howell, CCCS executive director and Water Wise instructor. Each year, Jenny collaborates with fellow educators at Scout Island Nature Centre, Invasive Species Council, and the Air Quality Roundtable to provide presentations that prepare School District 27 grade 7 students for the Earth Challenge Quiz, held virtually. Teachers offer additional support for their students to give them the best chance of scoring well, and they can get pretty competitive. Winning classes choose from a list of field trips as their prize, including the highly coveted field trip to the Gavin Lake Forest Education Centre. Everyone that takes part in Earth Challenge is so enthusiastic, it almost doesn’t feel like work. Most years, the Cariboo Potters Guild organizes the popular Empty Bowls fundraiser. Locally made pottery bowls are purchased by donation and served with delicious soup, with proceeds donated to charities who serve to feed those in need. Instead of getting together as a group this year, CCCS partnered with the Guild to host a covid-safe version of the event. Those who wanted to purchase a bowl were invited to visit one of the two awesome host locations during the entire month of March. Those locations were the Bean Counter and Mint & Lime Catering. The wide variety of beautiful, hand-crafted bowls made by members of the Guild were distributed to each location and were quickly snapped up by residents. Over $3,000 was raised and donated to the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul food banks. What worked well with this event is that each business was able to focus on their strong suit. The Potters made their beautiful bowls, CCCS was able to promote the event with an emphasis on zero waste and food security, and our fabulous host locations focused on serving their customers! Celebrated each year on April 22, people all over the world acknowledge Earth Day by

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participating in activities, such as litter-pick events and getting outside. For Earth Day 2021, CCCS wanted to provide a different activity for Puddle residents to participate in each day throughout the week. To add to the fun, participants had an opportunity to win a corresponding draw prize, such as LED lights and locally made candles for Lights Out, Farmer’s Market bucks for Plant Something, and FullFILL gift certificates for participating in a litter pick-up. To enter, participants were asked to post a photo of themselves completing the activities. There were over 50 entries total, and we gave away a total of nine prizes. In addition to these activities, we teamed up with Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Trevor Bigg, FullFILL, the City of Williams Lake, and the Lion’s Club and hosted a socially distant litter-pick in the downtown core. Over 50 people took part and collected over 70 kg of trash in only one hour! These activities were so much fun we already have plans to do them again in 2022. In 2020, our volunteer board of directors completed development on our Hydrology Trail in the Williams Lake Community Forest. In May of this year, we had our first Water Wise field trip at the trail, which features stops along the way and provides information about forest ecosystems and riparian areas. The kids enjoyed the educational activities led by our

Water Wise instructor and were treated to lunch by the water. May and June were equally busy for our Waste Wise team, Oliver Berger and Mary Forbes, who performed waste audits with the City of Williams Lake and the Cariboo Regional District to reduce recycling contamination in Williams Lake and the 108 Mile Ranch areas. They also provided bikes and bike repairs at this year’s Bike Rodeo, hosted two Free Your Things weekends and a Chair Repair event with Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle, and took part in Bike to Work week with the Air Quality Round Table. Forming strong and positive partnerships stretches non-profit resources, such as funding and volunteers. In my experience, they also make the work easier and much more enjoyable, resulting in better overall participation and feelings of success. We do our best to keep our Facebook page and website up to date with our activities to make sure that you can join in the fun. -GG Amber is the coordinator for the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society. When she is not working on spreadsheets or supporting the CCCS team, she enjoys getting outdoors with her husband and two boys. Visit CCCS at www. ccconserv.org or the CCCS Facebook page to learn more about CCCS education programs and community projects.

Sandra Campbell's Grade 5 class enjoying lunch by the water at the Williams Lake Community Forest Hydrology Trail. Photo: Jenny Howell

WASTE:

it's our move Reducing waste is hard. But since when did anyone in the Cariboo not do something because it was hard?

Organics make up 35% of our waste. Contact us for FREE compost coaching!

- please toss responsibly T: 250.398.7929 E: WASTEWISE@CCCONSERV.ORG The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 37

Restoration Planet WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER

Restoration Planet accompanied Wildlife Montenegro as they did a count of hibernating bats in this cave. The final tally: 5,500. Photo: Robert Moberg

Article by Vanessa Moberg

Do you ever feel hopeless about the future of our planet? Unfortunately, the more we immerse ourselves in the world of conservation, the easier it is to become disillusioned.

obert and I, a filmmaker and conservationist, respectively, decided a few years ago that we wanted to dedicate our lives to telling stories of hope for the Earth. It started with our sailing project where we circumnavigated Vancouver Island (with no sailing experience!) in search of stories to lift us up. The film we produced called Sailing for Good can be found on YouTube.com/RestorationPlanet. We knew we wanted to continue our mission, so we created Restoration Planet, a multi-year, multi-continent journey to follow and participate in the massive global movement to restore Planet Earth. We’re telling the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things for the environment. The bottom line? We are not alone in this fight. As soon as Europe reopened its borders to Canadians in summer 2020, we pounced. And despite the odds stacked against us this year, we found ourselves inspired at every turn. Episode 1: To kick off our series, we asked Jean William, Kristy Palmantier, and Bev Sellers, three Secwepemc women we greatly admire and respect, to plant some trees with us. They agreed, and also conducted a smudge ceremony, sending us on our way with a beautiful blessing. Along with the prayers of the elders, our newly planted seedlings will start the process of nature recovery. Episode 2: Before leaving town, we caught up with our friends Mary and Oliver at the Potato House where we talked trash! This colourful, entertaining duo makes waste education so much fun, including their live Trash Talk Tuesday series on social media. They are passionate conservationists, know the importance of reducing food waste, and are totally obsessed with worms. Episode 3: In Edmonton, we were given rare, behind-the-scenes access at WILDNorth, an organization that treats almost 3,000 injured and orphaned animals each year, including their rescue, rehabilitation, and release whenever possible. It was a real treat for us to film a spunky juvenile Great horned owl having a physiotherapy session and to release an injured hawk back into the wild. The Restoration Planet team takes a “drone selfie” in southern France. Photo: Robert Moberg

Episode 4: In Newfoundland, we met Shawn Bath, a scuba diver who has created his own volunteer organization taking beach clean-ups to a whole new level—under the sea! Newfoundland is where I’m from, where Robert and I met, and where my family lives now and has for generations. It’s a special place to us, and we were delighted to help Shawn clean it up. Episode 5: Our Europe adventure began in the Pyrenees Orientale region of France where we found lush countryside, rich Catalan history, and, most importantly, kind and beautiful people. We were honoured to volunteer with the MIAM Collectif in Perpignan, an extraordinary little restaurant with an amazing grassroots solution for our food waste problem—turning it into fine French cuisine! Episode 6: The Andalusia region of Spain holds some very special residents: local wild goats known as Spanish ibex. We enlisted the help of Paco, a local Spanish teacher, to give us a tour of Nerja, and to tell us where to find the goats. Although they live in the hills and mountains, he told us that we’d find them on one of his favourite beaches, and he was right. Episode 7: In Albania, we found the most generous people, despite a terribly oppressive political history. We spent time with Zydjon and Ilir, an ornithologist and a wildlife researcher, respectively, of Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA) as they worked with local shepherds to reduce the poisoning of wolves. Poisoning has become the single biggest threat to the critically endangered Egyptian vulture. Episode 8: Our final month was spent in Montenegro where we worked with Belma, Stefan, and Marina, volunteers at Wildlife Montenegro, to find hibernating bats deep in a cave and track elusive mongoose to monitor. We were simply blown away by Montenegro’s natural beauty, culture, and history—a fitting Season 1 finale. Now that we’ve returned to the Cariboo, we have launched a second series called Restoration Planet: Homestead. To go off-grid was always our dream, but we’re finally making it a reality. Between seasons of our global series, we will share our homestead journey on YouTube, restoring the planet in our own little neck of the woods. Binge watch Season 1 now at YouTube.com/RestorationPlanet. -GG Robert and Vanessa Moberg are a husband and wife filmmaking team based in the Cariboo telling stories of everyday people around the world planting trees, protecting wildlife, reducing waste, conducting cleanups, and repairing damaged ecosystems. Through these actions, we are restoring our faith in each other and in our communities, across cultures, borders, and oceans.

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The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 39

Skywatch with Bill Irwin

y the time you read this, the summer season will be approaching. That means passing through the brightest time of year at Solstice, June 21. The sun is 61 degrees above the horizon at solar noon at our Williams Lake latitude. Not quite overhead, but solar panel people are happy. For astronomy, it doesn’t get completely dark. There are perhaps half as many stars visible looking south and fewer in the north at the darkest time, around 1 a.m. DST. It’s in these twilight times that the Starlink satellites will have the most impact on visual astronomy. The night sky will not fall deeply enough into the Earth’s shadow to not have at least some of them illuminated. I’m hoping that it won’t be the big distraction some of us fear. Well, at least I probably don’t have to worry about looking up at the moon and seeing cat food commercials during my lifetime. As the skies gradually darken in late July, we reach prime time for most people in early August, around the time of the Perseid meteors, August 11. Nights are warm. While I

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can’t promise the night sky will vaccinate you from covid, observing is an outdoor activity and using a video camera instead of an eyepiece allows multiple users to view at a distance. Video isn’t the same as seeing the ancient photons in person, but the improvement in light gathering due to exposure time allows things to be seen in my 5 inch refractor that would be difficult visually in a 20 inch, such as Pluto. It’s still gonna be a dot but recording its motion on successive nights is fairly easy. More gadgets and faster bandwidth are going to save us, right? Stellarium is a free sky map program that everybody who reads this column should have. It’s simple, clean, and user-friendly. If you are more serious, then Sky Safari is utterly amazing, able to replicate what you are seeing in the eyepiece of my 12 1/2 inch reflector down to about 15th magnitude. Just think, you are looking at a dim star at the limits of visibility in a large backyard telescope. Probably you are the only person on the planet looking at this particular object at this particular time. It is a complete melding of the utterly impersonal

with something that is close and very personal. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it resolves the delicately subtle difference between total horse crap and complete bull crap, but some things are definitely beyond the reach of mathematics. Maybe you think I’m just making this up! You will have to wait a bit to see the planets at a convenient time. Jupiter and Saturn are still pretty close, but in Capricorn they won’t make the evening stage until fall. Venus will be an increasing presence in the evening sky as fall arrives, but Mars will be hiding behind the Sun until some time next year when the drama of approach and opposition repeats. The Sun itself is getting busier as it emerges from sunspot minimum. Expect a return of northern lights activity in the next few years. If you believe all of the above, you are probably ready to contact me and see if any of it is true. Ophiuchus, the great doc in the sky, is ready to anoint you with the sky’s vaccines. For more info contact me at Bells Lake Observatory: irwin8sound@gmail.com. -GG

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OPINION —

Fruitful Protest Article by Sage Birchwater

In a corner of my office sits a pile of signed petitions dating back six years. Some of the signees are dead now, and some have moved away, but they represent a community voice 1,500-peoplestrong who said no to a proposal to burn toxic rail ties in Williams Lake to generate electricity. After a six-year struggle, we lost the battle but won the war. Let me explain.

n June 17, 2015, Boston-based Atlantic Power Corporation, owner of the 66 MW biomassfired Williams Lake Energy Plant, hosted a public meeting and floated the idea to burn up to half its annual 600,000 tons of biofuel as creosote and pentachlorophenol (PCP)-laden railway ties. If you do the math, that means importing, storing, processing, and burning up to 300,000 tons or 4.2 million toxic rail ties each year in a confined narrow valley subject to frequent temperature inversions. Then there would be the matter of properly storing or disposing of the ash from the burner, which would now be contaminated with furans and dioxins. A group of local citizens immediately took action and began researching the impacts of such a proposal. Temperature inversions trap the air for days or weeks at a time without flushing, and toxic material contained in smoke would accumulate over time. By the spring of 2016, the ad hoc group adopted the identity, Rail Ties Be Wise (RTBW), and began a public education campaign to share the information it was gathering. Several petitions were drafted and circulated around the community. Several local businesses made the petitions available for their customers to sign. Volunteers took the petition door to door and further afield to events like the Arts Wells Music Festival to garner public support. The group also hosted several public meetings and rallies. People from across the political spectrum and around the region signed the petition. Williams Lake is a pro-business town. Representatives from Rail Ties Be Wise went to City Hall and asked the mayor and council to write a letter opposing the burning of rail ties. Nothing could have been further from the City’s intentions. Mayor Walt Cobb told the group that the permit allowing the burning of rail ties was a provincial matter. He also stressed that the energy plant was a big taxpayer and vital to the city’s industrial infrastructure. “I’m going to have to listen to the scientists,” Cobb said. “If they can prove that burning rail ties is safe then we’ll just have to trust them.” Many of us weren’t convinced the province

had the capacity or will to protect us. Only a year earlier, the Mount Polley Mine tailings facility spilled 25 million tons of toxic mine waste into the pristine waters of Quesnel Lake. Partly to blame was the inability of government regulators to properly inspect the mine. We figured the same thing could happen in Williams Lake where equipment failures and toxic emission might go undetected. To us it was a disaster in the making.

Williams Lake came very close to become the Rail Tie Burning Capital of Western Canada. Hopefully, it never will be. In September 2016, the Ministry of Environment approved Atlantic Power Corporation’s application to burn rail ties. The community was given a month to appeal the permit and nine Williams Lake citizens stepped forward to file appeals. Meanwhile, RTBW approached West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) for legal support and expertise, and the Vancouver-based nonprofit organization agreed to help us. Local lawyer Patricia Weber volunteered to lead the legal challenge for RTBW and became our liaison with WCEL. The Environmental Appeal Board took three years to resolve the issue. In September 2019, it ruled in favour of Atlantic Power with a few small concessions, thanks to the arguments of WCEL lawyers Bill Andrews and Erin Gray. The permitted use of rail ties was reduced from 50

percent to 30 percent annually, and the daily limit was dropped from 100 percent to 50 percent. These were small improvements, but something. Originally, Atlantic Power was scheduled to start burning rail ties in September 2021. Then, in a surprise move in December 2020, the company announced it was no longer planning to burn them at this time. It’s not clear what led to this decision, but the three-year delay caused by the appeal likely had something to do with it. Rodger Hamilton, one of the original nine appellants and a member of RTBW, says he was elated to hear the news. “I’m impressed they would come out and say they weren’t going to go ahead with rail ties,” Hamilton says, adding that the RTBW campaign was a strong community effort. “Lots of people got involved. Everyone used their expertise to move us along as it was needed.” So, in this age of global protests, peaceful and otherwise, is it worth standing up and resisting threats to the environment that will degrade the places we live? You bet it is. Even when the odds are stacked against us and it seems impossible to stem the tide, stepping forward and speaking out might be all it takes to get the ball rolling in the other direction. Your voice might be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, the little nudge that initiates the tiniest fissure that cracks open the case and tips the scales the other way. Jenny Noble, another stalwart RTBW member, says there were many points along the way when the group’s efforts seemed pointless, and it felt like it was time to throw in the towel. “The fact that we persevered is a big lesson for me,” she says. “We’ll never know how much of an effect our efforts made, but I now feel it was all worthwhile. The way everyone brought different skills and energies to the project is a warm memory.” Williams Lake came very close to become the Rail Tie Burning Capital of Western Canada. Hopefully, it never will be. -GG

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 41

With Finn Bobrowski strapped into his Mac Ride, his father, Russ, pilots the way down Fox Fire with older brother Louis close behind. The new flow trail will be a level up from this trail and promises to be an exhilarating ride with bigger features, more berms, and plenty of jumps. Photo: Scott Horley

GET READY TO RIDE BECAUSE IT'S COMING SOON

DESTINATION FLOW TRAIL BEING ADDED TO THE FOX MOUNTAIN TRAIL NETWORK IN WILLIAMS LAKE

Article by Shawn Lewis, President, Williams Lake Cycling Club

resh off the success of Williams Lake’s first machine-built trail, Foxfire, the Williams Lake Cycling Club (WLCC) sought after and received funding for another project: a machine built intermediate flow trail on the east end of the Fox Mountain network. This funding came from the provincial Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program (CERIP) and is one of four projects in Williams Lake that received funding. What is a flow trail you might ask? To quote Google, “Flow trails are built mountain bike (MTB) specific and go downhill. They have bermed turns, rollers, jumps, and other features that allow you to keep your speed up with minimal pedaling…” My definition is similar, but I would add, “fun, smooth, and flowy” to the mix as well as “a trail for most levels of riding and one that will allow you to confidently build your skills as you progress down the mountain”. A flow trail is not something that has always been sought after in Williams Lake. After all, we are known as the Shangri-la of MTB because of our single track, the variety of trails we have, and the connectivity between the three networks that surround town. So why a flow trail? According to Pinbike, flow trails are becoming very popular and are some of the

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most popular trails in the world. Half Nelson in Squamish, BC, is amongst the top two and is a considered a “must ride” if you’re in the area. The WLCC wants in on that action and sees this as an opportunity to build a destination type trail that will complement our existing infrastructure and attract a larger variety of rider. With COVID-19 effectively limiting most travel, the value of outdoor recreation close to home has never been more apparent. With amazing fishing, beautiful rivers, lakes, and spectacular mountains to play in year-round, we have it all. Add in four different MTB trail networks, containing over 180 trails and 300 km of single track, and Williams Lake truly has world class outdoor recreation. Why not build on our reputation and add to the mystique? The funding from CERIP has also allowed us to build trail management capacity as it has created new opportunities for new companies to get involved. New Path Forestry, owned and operated by Williams Lake’s own Jeremy Stowards, has taken on the challenge of carving the way up and down Fox Mountain, crafting a new version of flow by navigate through the landscape. Of course, a project of this magnitude couldn’t have happened without a large support group. Russ Bobrowski, WLCC vicepresident, spearheaded the proposal and

along the way gathered the backing of many players. The Williams Lake First Nation and Sugar Cane Archaeology were prominent in the role of guiding the development of the line through culturally sensitive areas with multiple field walks. Rec Sites and Trails BC signed off on the project and letters of support from the City of Williams Lake and others helped get this project approved. I want to personally thank all the people involved in this project and the Province of British Columbia for recognizing the value of developing world class recreation close to our home, Williams Lake. Line work has already commenced with the goal of having a rideable trail by the end of the 2021 and the entire project completed by summer of 2022. I hope you all have the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors that surround us. Now get outside! -GG Shawn has been riding mountain bikes on the trails surrounding Williams Lake since the late 80s and has been building and maintaining trails since the early 90s. His biggest passion is fostering love for the sport and he hopes the well maintained and protected network that surrounds the community is his legacy. Shawn has been president of the WLCC since 2009 and is proud of the team they have assembled to move forward.

Tel: 250-395-4545 Fax: 1-877-606-5385 spellizzari@telus.net

Stephen Pellizzari NOTARY PUBLIC

Cariboo Mall 575 Alder Avenue Box 2105, 100 Mile House, BC V0K 2E0

Stephen Pellizzari NOTARY PUBLIC

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 43

BC Wild Berries

UNFIT FOR HUMAN AND ANIMAL CONSUMPTION? By Peter Ewart

Velvetleaf Blueberry, Vaccinium myrtilloides, Horsefly, BC. Photo: Lisa Bland

s it a good idea to pick and eat wild raspberries and blueberries in forest cutblocks in the Central and Northern Interior of British Columbia? Not if these lands have been sprayed with the weed killer glyphosate sometime in the last few years. And the same caution holds true for wildlife like moose and bears who, besides berries, also consume large quantities of fireweed, willow, and dogwood shoots, all of which can contain low levels of glyphosate residue for relatively long periods of time. These are the conclusions that can be drawn from a recently published research study carried out by a team of University of Northern BC scientists, N. Botten, L.J. Wood, and J.R. Werner. Their findings go directly against the message repeated by the manufacturer of glyphosate, Bayer-Monsanto, that the weed killer quickly disappears from the plants and general environment after it is sprayed and is not harmful to humans or wildlife. Currently, certain big forest companies helicopter spray upwards of 17,000 hectares of BC forests (especially in the Interior) with glyphosate every year and this has been going on since the early 1980s. The total area sprayed amounts to 1.3 million hectares either sprayed or manually brushed. The aim is to kill off broad-leafed trees, like birch and aspen, and facilitate the growth of the so-called “money trees” spruce and pine. The forest companies are obligated to do this under provincial government regulation.

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The results of this research study are disturbing. For example, one year after glyphosate treatment, 26 percent of raspberry and blueberry fruit samples taken from cutblocks in the research study would be “deemed unfit for human consumption” if assessed by Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards. In addition, glyphosate (and AMPA, the metabolite derived from it) residues were detected in the fruits for at least one full year after spraying. However, low levels of weed killer residue persisted in raspberry shoots, fireweed shoots, and willow shoots for at least six years and in fireweed roots for twelve years. Indigenous people have complained for years about how eating glyphosate-sprayed berries and medicinal plants has sickened them, and there are anecdotal reports of others being affected. The long-term effect on wildlife is unknown. In the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, thousands of lawsuits have been launched by individuals who claim that they have contracted cancer and other illnesses because of prolonged exposure to glyphosate with one terminally ill groundskeeper being awarded $289 million in damages in a California court. As a result, the Bayer-Monsanto corporation has agreed to pay $10.9 billion into a fund to settle the thousands of other court cases. What has been revealed in these legal proceedings is that Bayer-Monsanto has been systematically recruiting scientists

to publish studies that defend the use of glyphosate, going so far as to “ghost write” several research studies under their names. Unfortunately, Canadian and American government authorities are basing their decisions to allow widespread glyphosate spraying on such deeply flawed studies. In BC, there is broad opposition to glyphosate spraying by farmers, trappers, foresters, and others, as well as an organization, Stop the Spray BC stopthespraybc.com founded specifically to oppose the widespread spraying of the weed killer. The chemical has been banned for use on crown lands in Quebec, as well banned completely in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and other countries. Yet the BC provincial government continues to authorize the helicopter spraying of glyphosate across Interior forests, which are already suffering from the pine and spruce beetle epidemics, overcutting, erosion, flooding, fires, and a host of other problems. Now, berry picking, a pastime that many people in the Central Interior and North have enjoyed since time immemorial, is threatened. Note: This article was originally published in the Prince George Daily News on May 13, 2021. Reprint permission granted by the author. -GG Peter Ewart is a writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter. ewart@shaw.ca.

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BOOK RELEASE —

Not on My Watch By Alexandra Morton Published by Penguin Random House Canada

lexandra Morton has been called “the Jane Goodall of Canada” because of her passionate 30-year fight to save British Columbia’s wild salmon. Her account of that fight is both inspiring and a roadmap of resistance. “When I went into the wilderness of the BC coast to study whales in 1984, Echo Bay was perfect,” Morton says. “It was a remote archipelago full of salmon and whales, a tiny floathouse community, and three First Nation villages. When the first salmon farm arrived, I thought the industry would bring new families and help keep our one-room school open. I was blissfully unaware that my government decided to give bays where our houses were floating to Scanmar, Stolt, Cermaq, and Grieg to grow millions of Atlantic salmon.” Morton is a field biologist who became an activist and has done ground-breaking research on the damaging impact of ocean-based salmon farming on the coast of British Columbia. She first studied communications in Bottle-nosed dolphins and then moved on to recording and analyzing the sounds of captive orcas at Marineland of the Pacific in California, where she witnessed the birth, and death, of the first orca conceived in captivity. In 1984, she moved to the remote BC coast, aiming to study the language and culture of wild orca clans, but soon found herself at the heart of a long fight to protect the wild salmon that are the province's keystone species. A few years after the salmon farming industry arrived in Echo Bay, the whales abandoned the area. Atlantic salmon appeared in the rivers, wild salmon died with open sores never seen before, toxic algae blooms began, and then the sea lice epidemics started. Sea lice are a natural parasitic crustacean, but their populations exploded on the captive salmon. Every spring young wild salmon trying to migrate past the salmon farms were eaten to death. The wild salmon returns around Echo Bay dropped to .1% Gradually, Morton found her voice. “Clearly, I couldn’t stop them,” she says, “but they couldn’t stop me either.” She published science on the impact of these industrial marine feedlots, engaged in endless government forums, led protests with thousands of people, marched 100s of kilometres down Vancouver Island, paddled the lower Fraser River with 100 people for a week, and marched with them through Vancouver to the Cohen Commission into the collapse of the Fraser River Sockeye salmon. She spoke at the companies’ AGMs in Norway and took the industry to court five times and never lost. “Using the Access to Information Act, I read thousands of internal Department of Fisheries and Oceans documents,” she says. “Canada and the Province of BC were covering up the catastrophic damage caused by the release of viruses, bacteria, and sea lice.” But that was only the beginning. “Bears and whales starved and when enough people abandoned Echo Bay, my government burned our school to the ground,” Morton says. “In 2017, I found myself standing on a salmon farm in a winter storm

Alexandra Morton is an independent biologist who has worked to protect wild salmon from salmon farms for 35 years. Photo: Sea Shepherd Society

Norwegian well boat Ronja Islander tied to salmon farm on BC's coast. Atlantic farm salmon are pumped into the ship and bathed in hydrogen peroxide to try to remove sea lice. Photo: Tavish Campbell

surrounded by RCMP dressed in riot gear. First Nations were pushing back. They had lost their most valuable food resource. Shelves once packed with jars of salmon now lay bare. Mowi, the biggest salmon farming company in the world, hired a group called Black Cube and boats with blacked out windows began following me. We occupied salmon farms for 280 days and things began to change.” In a series of remarkable events, an ancient government re-emerged and stepped between this disastrous industry-government alliance and their wild salmon. On December 17, 2020, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan made a landmark decision to honour the demands of seven First Nations on the Fraser River sockeye migration route when she informed the three Norwegian-base companies operating in BC they were not allowed to put anymore Atlantic salmon in 19 farms in that region. “Desperate to maintain a hold on this coast, the industry is suing Canada and pressuring chiefs, while I am on the water observing the young wild salmon from the Fraser River swimming through fish farmfree channels for the first time in 30 years,” Morton says. “They look beautiful. Sea lice infection on them has dropped 95 percent from last year. Fraser River salmon will finally the chance to make it to sea. “This fight is not over. But the tide has turned.” -GG Morton has co-authored more than 20 scientific papers on the impact of salmon farming on migratory salmon, founded the Salmon Coast Research Station, has been featured on 60 Minutes, and has been key to many legal and protest actions against the industry, including the recent First Nations-led occupation of salmon farms on the Broughton. For more info about where to purchase visit: penguinrandomhouse.ca/ books/623054/not-on-my-watch-by-alexandra-morton/9780735279667 To learn more about Alexandra Morton’s research, see: alexandramorton. ca/scientific-publications The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 45

Lightning Struck

IT WAS NOT A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT… Article by Ron Young

ut I still got struck by lightning. Actually, it was a bright day with light drizzle. I was standing in my basement finishing the hook-up of a new Chinook wind generator that I had raised on a 20 meter tower. Before hooking up the wiring I looked outside to check that the windgen blades were motionless and there was no wind because I did not want any current in the wires. The windgen is 46 meters away and connected to an underground cable that runs to my house’s mechanical room where the batteries and inverter are located. I was connecting the incoming wire to a shutoff switch and had the end of the 46m cable in one hand and the grounded aluminum shut off box in the other hand. They were separated by about 15 inches. Then BAM! I felt a surge of current pass through my body and saw a bright flash of electricity between the wire in one hand and the shut-off box in the other. After recovering from the shock and awe, no pun intended, I went outside again to look at the wind turbine and it was still stationary. The drizzle had become a light rain, and I could hear some distant thunder. After much contemplation involving some worldly spirits, I realized that the 46m of underground wire had likely been hit by a lightning transient. It had me puzzled for a while because there was no source of electricity connected or generated by the windgen. I had never directly experienced a lightning transient, but this was by far the largest arc flash of electricity I have experienced and the most intense electrical shock. Luckily, I had been wearing rubbersoled shoes, and I believe most of the electrical current went to the connected ground on the shut-off box.

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I have had several customers in recent years who have experienced equipment failures attributed to electrical surges possibly resulting from lightning, dirty power from a cheap generator, or even from the utility power line during a power outage and reconnection. These failures are usually quite expensive involving the replacement of inverters or other sensitive electronics. Part of understanding lightning is realizing that damage often occurs, not as the result of a direct strike, which can be devastating, but from transients or overvoltages of electricity that transmit from up to 16 km away. This is often farther than thunder travels, so you may be completely unaware of the event. These transients may follow a local power line to an underground cable or tower mast because they are convenient paths of conductivity. The resultant surge can move through your household wiring and even continue into the power lines if you are connected to the utility grid. In designing renewable energy systems, I always recommend that a surge suppressor should be connected on both the DC and AC lines of all power components and at a solar array or wind generator if it is located more than 5m from the house. This advice applies whether you have an off-grid system or just everyday household grid power. A properly engineered surge suppressor is designed to recognize higher-than-normal voltage occurring in a circuit, and within milliseconds it will clamp the voltage to acceptable limits and redirect overvoltage to a ground connection. A company called Midnite Solar makes excellent surge protector devices that can be

used on any components and are reasonably priced. I have Midnite surge protectors on my DC and AC solar arrays and at the inverter and the main utility panel. But because the windgen was a work in progress, I did not have one at the tower or on the incoming line from the windgen. So, now I have a story I can tell my grandchildren: “Did you know grandpappy was once struck by lightning and survived? It was a close call! Hey, are you listening, you little brats? Get off that iPhone!” -GG Ron Young is a renewable energy specialist who owns the earthRight store in Williams Lake, established in 1993. A series of articles on the basics of solar energy can be found on his website: www.solareagle.com. Copyright Ron Young 2021.

Some Fun Facts About Lightning • Lightning strikes the ground more than a million times a day worldwide. • Climate models predict an average increase of 50 percent lightning strikes in this century. • Warming of the planet causes an increase in storm energy causing more lightning. • In the Arctic, for example, there were 18,000 strikes recorded in 2010 and more than 150,000 in 2020!

An Invitation to Race the River WITH THE RIVERSHED SOCIETY OF BC

he Rivershed Society of BC is a non-profit dedicated to using Watershed CPR (Connect. Protect. Restore.) to transform the Fraser into a resilient watershed, with salmon, people, and economies flourishing in rivershed communities. This summer, we are inviting you to join us to Race the River. Race the River is a COVID-friendly, totally free event that will accommodate any outdoor activity and connect you virtually with a community of people working to create a resilient Fraser River. In 1995, Rivershed Founder Fin Donnelly took on the challenge of a lifetime: a three-week swim from the headwaters of the Fraser River to the Salish Sea. One year later, he founded the Rivershed Society of BC. To celebrate our 25th anniversary, Rivershed is challenging our community to walk, bike, paddle, swim, or roll to explore their watershed from June 19 to July 11 and log their kilometres on our website. Collectively, we aim to travel 1,400 km—the length of the Fraser River—as fast as Fin did more than 25 years ago. Race the River is more than a race. It is about building community, connecting to our watershed, and coming together to work toward Watershed CPR (Connect. Protect. Restore). Each kilometre travelled, whether 5 or 50, helps to build a community more invested in the resilience of the Fraser River. Register today at rivershed.com/ racetheriver to get to know your watershed and be part of a movement making a difference in the Fraser watershed. -GG

Following his 1,400 km swim down the Fraser River in 1995, Fin Donnelly founded the Rivershed Society of BC, a non-profit charity working to connect, protect and restore the watershed. Photo: Jeremy Williams

Don’t worry, you don’t have to run. Race the River accommodates any human-powered outdoor activity. Walk, bike, paddle, swim or roll to explore your watershed and help us collectively travel 1,400 kms (the length of the Fraser River) faster than Fin Donnelly swam it more than 25 years ago!

June 19 - July 11

FREE | For all ages and abilities.

www.rivershed.com/RaceTheRiver

Presented by:

Featured sponsor:

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 47

A Spotted wood owl (Strix seloputo) languishing in a cage in an Indonesian bird market. Most owls in trade do not survive long due to stress and inappropriate diet. Photo: Lalita Gomez/Monitor

A Rinjani Scops owl (Otus jolandae) in a bird market on Lombok. This species has only recently been described and is threatened by habitat loss and illegal trade. Photo: Monitor

Who Gives a Hoot? Article by Chris R. Shepherd, Executive Director, Monitor Conservation Research Society

veryone knows what an owl is, but few people actually know very much about owls. Globally, there are 234 species of owls, with 216 of these belonging to Family Strigidae and 18 to Family Tytonidae. For centuries, people have kept owls as pets, consumed them as food, and harvested their parts in traditional medicines and forms of black magic. However, anthropomorphic pressure, including commercial trade, is threatening owls on an unprecedented scale, and as a result, many species being pushed towards the brink of extinction. Recently, the demand for owls as pets has increased tremendously. A relatively new phenomenon is the animal café, found in countries like Japan, which display owls and offer physical interaction and photography with the birds. This also links to the popularity of social media selfies with rare, exotic animals. While keeping rare and exotic species such as owls as novelty pets has gained in popularity overall, the Harry Potter movie series has played a big part in the increasing the demand for owls. The lead character, Harry, had a pet Snowy Owl named Hedwig. In Indonesia, owls are generally called burung hantu (ghost birds), but since the release of the first Harry Potter movie in 2001, traders in the bird markets often refer to owls as ‘burung Harry Potter’ (Harry Potter birds)! Indonesia is well known for having some of the largest bird markets in the world and an enormous demand for caged birds—owls are no exception. Owls are often openly displayed

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for sale in bird markets across the country, despite the trade in these species being illegal. Owls are protected by law in Indonesia, but as illustrated by the open trade in these markets, there is a blatant disregard for legislation, facilitated by corruption. Dealers display owls chained to small perches or in small cages at storefronts, and they most often have more within. As owls have specialized diets and do not cope well with the poor conditions traders and buyers usually keep them in, it is very likely that many of these birds perish not long after purchase. Very little research has been focused on owls in many parts of the world, especially tackling the illegal trade in these amazing nocturnal birds of prey. In Southeast Asia, the Monitor Conservation Research Society (Monitor) carries out surveys of the bird markets across many countries, and we often observe and record owls during these inventories, allowing us to contribute data towards stronger policies, more effective enforcement, and more strategic and informed conservation efforts. In 2016, a Scops owl was observed by an Indonesian researcher in a bird market in the city of Mataram on the Indonesian island of Lombok. At the time, it was mistakenly identified as a Wallace’s scops owl Otus silvicola, which is native to the nearby islands of Sumbawa and Flores. A few months later in December, another researcher recorded four scops owl chicks for sale at one of the seven bird markets he visited in or near Mataram, but no identification of these was made.

In June 2019, nine more scops owls were observed during a survey of the bird markets in Mataram, and they were identified as Rinjani Scops owls Otus jolandae. This is the first time this species had ever been confirmed to be in trade. Named after Mount Rinjani on the Indonesian island of Lombok, the Rinjani Scops owl was only described as a new species in 2013, is the only endemic bird species currently known from Lombok, and is the island’s only species of scops owl. This species is known to be threatened by habitat loss, but these records now confirm that illegal capture and trade are an additional threat. Species endemic to small islands are far more vulnerable to exploitation. The Rinjani Scops owl is a fully protected species, effectively prohibiting the capture and/or trade of wild-caught individuals. Violation of the law stipulates a five-year prison sentence and a fine of IDR 100 million (CAD $8,475). Continual monitoring of the markets in Lombok and effective enforcement there is essential to ensure illegal trade does not become a greater threat to this species. Monitor is currently developing a strategy and seeking support to combat the illegal and unsustainable trade in owls to better inform the development of stronger policies, to support enforcement efforts, and to catalyze conservation actions. If you would like to learn more about Monitor’s work on the illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade and how you can support our projects, please visit our website at mcrsociety.org -GG

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 49

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We invite you to shop local. The character of our region is largely shaped by the unique businesses and entrepreneurs that are at the heart of our vibrant communities. Visit our community webpages to enjoy all the Cariboo has to offer by discovering our small independent businesses.

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The Green Gazette June/July/August 2021

Articles inside

Lightning Struck: It was Not a Dark and Stormy Night

Who Gives a Hoot?

An Invitation to Race the River

Opinion: Fruitful Protest

BC Wild Berries: Unfit for Human and Animal Consumption?

New Destination Flow Trail Coming Soon

Skywatch with Bill Irwin

Restoration Planet: We're in This Together

Conservation Conversation: Many Hands Make Enjoyable Work

Becoming Waste Wise: Solid Waste Management Planning

Green Business Williams Lake: FullFILL Williams Lake

Green Business Williams Lake: Fox Mountain Urban Upcycle

Beyond Acknowledgment: Challenging Settler Colonialism

Cariboo Gatherings

Natural Burial: Speaking up for Green Options

Staying Connected: Isolation Impacts on the Elderly

The Town That Beat Loneliness

Science Matters: Leading Thinkers Call for Fossil Fuel Halt

Publisher's Letter: Choosing 100% Recycled Paper

Good Green News (for a Change

Book Release: Finding the Mother Tree

Long Table Grocery: The Work of Living a Life That Matters

Got Bats?

Potato House Project Update