The Green Gazette March/April/May 2020

March/April/May 2020

FREE Green Business | Environment & Ecology | Country Living | Arts & Culture | Sustainability | Natural Health & Wellness

Electric Vehicles Soil Health World Water Day Beyond Climate Rainbow Serpent Community Roots Otter Trade Seedbanks Good Green News Natural Burial Changing Tides Seedy Saturday Cultural Diversity Skincare Toxic Ten Dirty Dozen - Clean 15 Sprout Kitchen Food Hub

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Contents Features

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Publisher's Letter: Indigenous Cultures Lead the Way

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Electric Vehicles: "Don't Doubt Your Vibe"

By Lisa Bland

March/April/May 2020 l Issue #55

Publisher / Lisa Bland Editor-in-Chief

By Ron Young

Senior Editor Jessica Kirby

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No Time Left to Waste: Soil Health

Contributors Erin Hitchcock, LeRae Haynes, Jessica

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Art in Precarious Times—A Reprise

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Water and Climate Change: World Water Day

By Oliver Berger

By Venta Rutkauskas

By Brianna van de Wijngaard

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Seedbanks: Caring for the Future

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Book Review: Changing Tides – An Ecologist's Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene

Kirby, Terri Smith, Lisa Bland, Dr. Chris R. Shepherd, Lalita Gomez, Ron Young, Oliver Berger, Guy Dauncey, Ryan Elizabeth Cope, Venta Rutkauskas, Tera Grady, David Suzuki, Bill Irwin, Amy Quarry, Jim Cooperman, Sage Birchwater, Diandra Oliver, Brianna van de Wijngaard, Al-Lisa McKay, Tim Vast

Advertising Lisa Bland Creative Director Stacey Smith

By Jessica Kirby

By Sage Birchwater

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: 5. Four Books to Inspire & Ignite Change 8. You’ll Grow Really Well Here: Sprout Kitchen Regional Food Hub

Ad Design Jill Schick / Stacey Smith / Leah Selk Published by Earthwild Consulting Printing International Web exPress Inc. Website Design / Technical Support Stacey Smith Cover Photo Healthy Salad on Wooden Background

by Witty Food, Shutterstock

11. Youth Engagement: Co-Creating a Sustainable BC 12. Science Matters: Beyond Climate 14. Waste Wise: Battery Recycling 16. Following the Rainbow Serpent 17. Changing the World Without Burning Out: Your Natural Skills 18. Green Business Quesnel: From Beds to Bowls Farm

Paper Rolland Enviro Satin, 100% Post

Consumer Waste, Acid Free.

Ink Novavit 950 Plus Bio is a vegetable

based ink made from renewable raw materials with high colour.

20. Long Table Grocery: Roots of Community 21. Long Table Grocery Recipe: Super Crucifer Salad 22. Earth Memories: Earth Day April 22 24. Green Business Williams Lake: SW² Ranch 28. Guardian of the Vegetables: Seed Talk 30. Good Green News for a Change: Five Examples of Hope in Action 32. Skywatch with Bill Irwin 33. The Vision for a Natural Burial Sanctuary in the Cariboo 34. Illegal and Unsustainable Trade Threatens Otters 36. Choosing Store Bought Fruit and Veggies: Dirty Dozen or Clean 15?

38. New Toxic Ten Guide for Skincare Products 40. Williams Lake on Track to Become the Rail Tie Burning Capital of Western Canada

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 © 2020 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.

41. Protecting Species by Making Room for Nature 42. Celebrate Seed Sovereignty at Seedy Saturday in Williams Lake 43. The New Roaring Twenties 44. Geshe Sherab Returns for his Fifth Visit to the Cariboo

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 3

—

PUBLISHER'S LETTER —

Indigenous Cultures Lead the Way

By Lisa Bland Dear Readers, As the daylight grows with each passing day, it’s time to emerge from winter dreams into the promise of spring.

We made it to 2020, and in this dawning of a new decade, it’s ever more apparent that we live in a global community. What befalls other people and places befalls us, too. We are in this together.

I remember thinking about 2020 as a far off, futuristic era with many possibilities, strange and wondrous, yet wrapped in a sense of foreboding for the future. I loved to read as a child and teen, and travelled in my imagination to distant lands and realms. I gained insight into people’s thoughts and worlds and became intrigued by cultural and ecological diversity.

At no other time in history have so many gained access to raw materials with which to build or create the reality they choose. Through social media and the internet we can also connect with every corner of the globe and gain insights into the impacts the global economy has on the planet. In many direct and indirect ways, the Western world view impacts not only biological but cultural diversity. Indigenous cultures are often the strongest voices to rise up against the destruction of the natural world and to address the climate emergency. In the past year alone, the impacts of burning and land-clearing in the Amazon rainforest, the wildfires in Australia, the Canada-wide uprising regarding Indigenous rights and title in Wet’suwet’en territory, the vast reduction in wild salmon returning to spawn in the Fraser River, and the loss of Arctic ice are heartbreaking and conflict-laden issues. Yet, regardless of our cultural roots, we are bound together on a common Earth with the same genetic inheritance and raw capacity to respond to challenges.

The diversity of world cultures arose out of the ways the human imagination relates to the environment, and the cultural lens people developed brought their lives meaning, value, and a moral compass for navigating the world.

Canadian anthropologist and UBC professor Wade Davis coined the term “ethnosphere,” which refers to the sum of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and beliefs, ideas and inspirations brought into being by the human imagination. He suggests that the ethnosphere is humanity’s greatest legacy and that even though half of the 7,000 cultural languages spoken on earth are at risk of disappearing, this and any path to the future has not yet been written.

Davis suggests that cultures are not destined to fade away nor are they suspended in historical versions of a pre-industrial past without progression. Instead, they are dynamic and continuously evolving with complexity and uniqueness in the face of modern-day challenges. He believes that every culture has a model of reality and a unique answer to the question of what it means to be human and alive.

“The real central lesson of anthropology is that every culture has something to say,” Davis says. “We in the West, with our way of thinking of the natural world, we are not the norm—we’re the anomaly.”

On a recent CBC Radio Ideas program called Into the Wild, Davis reflected on the 10 years that have passed since his 2009 CBC Massey Lectures, “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World.” His answer to the question about why ancient wisdom still matters is two words: climate change.

Davis believes that the diversity of the cultural imagination is what holds the seeds of resiliency for the future of humanity—and its present.

It depends on understanding and listening to Indigenous peoples, he adds, in what they know of the world, what they have to teach us, and how they can help us find a way to survive and thrive.

Davis suggests that the greatest threat to culture is power, which in its most obvious form is in industrial developments and forces that want access to the land. This power also manifests in the colonial system that has persuaded people and perpetuated the educational story that other cultures are inferior to the dominant culture of the West.

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To the ancient Inuit, the Earth was the centre of their universe. The Moon (Taqqiq) was a flat disk of ice, and the Sun (Siqniq) a ball of fire. This painting represents how light finds its way through the darkness, the inevitable cycles of environmental change, and the steady presence of wisdom our ancestors fostered. It is in their ancient wisdom that the balance between humans and proper Earth stewardship resides.

Taqqiq - Acrylic Gouache by Al-Lisa McKay / Miss White Spider Arts

But he is hopeful and believes that if humans are the agents of cultural destruction, they can also be facilitators of cultural survival.

In places such as Columbia, a cultural revival has occurred for Indigenous people through securing the legal land tenure to an area of land for 57 ethnicities. Out of this, a new cultural dream has been born.

Davis believes that reconciliation, restitution, and the act of returning land title to Indigenous people allows a place for cultures to move forward in strength and diversity to face the challenges of the future.

The voices calling for action to address climate impacts are getting louder. Perhaps we are at a time where the collective human imagination, in all its technological savvy, along with the wisdom of Indigenous Peoples in their interconnectedness with the natural world, can ignite the fire of change that pushes for alternatives to our carbon and fossil fuel based reality quickly enough to take a great leap forward. With the climate emergency urging us to re-structure our material world and value systems, the time for action is here. The wisdom of our collective ancestors and genetic inheritance is urging us to evolve.

LISA BLAND Publisher/Editor-in-Chief The Green Gazette

www.thegreengazette.ca

Four Books to Inspire & Ignite Change Written by Canadian Authors

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By Ryan Elizabeth Cope

hat makes for a great non-fiction read? Is it the way in which authors weave together story with fact, painting a picture that is equal parts thought-provoking and eyeopening? Or is it that the content so often strikes close to home, is so familiar?

The below titles share these kinds of commonalities. Each is heaped full of information and is relevant in these changing times. From these titles, we are invited to imagine different ways of living, eating, and doing business. We’re given an opportunity to reconsider how battles are won and what the term “underdog” really means. Ultimately, throughout each of these books we’re given a hefty dose of hope and encouraged to get up and take action.

David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and The Art of Battling Giants

By Malcolm Gladwell Little, Brown and Company (2013)

From the Publisher: “Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David’s victory was improbable and miraculous.

He shouldn’t have won.

Or should he have?

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability […] or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath [shares additional stories] to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.”

Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism

By Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge New Society Publishers (2017)

From the Publisher: By 2050, $50 trillion will change hands in North America in the largest generational wealth transfer ever. It will remake the world and be the biggest money-making opportunity in history.

“Business as usual,” founded on exploitation and environmental ruin, is over. Climate catastrophe, reactionary politics, and widening inequity have put the world on edge. Meanwhile innovations are shifting the economic ground, and an entire generation is pounding the table for real change. Capitalism is evolving into a force that can restore the planet, transform the global economy, and bring justice to people.

The Clean Money Revolution is part memoir of an inspiring thought leader’s journey from presidential campaigner to pioneering investor, part insider’s guide to the businesses remaking the world, and part manifesto for a new vision of profit, power, and purpose.

This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge

By Tzeporah Berman with Mark Leiren-Young Alfred A. Knopf Canada (2011) From the Publisher: “This unique book—part manifesto from a leader, part humorous activist memoir from a soccer mom—offers a wryly honest, behind-thescenes, ultimately uplifting look at the state of the planet. For almost 20 years, Tzeporah Berman has been one of our most influential environmentalists. A founder of Forest Ethics and Power Up Canada, she was instrumental in shaping the tactics and concerns of the modern environmental movement.

In her early 20s she faced nearly one thousand criminal charges and six years in prison for her role organizing blockades in Canada’s rainforest. She later transformed her tactics and sat down with CEOs and political leaders to reshape their policies and practices. In her new role at Greenpeace International she is fighting the problem of our time: climate change. This Crazy Time is an impassioned plea for a better world.”

Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants

By Jon Steinman New Society Publishers (2019)

From the Publisher: Food has become ground zero in our efforts to increase awareness of how our choices impact the world. Yet while we have begun to transform our communities and dinner plates, the most authoritative strand of the food web has received surprisingly little attention: the grocery store— the epicenter of our food-gathering ritual.

Through penetrating analysis and inspiring stories and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, Grocery Story makes a compelling case for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements. Author Jon Steinman: • deconstructs the food retail sector and the shadows cast by corporate giants • makes the case for food co-ops as an alternative • shows how co-ops spur the creation of local food-based economies and enhance low-income food access.

Grocery Story is for everyone who eats. Whether you strive to eat more local and sustainable food, or are in support of community economic development, Grocery Story will leave you hungry to join the food co-op movement in your own community.

If you enjoyed the above synopses, consider joining our virtual Greeny Green Book Club to chat about themes, ask questions, and share stories.

Visit greenygreenbookclub.com to sign up! -GG Ryan Elizabeth Cope is a Kelowna, BC-based advocate for plastic-less, healthful living. She blogs at Seven in the Ocean (www.sevenintheocean. com/) where she marries her love of food with her disdain for plasticwrapped garbage.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 5

Electric Vehicles

"Don't Doubt Ur Vibe" Article by Ron Young

Alf Cassidy beside his 2013 Tesla Model S electric car.

Photo: Ron Young

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Don’t doubt it’s you.” These words from a recent soundtrack Elon Musk released seem like some really good advice for the beginning of this decade filled with uncertainty, doubt, transformation of our social norms, and mind-numbing onslaught of disinformation. It’s even more striking that these words of wisdom are coming from a man who is literally changing the world we live in by trusting his vibe and acting on his beliefs. Many of the companies he founded or co-founded are household names: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla.

Musk’s stated goals are to change the world and humanity (including) reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption and reducing the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.

Tesla, the first new American car start-up since Jeep in 1941, has rapidly become the second most valuable car company in the world, second only to Toyota. Given that Teslas are expensive electric cars this is a phenomenal achievement, but predictive of what the future holds for the automobile. Tesla has influenced and driven nearly all other car manufacturers to implement or accelerate their electric vehicle (EV) development. Tesla has achieved

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this stature in a very short time, while building the safest car on the road confirmed by NHTSA, the American traffic safety administration, and NCAP, the comparable European agency.

The cost for charging an EV will depend on the capacity of the battery. Let’s say you are charging a vehicle with a 75 kWh battery capacity and a range of 500 km.The cost of one kWh from BC Hydro is about 14 cents if you are charging at home, which makes it $10.50 for 500 kilometres. For comparison, an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle that uses 8 litres/100km will cost about $54 to go 500 km, if gas is $1.35/litre. So, in this average example charging an electric car at home is a about 20 percent of the cost of gas. If you charge at a commercial charge point the cost will go up to about 45% of the cost of gas.

A few interesting facts about EV cars in general: EVs have zero emissions, fewer moving parts, less maintenance, and are safer, cheaper, quieter, and can charge on regular 120v wall outlets.

In comparison, ICE vehicles have thousands of parts. Electric cars have far fewer and the primary maintenance is tire changes and brakes, although regenerative braking means brakes can last 100,000 km. So, although the

initial cost of an EV is about 20% more than an ICE vehicle the long-term savings on gas and maintenance will eventually return that added cost to you. Your vehicle will also have a proven higher resale value. The increased acceptance of all EVs due to Tesla’s leadership will bring the cost of these vehicles even lower as battery technology and production costs decrease.

Among the lesser-known benefits of EVs are that you can power your house from the EV battery in an emergency with the right setup. EV batteries can have life spans of half a million km or more, and at the end of their EV life they are not discarded but can be repurposed in a number of ways as they will still have 70 percent of their capacity. They can be used to power data centers, streetlights, home energy backups, RV power, etc.

Alf Cassidy, of Williams Lake, is probably the Cariboo’s earliest electric vehicle adopter. In 2013 at the age of 82 he offered to drive a Tesla Roadster that his son in law had purchased.

The trip from Ottawa to Victoria had some adventures and complications given there was no national electric car-charging network back then. You can read an interesting writeup about his experiences at driving.ca/tag/ alf-cassidy. Alf was the maintenance chief for the 220-tonne diesel-electric haulage trucks at Gibraltar, so he wasn’t new to electric vehicles. Despite the challenge of finding charge locations, he was so impressed with the Roadster that he bought himself a Tesla.

Charge locations are now widely spread throughout Canada and the United States, thousand of which can be found on an easyto-use free smartphone app called Plugshare where people post photos, charger numbers, and charge rates. Petro Canada, for example, has recently completed a Canada-wide charging network. BC Hydro has installed several charging stations in BC communities, including at Williams Lake City Hall, at the BC Forest Service parking lot, and at TRU. There is a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding electric vehicles and a lot of outright disinformation. However,much sooner than later electric transportation will dominate our highways and byways. A recent survey of 10,000 owners said that more than 90% would not go back to ICE vehicles. -GG Ron Young a renewable energy specialist owns the earthRight store in Williams Lake established in 1993. A series of articles on the basics of solar energy can be found at his website: www.solareagle.com. Copyright Ron Young 2020

NO TIME LEFT TO WASTE

Soil Health Article by Oliver Berger

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e are slowly beginning to understand the value of treating the life under the surface of the ground we walk on with a bit more respect.

In late January, the Young Agrarians along with the Cattlemen’s Association held a seminar at Thompson’s River University, Williams Lake Campus with this exact topic in mind: soil health.

At a balmy -30 degrees C outside there was a great turnout. Farmers, ranchers, composters, and eager soil geeks from around the region gathered to soak up everything we could.

Speakers came from across British Columbia, Manitoba, and even the United States to share with us.

I was expecting most of the talk to focus on general ranching practices and farming techniques; however, to my delight this seminar focused completely on its title subject—Building Soil Health—and explaining its direct connection to farming and ranching.

By focusing more of our energy on what is beneath the surface as opposed to what we see growing above it, we can completely regenerate our soil and reap more benefits than we ever thought.

The main speaker, Dr. Kris Nichols, started us off explaining soil microbiology to provide deep descriptions of how to regenerate soils.

Many interactions take place underground, especially with the assistance of mycorrhizal fungi, a key element in making soil. The fungi are a relationship builder, carrying nutrients and bacteria between plants, roots, and water.

We have all heard how tree roots speak with each other through fungi.Well, it turns out all root systems can work the same way.

“The biggest thing lacking for farming and ranching is your soil,” said Nichols. “It determines your limitations.” He reminded us to get out of our heads and think of new approaches instead of relying on traditional styles. We learned to treat soil like we treat ourselves: if we only eat one type of food— like doughnuts, let’s say—how will our bodies react and grow? We learned it is important to feed our soil year round, supply it with a diverse diet, protect it from the extremes, and, just as we stress our bodies with exercise

Photo: www.123rf.com, Copyright: Orlando Rosu

to build muscle, push some limits on our fields to build strength in our soils.

Simply put, all organic matter created on agricultural land should never leave the site.

Living and breathing plants capture much of the carbon in our atmosphere. They use that carbon to build their plant structures while all the excess is pushed through their roots and stored in our soil. The more organic matter in the soil the easier it is for the carbon to be captured underground. Microbes thrive in this type of carbon-rich environment, which in turn makes nitrogen more readily available for your plants. Cha-ching!

Most often when nitrogen fertilizers are applied, the plant is not ready for that much uptake and may only absorb 30–50 percent.

The excess runs off into our watersheds and evaporates into our atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is almost 300 times more potent than CO2 and has an atmosphere lifetime of ~121 years. Studies have shown that we use more synthetic nitrogen to produce a bushel of corn today than we did in 1960. Yes, yields have gone up; however, nitrogen-use efficiency has decreased. The soils need our help—it needs our carbon.

Every time we till the land, turn the soil, or cut down trees we expose the existing carbon in the ground to the air, releasing CO2. Carbon is the skeleton of what is beneath our feet, and we have been taking that skeleton apart, bone by bone, and putting it in the atmosphere.

We must focus on carbon sequestration (aka: photosynthesis) in our gardens and our agricultural practices.

The term ‘brown revolution’ was noted during the seminar. The benefit of using carbon in our fields and sequestering it through our plants in the agricultural world is growing.

Protecting the ground from exposure, reducing tillage, managing livestock effectively, reducing synthetic fertilizers, diversifying crops, and maximizing photosynthesis have all produced positive results in building soil health.

Regenerative farming, as it is also called, could offset a massive portion of our CO2 emissions. Almost 40 percent of the earth’s surface is used for farming—imagine if all that land sequestered carbon more efficiently.

We can change the system while all together improving soil health, increasing soil porosity, protecting against flooding, creating more jobs, growing more nutritious food, and improving our relationship with the land.

Now I wonder if anyone else noticed all the potential carbon in this garbage can… -GG Oliver Berger has a 38-year degree in life, starting out in the Spokin Lake area, spending adolescence in Williams Lake, and then venturing throughout the world on a quest of always learning new things. His priorities include dedication to and education about waste management.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 7

Sprout Kitchen Project Manager Amy Quarry speaking at a round table with local food businesses and farmers during Premier John Horgan’s visit to Quesnel in January 2020. Photo: BC Government

You’ll Grow Really Well Here

Sprout Kitchen: Regional Food Hub and Business Incubator Set to Launch this Fall

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rowers and food producers from Vanderhoof to One Hundred Mile House are experiencing the exciting growth of the local foods industry with the development of Sprout Kitchen Regional Food Hub and Business Incubator. In July 2019, the City of Quesnel was awarded $500,000 from the Ministry of Agriculture to develop a small-scale food processing and innovation centre based in Quesnel. Launching in the fall of 2020, Sprout Kitchen will be a small-scale food processing and innovation hub that serves the area from Vanderhoof to One Hundred Mile House.

While there is consumer demand to buy and eat locally produced, value-added food products, a gap exists in getting small food businesses into grocery stores, restaurants, and larger markets. To address this gap, the BC Ministry of Agriculture is supporting the development of a series of regional Food Hubs that will link food producers and processors with shared technology, research and development, production equipment, expertise, and services.

Food hubs are a crucial but often invisible part of the local food system. They help small farms grow by offering a combination of production, distribution, and marketing services. There are now 236 food hubs in the United States, with more popping up all the time. Some are physical spaces, some virtual online spaces, but all are concerned

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By Diandra Oliver with connecting the dots between producers and consumers of food in local and regional food systems. Food hubs can be thought of as community-based supporters that connect producers (farmers and ranchers) with institutional buyers (restaurants, hospitals, schools, etc) and end consumers.

Since the word ‘food hub’ can be used to describe a variety of initiatives, Sprout Kitchen Project Manager Amy Quarry explains, “this particular type of food hub is a commercial food processing hub that is designed to support the development of value-added food products and businesses. This includes the marketing of regional agricultural crops, simplifying the local food supply chain, and making and selling food products that could be sold in grocery stores, restaurants, and to regional infrastructure like schools and hospitals.”

Once open, Sprout Kitchen will operate a centralized shared-use food and beverage processing facility in Quesnel that will provide new and established business owners with easy and affordable access to shared processing infrastructure including processing and testing equipment, food business advisory services, product development services, analytic services, applied research opportunities, and education and training related to food processing and food safety.

For Chanelle Sankey and Sarah Murray, owners of Hixon Falls Cracker Co., Sprout

Kitchen is arriving at the right time. Sankey says, “We both have always envisioned opening our own food business, and since the idea of Sprout Kitchen has been introduced to our community, it’s given us the aspiration to push ourselves to expand and improve our business.”

By having the opportunity to be in a larger processing facility and connecting to new markets and services Sankey and Murray will be able to increase their production and product development with access to the proper equipment and guidance.

“Getting involved in this project and meeting new contacts and networking with experienced people in this industry will support us to essentially learn more and grow our business,” says Murray.

Sprout Kitchen is an initiative of the City of Quesnel with generous support from the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Northern Development Initiative Trust. To learn more about Sprout Kitchen and how you can get involved, please visit www.sproutkitchen.ca or email info@ sproutkitchen.ca. -GG Diandra Oliver is a writer and community developer from unceded Wet'suwet'en territories in Northern B.C

‘Art in Precarious Times’–A Reprise

(And that time I helped C.R Avery Make a Film) Article by Venta Rutkauskas Meeka Noelle Morgan features prominently in Victory on East Hastings, a strong voice for art and justice. Here she stands among Avery's original artwork. Photo: Greg McKinnon

C.R. Avery's newest project sees his life's work woven into a motion picture, a moving dedication to beauty and the rebels who believe art can change lives. He'll be travelling with his film, performing a live music set as part of the show. Photo: Christopher Edmonstone

Definition of reprise 1[French, from Middle French] a: a musical repetition: (1): the repetition of the exposition preceding the development

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n the fall of 2017, I wrote “The Role of Art in Precarious Times” for The Green Gazette, motivated by a turbulent and fiery year. I sought guidance from artists in the past who had made art as an act of courage, to speak truth to power and expose oppression. Tanya Tagaq, James Baldwin, Banksy, and Nina Simone drove the piece, fierce symbols of art as action in response to injustice. In this reprise, there is also a longing for reprisal, for the stultifying, egregious injustices we face as individuals and a world community.

As I write, the RCMP and the Province of British Columbia are using militarized force on the Wet’suwet’en land defenders, an Indigenous protest to oil and gas expansion in their traditional territory. This violent response attempts to bulldoze and erase unresolved Indigenous land claims and exposes government and industrial intentions regarding essential climate-emergency measures. So much needs change. I will disclose, I am a privileged white woman, and I have faced injustice and misogyny—but it is a drop in the bucket if I compare it to systemic oppression of my brown, black, or Indigenous relations.

Passion, anger, devotion, love—all of these snake around my body. They seek an exit, a vessel, and a voice. The pathway need not look or feel a certain way, need not fit into a box palatable for mass consumption. The pathway is ours to choose. Some of us create art as action, distilling the mash into beauty.

What power does beauty have in the face of oppression? Valid arguments can be made that beauty as a tactic is frivolous or inefficient; injustice needs more than art, and art need not achieve beauty. Yet, so many valuable human experiences revolve around beauty, stunning moments of awe that stop us in our tracks, like a jolt of reset-lightning pulsing through our beings saying, “This matters. Stop.

Just be.” Beauty lets the inner life and inner voice speak up and through the din of society’s shoulds. In this pause, there is a chance for the dismantling and de-conditioning of centuriesold systems of oppression.

In June of 2018, I joined the crew of a film set on location in East Vancouver. The previous winter, the script landed in my inbox, and a story crawled up off the page into my psyche: a tale of underdogs who understood that below the surface of ‘art’ exists an unpredictable potential that can bring power to its knees. For eight days that June, I hustled and witnessed talent fuse mixed media together, dancers, lighting designers, word nerds, and more, piling in to build a vision around a script that told their story. A human web of mobilization for creation.

The film’s screenwriter and director, C.R. Avery, has penned protest poems and unsung hero ballads throughout his artistic mission, notably compassionate to the mis-represented residents of the Downtown East Side. For Avery, it’s like this: we’re not getting the real story from the evening news. “Chuck-D said hip-hop was black people’s CNN,” he explains.

“News wasn’t being honest about what was really happening in their neighbourhoods.

The music was the truth, the real story.” Avery isn’t always political, but his work is filled with acknowledgment of the unseemly people and places society often ignores. His version of art

is what you do “when the radio is failing us with bubble gum.”

Victory on East Hastings, his first feature length film, reads like a billet-doux love letter dancing with a sly fox off Broadway.

East Vancouver is more than a setting; it is a character, holding in its worn tattooed arms the guts and grace of racy burlesque and the heroine addicted Kind Man of Alexander Street. It might be a story from away, yet it resonates to the hum of acting for what you believe in, striking embers to ignite as we collectively evaluate the path forward. What matters? How will you show up?

Critical is this moment, this breath, the one that anchors you to your body, awareness vast and curious. De-colonize your mind and body.

We are beholden to harmful pretenses until we mine our own belief systems and discover our wildness. Write a rebel song or a power poem, meditate on your cushion, choose to unplug, to question and choose to fight. For beauty.

“Be dangerous with your talent,” writes Avery, from his poem Memo.

The film tour is making its BC premiere in Williams Lake on Wednesday, April 1 at the Gibraltar Room. Coupled with a troupe of musicians, Avery’s film debut resolves to meld the live music experience with his cinematic storytelling. This is more than a night at the movies. -GG Venta Rutkauskas is the co-ordinator for the Community Arts Council of Williams Lake (CACWL). She is an advocate and lover of the arts and has taught drama and written plays for young children. She is also passionate about the healing arts. Visit www. williamslakecommunityartscouncil.com to learn more about CACWL and local artists.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 9

Water and Climate Change World Water Day March 22 Article by Brianna van de Wijngaard

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very year, UN-Water promotes the international World Water Day campaign. World Water Day is like National Lima Bean Respect Day or National Ballpoint Pen Day, but a lot more important (no disrespect to lima beans).

The theme this year is water and climate change: like so many initiatives in the last year, the focus on curbing or minimizing climate change impacts is top of mind for environmental and human rights organizations around the world. The policy brief posted on the UNWater website summarizes the relationship between climate change mitigation measures and water as “a reciprocal one,” meaning that measures to reduce GHG emissions have a direct impact on water management and use, while management and extraction have an impact on GHG emissions due to the energy intensity of treatment and infrastructure. So, both mitigation and adaptation strategies are equally important when it comes to managing water resources and climate change impacts, and these are highlighted in the brief.

Mitigation strategies are categorized as either nature-based or technology driven. For example, one relationship between water and climate change involves heavily underutilized carbon sink opportunities. These are mangrove forests, peatlands, wetlands, and forests. These ecosystems mitigate climate change, but also require healthy, consistent hydrological cycles that are currently being affected by climate change, in addition to their lack of preservation or restoration.

Maintaining or rehabilitating them is also an adaptive measure.

10 | March/April/May 2020

Another adaptation measure pointed out in the brief is the preservation of aquifers, the world’s largest source for fresh water available for human use. They are less vulnerable to climate change impacts than surface water, but because their storage capacities and recharge rates vary so widely, they must be managed comprehensively at a local level.

On average, we use 640 litres of water per day, per person, in Williams Lake, and this is without counting major industrial users. That is exactly twice the amount of the average Canadian, at 320L/day/person. In order to maintain sustainable recharge rates on our aquifer, we need to draw no more than 152L/s on average. It’s hard to say what each person’s daily use should be, but we do know from the 2019 Water Management Strategy available on the City of Williams Lake website, that our usage will approach this limit when you include industrial use, as the population increases.

So, a proactive measure now, in order to stay under this average demand and put off major infrastructural investments, is to reduce our consumption. At the end of the day, 640L/day is still high, even if we currently have a healthy aquifer.

As many know, this can most easily be done during the summer months, when our water consumption peaks. But even if we reduced our outdoor summer water usage by just 20 or 25%, we would be in a much better position. We have a lot of suggestions for reducing water consumption here at the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS), but today we want to challenge city and area residents to adopt just one commitment to

reducing household water consumption—and to choose something you will stick to. Starting small makes it easier to work into your daily routinebut doing so can have a huge impact on our total usageas a community. It wouldn’t take much to really strengthen our freshwater resource capacity.

I took one of the many water footprint quizzes available online, and I was actually quite surprised at my score: it wasn’t very good! These can be good tools for figuring out which part of your household consumption would benefit most from a reduction. Here’s a good one: www.watercalculator.org. We have a lot of tips for reducing your water use on our website.

We often think of a healthy water source as simply having enough water for our daily needs. And in many parts of Canada, we are lucky in that department. We are fourth on the list of the world’s “water-rich” countries, and most of us have very easy access to it in our homes, which contributes to how much we consume. But the impacts of climate change on water resources can happen anywhere, no matter how much water you have. We are lucky to be positioned to preserve what we have well into the future. -GG Brianna van de Wijngaard is the communications coordinator for the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society in Williams Lake, BC, working on various Water and Waste Wise-related projects and events in the community. Visit CCCS at www.ccconserv.org to learn more about our education programs or community projects.

Water Conservation Tips

Effective Youth Engagement in British Columbia

o The average lawn may need about 100,000 litres of water in a growing season—avoid overwatering. o The best time to sprinkle is in the early morning, after the dew has dried, or in the late afternoon. o Your lawn and garden will need about 2 to 3 centimetres (1 inch) of water per week. Place a few plastic containers around your lawn during watering to measure how much has been applied.

Co-Creating a Sustainable BC

o If you sprinkle, choose the type that spins in a circle—it will lay down water in a flat pattern in large droplets that drop to the soil surface more efficiently. o Check sprinklers to ensure that they are moving in the proper direction and water is not being lost to runoff. Set a timer to avoid overuse. o Take advantage of rainwater where possible. Cisterns are perfect for catching rainwater from your roof for use on your lawn or garden. o Incorporate compost, mulch, or landscape fabric as appropriate to hold and regulate moisture in the soil. o Set your lawnmower blades between 5 and 8 centimeters and leave the grass cuttings on the lawn as mulch, which slows evaporation of water from the soil and acts as fertilizer. o An 8- to 15-centimeter layer of loose, organic mulch on the soil surface around plants and trees helps retain moisture and moderates soil temperature. o If your lawn fades in the summer, do not panic. Grass becomes naturally dormant during hot, dry periods and will revive quickly after a good rainfall. o The City of Williams Lake has a partnership with the Cariboo Conservation Society, which has developed a program called Water Wise that provides water conservation ideas and strategies.

City of Williams Lake, www.williamslake.ca/274/ Water-Conservation

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Youth mapping out their project ideas based on a gap identified in the Thompson region. Photo: Brock Endean

ast year, Fraser Basin Council (FBC), a province-wide charitable non-profit organization, launched a new pilot initiative to create opportunities for young people to get more deeply involved in core environmental, social, and economic sustainability issues affecting their communities. In the first year of the initiative, called Co-Creating a Sustainable BC, the organization welcomed a diverse group of youth (ages 16-30) from two regions in British Columbia: the Thompson and the Sea to Sky regions.Youth participants worked alongside each other over eight months to deepen their understanding of leadership within the context of sustainability and climate change, to identify barriers to making meaningful and lasting changes in their communities, and to practice a collaborative approach to identifying potential solutions. During the program, funding from Employment and Social Development Canada through the Canada Service Corps program allows youth to participate at no cost, with travel and meal expenses reimbursed and ASL interpreters or other accessibility needs, such as childcare, accommodated.

The Co-Creating a Sustainable BC initiative created an opportunity for young people to deepen connections to their communities, experience the benefits of being actively engaged civic participants, witness the importance of serving and contributing to a community, and learn how to embrace leadership roles. Through a series of dialogue sessions, youth heard from guest

speakers who are leading way as climate and sustainability champions in different sectors, including municipal government, Indigenous communities, industry, and community organizations. Exposure to these different perspectives offered participants wellrounded knowledge about regionally specific sustainability issues and initiatives already underway in their communities. Participating youth also had the opportunity to expand their networks and create valuable connections with leaders in their communities.

Through a systematic process of identifying regional gaps and key areas for action using knowledge acquired through dialogues and skill-building sessions, youth identified and developed plans and got ready to implement sustainability projects that address a gap in the community. In alignment with FBC’s mandate, youth explored community gaps through an environmental, social, or economic sustainability lens to develop projects that address climate change. Projects in both regions are currently in the implementation phase and are expected to be completed by the end of May 2020.

As Co-Creating a Sustainable BC’s inaugural year nears its completion, the Fraser Basin Council youth team is looking forward to bringing this initiative to more BC communities in the coming year. If you are interested in learning more about the Co-Creating a Sustainable BC Initiative or in bringing it to your community, you can visit www.fraserbasin. bc.ca/youth.html or email FBC Youth Program staff youth@fraserbasin.bc.ca. -GG

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 11

—

SCIENCE MATTERS —

Beyond Climate Ventures to the Heart of a Rapidly Heating B.C. Article by David Suzuki

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sland Scallops on Vancouver Island has relied on stable ocean conditions since 1989. But CEO Rob Saunders says those started changing a little over a decade ago. Measurements showed dropping pH levels, indicating increased acidity. “We started to notice our larvae weren’t swimming very well,” he said. They weren’t feeding. They were dying at a tremendous rate.”

In 2013, acidity spiked near Qualicum Beach and wiped out 10 million scallops, forcing the company to rapidly adjust. Heightened acidity is a well-known consequence of CO2 dissolving into the ocean to form carbonic acid. “The focus for us now is to try as fast as we can to find something that’s going to succeed in that ocean,” Saunders says. “There’s no question that the atmospheric CO2 is increasing.”

Saunders isn’t alone in noticing accelerating effects of climate disruption. People throughout British Columbia are witnessing profound changes. Salmon runs are down as rivers get warmer, lower, or dry up altogether.

Wildfires are becoming larger, more intense and frequent, threatening homes, businesses, and ways of life. Insect outbreaks once kept in check by longer, colder winters have devastated millions of hectares of forest.

People in the Okanagan have been hit with the double whammy of huge wildfires and flooding from rising lake levels. Climate chaos is costing billions.

Ian Mauro, a University of Winnipeg environmental scientist, geographer, and filmmaker, explores the climate challenges and opportunities facing BC in his latest work Beyond Climate, which I narrate. This award-winning film takes the viewer past the headlines and into the heart of the issues.

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From Haida Gwaii to Kelowna, Vancouver and Whistler to Mount Robson, we heard from people whose world is changing around them. Their stories of struggle and their ability to adapt in the face of massive shifts are important, so we’re offering the film for free starting February 20.

Past Haida Nation president Peter Lantin describes how low river levels from a historic drought in the archipelago affected everything from food to culture. “I think at one point it was 36 days without rain. Haida Gwaii is a rainforest, so that has huge impact on us.”

Whistler Blackcomb environmental planner Arthur Dejong says that, despite the ski resort’s high elevation, it won’t escape climate change effects. “For every degree Celsius increase, the snow line will go up 120 metres. For over a decade and a half now, we have been putting lifts higher, [with] more snow-making, more summer grooming, as part of our adaptation to a future with less snow.”

Processing and transporting fossil fuels also poses risks. Still reeling from a spill of more than 100,000 litres of fuel and other pollutants when tugboat Nathan E. Stewart sank near Bella Bella in 2016, the Heiltsuk wonder how much worse it would be if a tanker loaded with diluted bitumen were to run aground.

Salmon and other fish are being especially hard hit by fossil fuel impacts, affecting commercial and sports fishing industries, food supplies, and ways of life for coastal and inland peoples, especially Indigenous communities.

Salmon also feed bears, eagles, and other animals and fertilize the magnificent coastal rainforests.

Environmental planner Stephen Sheppard connects the dots between pipelines and

Vancouver, Canada. Image by Cornelia Schneider-Frank from Pixabay

climate. “We’re moving massive amounts of carbon through this province, all largely invisible to people,” he says. “These are pipelines to the sky. It’s like taking carbon and sticking it in the air. Sooner or later, somewhere along the way, it gets burned. It goes up there.”

Fortunately, solutions are plentiful. In 2009, Vancouver implemented its Greenest City Action Plan. Compost programs, energyefficient buildings, district energy, reduced reliance on private automobiles—all are putting the city on track to a greener future.

Vancouver has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per person of any major North American city.

BC is the proverbial canary in the coalmine for many related issues that will define our place in the world: reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, the clean energy transition (with concurrent continued fossil fuel development and transport), conservation, food production, changing industries, and economic priorities.

Listening to people experiencing rapidly increasing climate impacts and to those doing something about the problem is critical to our understanding of how to live better in this province and on this planet. -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

SUSTAINABLE LIVING LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

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rivershed.com/SLLP The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 13

Battery Recycling Part of the Cariboo Regional District’s Solid Waste Info Series: Becoming Waste Wise

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Article by Tera Grady

ebruary 18th was National Battery Day and Call2Recycle, the stewardship agency responsible for consumer battery recycling, is challenging Canadians to recycle all their old batteries.

According to the 2018 Call2Recycle consumer survey, 88 percent of British Columbians knew consumer batteries were recyclable; however, only 44 percent recycled all their batteries in 2018. This equated to a 37 percent return rate, meaning that 63 percent of batteries purchased in 2018 were not recycled.

This leads to the question—where did they all go?

If you have a drawer at home or a box that your used batteries end up in, you are not alone. Call2Recycle has identified that battery “hoarding” is one of the factors contributing to the low recycling rate for consumer batteries.

The low recycling rate may also be because consumers incorrectly put batteries in their garbage or household recycling. This could be by accident or on purpose. Either way,

batteries must not be disposed of in the garbage or household recycling.

During the Cariboo Regional District’s 2019 waste audit, 0.01 percent of the annual waste was attributed to lead acid batteries. That may not sound like much; yet, it adds up to over one tonne of batteries disposed at the Gibraltar landfill each year.

The good news is our recycling rate is improving. In 2018, residents in the CRD recycled 4,883 kg of consumer batteries.

Per capita, that is 40 percent less than the provincial average. In 2019, though, we recycled 6,400 kg of batteries—a 30 percent increase.

But, why should you recycle your batteries?

First of all, lithium or lithium-ion batteries are a leading cause of fires at both landfills and recycling facilities, which puts workers and the environment at risk.

Secondly, the hazardous chemicals and metals found in batteries can contaminate ground water and soils if disposed of improperly. If they are recycled, though,

they can be used to make a variety of new products.

For example: • Nickel helps make new batteries, stainless steel, coins, and electronics.

• Copper is used in appliances, mobile phones, and brass fixtures.

• Stainless steel is used for the construction of bridges and guard rails, plus everyday products including appliances, cars, trucks, stainless steel water bottles, and even pens.

• Aluminum is the most recyclable of all materials, helping create airplane parts, bicycles, aluminum cans, iPod and computer casings, and many more products.

• Cobalt and lithium are used to create new batteries.

Let’s keep our momentum going in the Cariboo and recycle all old batteries in 2020.

Challenge yourself, your family, and your friends to seek out all old batteries floating around households or offices and return them for recycling.

To find a drop off location, use the Call2Recycle locator on their website: www. call2recycle.ca/locator/ Learn more by following us on Facebook at facebook.com/caribooregion or visiting us online at cariboord.ca. For more information on the Waste Wise Program, call 250-3987929. You can also find more details on Waste Wise activities and events at www.ccconserv. org. -GG

ADD BATTERIES TO YOUR RECYCLING LIST! Why Recycle Your Batteries?

To keep harmful materials out of landfill Used batteries ending up in landfill can contain potentially toxic materials that may harm wildlifeand the environment.

To keep people and property safe Responsible battery recycling practices ensure batteries are handled in a way that reduces potential fire hazards.

To support sustainability Materials reclaimed from recycled batteries can be used to make new products.

About Call2Recycle Call2Recycle is your provincially regulated not-for-profit battery recycling program dedicated tothe safe collection and recycling of batteries.

Visit www.call2recycle.ca/locator to find a drop-off location near you!

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The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 15

Following the Rainbow Serpent Article by Al-Lisa McKay

Follow the Rainbow Serpent. Acrylic on canvas by Al-Lisa McKay / Miss White Spider Arts

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don’t know what you did for New Year’s eve, but I found myself cuddled up to a box of tissues and crying my eyes out watching displaced kangaroos, koalas, and bats get bandaged up from severe burns as wildfires raged across the beautiful gem of Australia. I felt so helpless and had a deep yearning to find a way to be of service.

I sent out a message on the Australian Animal Rescue Facebook page, enquiring about the possibility of there being an existing Canadian page working on behalf of Australia’s aid, and to my delight a woman replied that she had just started a Canadian page and needed administrators. I jumped on board and found myself with a new full-time volunteer job for the next three weeks.

The Canadian Animal Rescue Guild on Facebook, was created so that Canadians could get organized and help with items such as sewing, creating, designing, and recycling to make products such as joey pouches for orphaned baby kangaroos, bat wraps for orphaned baby bats, various crocheted bird nests, and other items to help animal rescue efforts in Australia. From this effort sprung different Canadian hubs where items could be dropped off, delivered to main hubs, and then flown to Australia, compliments of Air Canada.

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From there items were distributed where they were most needed. The page quickly grew to over 10,000 members, creating, donating, and distributing. Canada made a big difference to many precious lives down under.

Hub and drop off locations are now closed.

To everyone who jumped on board to make a difference for the cause, deep bows of respect to you, and thank you.

If anyone wants to continue to support efforts including shipping and food and medical supply costs, please visit the Canadian Animal Rescue Collective Craft Guild Go Fund Me page, which is currently accepting donations: ca.gofundme.com/f/1v1r3epw9c As of January 2020, it was estimated that 10.3 million hectares of forest burned in Australia’s wildfires killing an estimated 1 billion animals.

I created this painting, Follow the Rainbow Serpent, with the thought of solidifying my prayers for protection for the animals, the people, and the environment. I wanted to honour the First people of Australia and their beloved ancient ancestral grounds.

The Rainbow Serpent is an immortal being and creating God in Aboriginal mythology— it is depicted in the shape of a rainbow and a snake.

The connection between snake and rainbow is the bringer of water and the cycle of the seasons in life. When a rainbow is seen in the sky, it is said to be the Rainbow Serpent travelling from one waterhole to another.

In my rendition of the Rainbow Serpent, since the rainbow cannot not be seen in the sky due to smoke, the Rainbow Serpent goes underground to pull down the rains and continue to lead the animals towards safety.

Spirit is all around us, it is us.

According to the first peoples of Australia, an individual's entire ancestry exists as one, culminating in the idea that all worldly knowledge is accumulated through one’s ancestors.

I could explain every nuance of the painting, but I will leave the rest up to your own imagination. -GG Al-Lisa McKay operates Miss White Spider Arts in Williams Lake, BC—a fine arts business offering workshops, travelling theater, paintings, puppets, music, dance, installation art, murals, and other fine arts. Find her on Facebook or on her website at misswhitespider. com.

Changing the World Without Burning Out What Are Your Natural Skills?

Article by Guy Dauncey

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any years ago, I lived in London, United Kingdom, in a house four us had bought together. Being self-employed, I was always on the look-out for work. My book The Unemployment Handbook had been published five years earlier, and I had acquired some skills, so I decided to set myself up as a Holistic Careers Counsellor, attracting clients by placing a brochure in a progressive church.

By ‘holistic’ I meant work that would bring fulfilment and meaning. The phone started ringing, and I was in business.

I would ask my client to write a two-or-three page autobiography, and then to think back over their lives and write a paragraph each about ten things they had done that left them with a strong sense of achievement and inner pride. Could be at work, at home, on holiday— anything. I would absorb it all, then analyze their achievements using a skills chart.

The technique comes from Bernard Haldane, an American careers counsellor who was given the task in 1945 of helping returning soldiers to find civilian work at the end of World War 2. Most had no idea what they wanted to do, he found, and their resumés were more like obituaries, referring only to their past, not their future.

He realized that we have two kinds of skill— natural and acquired. You can take ten people and ask them to cook all day. At the end of the day all will be weary, but some might be good

weary, because they have been using their natural skills, not just their acquired skills.

When a client arrived, I would ask them to talk about their achievements. I would share the results from the skills list, and we would explore a range of career possibilities. As we talked, I could feel the inner energy for each possibility. Let’s just say it’s one of my natural skills. It became quickly apparent which ideas were abstract and which had depth and energy. We would hone in on the one with the most energy, and I would provide advice with regard to applying for a course, getting a training, exploring the field of interest, or seeking work. After two hours, they would go away with a plan of action.

One client I remember clearly was a woman named Ellen, aged 29. Her parents were working class and had never been to college.

She excelled at school and won a place at a good university. She excelled there, too, and went on to do a Masters degree, which made her parents really proud. She came to me because she felt inwardly unfulfilled, as if something was wrong.

Sitting in my attic studio she talked through her achievements, and I absorbed everything I heard. One of the achievements she was most proud of was making small wooden boxes and selling them in the Portobello Street Market.

Her ten achievements told me that working with her hands was probably a natural skill, and as she spoke about this, I could feel

that her enthusiasm was strong. She had felt obliged to continue with her academic career, she said, because it meant so much to her parents, but she just couldn’t continue.

Together, we developed a plan that would enable her to train in woodworking, and she left on a positive, buoyant note.

Most of my clients left feeling satisfied.

There were only three kinds of people I couldn’t help: those who needed personal therapy because they were sabotaging their own potential; those who didn’t have stable housing, which I quickly understood was a prior need; and those whose minds blocked out any new possibilities because what they needed more than anything was a good holiday.

Today, I wish I had time to use the same process to help people who want to find work that will make a difference in the world and help us solve the climate and ecological emergencies. There is so much that needs doing, but each of us must endeavour to find the magic place where our path of service allows us to express our natural skills, so that we can be joyful and fulfilled as we work to change the world and not get burned out. -GG Guy Dauncey is author of The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming and Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible. Learn more at www. thepracticalutopian.ca

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 17

—

GREEN BUSINESS QUESNEL —

From Beds to Bowls Farm Article by Terri Smith | Photos by From Beds to Bowls Farm From Beds to Bowls Garden in 2019

A beautiful radish selection from Kate and Elliott's stall at the Quesnel Farmer's Market

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o much of Kate Patterson and Elliott Morton’s story of becoming farmers so closely mirrors my own that I’m afraid I kept interrupting my interview with them to exclaim and tell them bits of my own story.

As with many of us millennials, Patterson’s awareness of the dire state of our planet was with her for as long as she can remember. As early as elementary school those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s saw how bleak our future would be if humankind continued its current path. We were all taught the importance of the three Rs, and not the three Rs our parents and grandparents were taught. Our three Rs were: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. We grew up with a sense of impending doom. There is a massive hole in the ozone that is damaging the planet. The amount of garbage in the oceans is staggering.

Animals are going extinct at alarming rates.

These facts and others like them were part of our consciousness before we were able to name the capital city of Canada or understand algebra. Most of us felt some sense of despair, and the only antidote was to try to do something about it.

So, after finishing high school Patterson enrolled at SFU where she completed a degree in environmental science. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do with it until she met Morton, a kindred spirit, and they began making plans.

Morton has a degree in sustainable agriculture from UBC, and it was while in university that he realized just how much he wanted to farm. He wanted to live a sustainable lifestyle. Upon graduation, he worked on a farm in the Lower Mainland. When he met Kate, their goals became concrete plans. They would buy their own organic farm and live the sustainable lifestyle they had both longed for.

“We wanted to make a difference,”

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Patterson tells me. The world needs more people like them.

They worked on a few farms around the Lower Mainland for two more seasons to learn as much as they could about farming. Both had grown up in suburban environments and so really wanted to understand the lifestyle they were choosing. They loved the work and knew it was what they wanted to do.

From Beds to Bowls specializes in salad greens of all types. They love growing specialty greens and microgreens, and their salad mixes are unique, beautiful, and tasty!

They spent a lot of time online looking at different properties around BC to see what they might be able to afford. They wanted a place that was rural but not too far from a center where they could work and sell their produce. They found what they were looking for half an hour from Quesnel, and in May 2018 their farm, From Beds to Bowls, was born.

Their property is 10 acres and they have half an acre of garden, which will become three quarters of an acre this season.There was already a home on the property, a necessity they identified when looking at land as they both laughingly admit to not being carpenters (another thing I completely understand as my own farm became inhabited with many ‘buildings’ that were useful but would make even the most inexperienced carpenter cringe). They plan to eventually have one acre of garden in production, two acres fallow, and to produce fruit. They exclusively use organic growing methods and plan to certify in the

future. They will also raise animals to make their farm as sustainable as possible. Last year they raised broiler chickens and plan to raise more this year and perhaps add weaner pigs, as well. (Again, I had to pause and exclaim for all this almost exactly describes my own farm’s growth from 2009-2012).

From Beds to Bowls specializes in salad greens of all types. They love growing specialty greens and microgreens, and their salad mixes are unique, beautiful, and tasty! They had specialized in tomatoes before moving north, and they especially love heritage varieties. They are slowly building their capacity for larger-scale tomato production.

Their elevation of 900 meters makes this a slower process, but they will get there. They sell at the Quesnel Farmers’ Market and Long Table Grocery.

Patterson and Morton grow all the staple vegetables one would expect, and they really love growing different and unusual varieties— something I can relate to, as well, and we had a good-natured laugh about the ‘meat-andpotatoes’ eating habits of the Cariboo (I’m from here; I ate like this, too). But once customers sample a vegetable that may be new to them and hear from Patterson and Morton ideas of what to do with it, they usually begin to want more. It’s a slow process sometimes, since as a society we have become used to only a few types of veggies, but the calling to increase biodiversity and widen the public’s culinary horizons is a noble one. -GG An erstwhile market gardener and mother of goat, Terri lives on a small farm near Quesnel, BC. There she gardens, makes art, writes about local food, teaches workshops, and works at Long Table Grocery as Guardian of the Vegetables.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 19

Cooking class participants gather around the long table to enjoy a meal prepared together at Long Table Grocery. Photo submitted by Long Table Grocery

investing my life in a particular place, in a particular way that is inextricably tied to this community and the people in it.

Even though I never envisioned myself putting down roots this way, investing in community building and place-making now feels more like a safe container that supports my ability to fully experience growth and selfawareness than a restriction, and surprisingly to me, within this commitment is where I’m finding the freedom to become the fullest version of myself. That freedom is something I always thought I would find when I one day had the time and money to travel more or move somewhere more exciting, but it turns out knowing and being known (for better and worse) and really sinking down roots in community and learning how to actively participate in building it has been one of the most rewarding and challenging processes of my life. I have learned many significant lessons in the process, a few of which I would like to share with you here: How to Build Community 1. Make room at the table for everyone—we all have a role to play.

2. Stay open and curious—ask questions and listen to the answers.

3. Collaborate instead of compete—a rising tide lifts all boats.

4. Share resources—even if all you have is your time.

5. Eat meals together—food is the universal connector.

6. Invest in local businesses, ideas, and organizations.

7. Remember small does not mean insignificant.

8. Be a connector—introduce people to each other.

Long Table Grocery Roots of Community

Article by Amy Quarry - Owner, Long Table Grocery “The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is look underfoot You are always nearer to the divine and true sources of your power than you think The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive The great opportunity is where you are Do not despise your own place and hour Every place is under the stars Every place is the centre of the world.”

—John Burroughs

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his winter marks 18 years since I returned to Quesnel after living away in the city, and every year I find myself reckoning with the choices that have led me to put down roots here. I’ve always been the restless type of soul, and I still find it somewhat startling that I have become planted in one place. From the time I was very small I was determined to be a National Geographic photographer as it was my favourite thing to read. As a young person living in a small town, I was determined to hit the city as soon as I could and never look back.

But, as you may have experienced yourself, life sometimes has a funny way of giving us what we need rather than what we think we want, and I have most definitely fully landed here, happily

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9. Make time and space for joy, art, and laughter.

10. Speak up and tell the truth—as Brene Brown says, “Clear is kind.”

Participating in community and choosing to be rooted together with others is not always the easiest path, but in my experience the rewards always outweigh the risks. We live in a time in which real-world connections and real-time experiences matter immensely, and doing everything we can do to improve the quality of our relationships with people and the land is critical to building thriving and resilient communities that will grow forward with abundance into the future. -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. As well as providing biweekly subscription Harvest Boxes, Long Table

Grocery operates a fresh food grocery and low-waste cafe and hosts cooking workshops and community-based food events throughout the year. It is the company’s goal that shopping at Long Table Local is easy, convenient, and a meaningful way to make your purchasing dollars count towards building a more food-secure community for all. Long Table Grocery currently works with more than 40 North Cariboo farmers and food producers, growing community through food.

Super Crucifer Salad

From the Long Table Grocery Kitchen

Tel: 250-395-4545 Fax: 1-877-606-5385 spellizzari@telus.net INGREDIENTS: THE SALAD 135 g

chickpeas, soaked and cooked

80 g

broccoli florets or green beans

60 g

brussel sprouts, de-stemmed and julienned

1/2 bunch

green onions

1/2 bunch

cilantro, roughly chopped

70 g

celery, diced

Stephen Pellizzari NOTARY PUBLIC

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

THE DRESSING 10 g

ginger, grated

35 ml

lime juice

60 ml

avocado oil

20 g

honey

1/4 tsp

salt

Stephen Pellizzari NOTARY PUBLIC

METHOD: 1. Mix salad ingredients together 2. Mix dressing ingredients together 3. Toss salad in dressing and serve. Serves 4.

Recipe by Jessica Golden, Registered Holistic Nutritionist TheGreenGazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 21

Earth Memories Earth Day April 22 Article by Tim Vant

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have fond memories of growing up in the Cariboo region—as a child, running through birch leaves and admiring the papery bark and the myriad of colours brought on by leaves, wildflowers, and grasses. Every bumblebee was a delight, and every fuzzy black and orange caterpillar a new joyful discovery.

Today, the same stand of birch trees we played in has been chopped down to make way for development. Are there better ways to preserve existing greenspace as Earth day turns 50 this year? As plastic production and consumption ramp up to unprecedented levels can we, at a community level, combat this trend with initiatives to reduce plastic use? What can we do to ensure clean air and water for our community in the next 50 years?

These are a few questions worthy of reflection, not just on April 22 but every day.

While Earth Day didn’t go global until the 1990s it has been around since the 1970s, and it is credited with providing the necessary momentum to bring about environmental protection legislation. The now world-wide event motivates massive citizen walk-outs and demonstrations to raise environmental awareness. The theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action and will include climate strikes around the world.

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Looking around Cariboo towns it isapparent we also have a litter problem, not just in urban areas either. A hiker can see discarded pop cans, coffee lids, and plastic bottles even in less traversed areas. Please make the effort to pack out what you bring in if you are visiting the forest.

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, various people in Williams Lake and area are also banding together to plan several Earth Day events, including a climate strike and march, garbage pickup challenge, and a prayer/energy healing for the Earth.

There is much to celebrate on this Earth day despite the challenges. Awareness is growing. Volunteers are banding together to pick up litter in the great global cleanup. More and more shoppers are bringing their own multiple-use bags regularly. More families are composting at home and feeding the soil in their neighbourhood. Shoppers are questioning retailers on packaging that is unnecessary or that could employ a compostable option.

Every year, local conservation organizers motivate students with Earth Day challenges to keep environment education and participation alive.

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, various people in Williams Lake and area are also banding together to plan several Earth Day events, including a climate strike and march, garbage pick-up challenge, and a prayer/energy healing for the Earth. Stay tuned on the details as these and other activities are organized. Visit the Williams Lake Climate Action Coalition Facebook page or wlclimateactioncoalition.com or watch the local papers and city pages for activities. Also, check out earthday.org for activities in the area and all over the world.

Volunteer help with these or other related events would be appreciated.

Whatever activities you find on April 22, do take a moment to enjoy the beauty of nature that we still have and reflect. Earth is our home and a living, breathing reminder that every day is Earth Day. -GG Tim Vant is a multi-disciplinary artist, editor, and author who has been involved in several different forms of expression. He has traversed many different mediums and artistic forms throughout the years.

TheGreenGazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 23

—

GREEN BUSINESS WILLIAMS LAKE —

SW2 Ranch

Ranching with Heart and Vision from the Soil Up

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eautiful, nutrient-dense, healthy, and organically-fed meat is available from SW² Ranch, where owners Sherry and Shawn Wiebe practise regenerative agriculture, ensuring that the soil sustains the animals and the animals sustain the soil, contributing to a strong, diverse ecosystem.

Located on Bells Lake Road near Horsefly, BC, the 220-acre ranch is surrounded by Crown land and produces organically-fed pasture pork and free-range chickens for both meat and eggs, as well as grass-fed-andfinished Highland cattle for meat and breeding stock. All the meat they sell is processed at a provincially inspected facility.

They usually run between 25-40 head of Highland cattle.

Shawn was raised on a hobby farm and Sherry was raised on a commercial pig farm.

The practices they have put into place on their own ranch are vastly different from the ones she grew up with. Sherry’s experience with animals has gone from night to day: from cattle prods and chutes to open pastures and animals treated with kindness.

“It just seemed wrong—the tail docking and tooth clipping, the farrowing crates and being raised in cement tight quarters where they

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Eclipse is a registered Highland heifer, and is part of the land restoration team at SW2 Ranch. Photo: Ivan Hardwick

Article by LeRae Haynes can hardly move,” she explained. “Our animals here are treated with respect and humanity, and I love watching them, knowing that they have amazing lives.”

They buy and mill organic grain every week for their chickens and pigs so it’s as fresh as possible.

Shawn and Sherry started out on a 26acre farm in Vernon where their agriculture learning adventures began. Shawn says they had a small orchard with overgrown and neglected trees.

“We fenced it off and put chickens in it,” he said.“This reduced the insect problem, greatly improved the health of the trees, and protected the chickens. It solved problems naturally rather than chemically.”

Four years ago, when they needed a bigger place, they moved to Bells Lake.

Shawn said he always wanted Highland cows. “My dad died of a heart attack at 58 on a diet of commercial meat,” he said. “We wanted to make healthier choices. Highland beef is lower in cholesterol and fat and higher in protein and iron than most other beef.

“We also like their characteristics,” he added.“For the most part they’re docile, they’re very good foragers, and they have great longevity.”

He said when they moved to Bells Lake, they purchased some haying equipment, but sold it within two years. “Hay was too expensive to grow, plus the land needed nutrients put into the soil,” he explained.“We bought hay instead, and now our main hayfield is a 70acre pasture.”

They use temporary grazing cells divided by electric fencing. “The cattle get fresh grass, and at the same time they’re putting nutrients into the soil,” he said.“We don’t let the cattle over-graze down to where the parasites are and haven’t had to deworm them for several years.

“When you deworm them, the manure doesn’t break down. The birds and the bugs won’t touch it, and the nutrients don’t make it into the soil.”

Their chickens are in chicken tractors and get moved around every day. Their nitrogenrich manure is great for the soil.

Another way that the soil is enriched on SW² Ranch is the way they feed their cattle.

In the winter they put round bales on the ground for the cows—enough to last for a week. They place it in different locations, spreading the fiber and manure from place to place.

Shawn and Sherry Wiebe. Photo: LeRae Haynes

“We don’t unroll the big bales; the cows take them apart,” Shawn said. “In one area after bale feeding, the weeds were gone and there was knee-high clover. Improved soil conditions mean that weeds won’t come back, but the grasses will.”

He added that water is key. “You want water to stay in the soil as long as possible,” he said. “Good soil holds the water.”

Responsible husbandry and humanity are top priorities on the ranch. The cows, 100% grass-fed, are handled stress-free. When they move the cows, they don’t chase them. They lay out hay, and the cows follow. The calves are weaned naturally at seven or eight months with no stress.

Calving starts in May, when the cows are getting the most nutrition from the grass—no ice, no snow, no cold.

Sherry and Shawn sell direct to consumers. Along with an established customer base throughout the Okanagan they are expanding their clientele in the Cariboo Region and deliver regularly.

Their butcher is near Little Fort, and most of the meat is stored in a commercial freezer in Armstrong.

Highland beef is a dense, beautiful meat that does not shrink when cooked, and has a high nutrient content, Shawn said.

“We started out feeding and sustaining ourselves holistically and it’s grown to this,” Sherry said, adding that people thought they were crazy along the way.

Shawn stated that one of the biggest things for him is seeing the improvements to the land and the benefits to the ecosystem.

“Species of birds have returned, and we’ve seen increased beetles and dragonflies—from soil organisms to cattle and all the way to pollinators,” he said.

“We love where we live. It’s a beautiful, quiet, awesome life.”

For more information about SW² Ranch, visit their page on Facebook, email info@sw2ranch.ca or phone (250) 620-0548. Their very lean 100 per cent grass-fed ground beef is available at Long Table Grocery in Quesnel, BC. -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.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 25

Seedbanks:

Caring for the Future Article by Jessica Kirby

“I don’t think we have the option of despair. Hope is a duty. It is something we cultivate with daily consciousness through our actions.”

—Vandana Shiva, environmental activist

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here are more than 1,000 seed vaults around the world—places where natural and heirloom seeds are stored, saved, and studied in a global effort to preserve them. They are both a symbol of hope and of worry, but most importantly, they introduce tangible acknowledgement of the importance of biodiversity.

Seeds vaults are as diverse as their regions.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project, located at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom, currently stores samples of the country’s entire native plant population, including several hundred endangered species.

The oldest seed bank in the world is the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in Russia. It was established in 1894 in St. Petersburg and is named after Nikolai Vavilov, a Russian biologist and plant breeder who was one of the first scientists to understand the importance of crop diversity.

The Berry Botanic Garden in Portland, OR, houses seeds from endangered plants of the Pacific Northwest; the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia holds cassava, forages, and beans; and The International Potato Center in Lima, Peru is home to various potato species. The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria preserves groundnut, cowpea, soybean, and yam, and the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Philippines, is a place for preserving— you guessed it—rice.

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The world’s largest and most famous seed vault is Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Spitsbergen, part of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, and it may one day save our lives.

Millions of seeds representing more than 930,000 varieties of food crops are stored in this incredible building, constructed in an abandoned Artic coal mine.

“Inside this building is 13,000 years of agricultural history,” said Brian Lainoff, lead partnerships coordinator of the Crop Trust, which manages the vault, in an article in Time magazine.

The world’s largest and most famous seed vault is Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Spitsbergen, part of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, and it may one day save our lives.

The Vault was built a decade ago as a safeguard—if a nuclear war or global warming, for instance, threatens specific crops, governments will be granted access to seeds from the vault to restart their agricultural industries. In 2015, researchers withdrew seeds from Svalbard to create seed banks in Morocco and Lebanon after the region’s

central seed bank in Aleppo, Syria, was damaged during the country’s civil war. The seeds have since been regrown and were redeposited at the Vault in 2017.

Closer to home, in April 2019, a labour of love with seeds at its heart began a new chapter in Southern Ontario. The Heirloom Seed Sanctuary, tended for two decades by the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, holds nearly 300 varieties, some of which date back to the 1500s.

Its seeds are being gifted to the Kingston Area Seed System Initiative (KASSI) and to Ratinenhayen: thos—which in Mohawk means, “They are farmers of seeds”—based in the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory west of nearby Napanee.

The Heirloom Seed Sanctuary began in 1999 at the Sisters of Providence property in Kingston, Ontario, with a collection donated

by Napanee farmers Carol and Robert Mouck.

“Now it is time for the sisters to cease this ministry, to let the descendants of the original seeds to move again to responsible and caring organizations,” said Sister Sandra Shannon at a ceremony during which the seeds changed hands.

“We have confidence that the seeds have found, once again, good homes in which they will be treasured for the future,” said Shannon in a story in the Kingston Whig Standard.“It is with pleasure that we pledge that we will pass these seeds on.”

Cate Henderson is head gardener at Sisters

of Providence and the lead on the Heirloom Seed Sanctuary for 11 years. She is also as a founding member of KASSI. “What drew me to this ministry was the knowledge that I am a seed,” Henderson said.

“And in fact, we are all seeds. We are each a cell in the vast body of life, distinct, yet intimately bound up with all living beings. We cannot exist without others, and they are affected by everything we do. Therefore, all living beings are important, and their happiness and freedom are also important. This is the wonder of creation. This is why this ministry has been so important to me.”

As the importance of preserving seeds spreads across the globe, the political world is listening. The United Nations approved the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas on December 17—the product of nearly two decades of diplomatic work led by the international peasant alliance La Via Campesina. It formally extends human rights protections to farmers whose “seed sovereignty” is threatened by government and corporate practices.

According to a news release from the United Nations, “As peasants we need the protection and respect for our values and for our role in society in achieving food sovereignty,” said Via Campesina coordinator Elizabeth Mpofu after the vote.

The challenge moving forward will be to mobilize and empower small-scale farmers to claim those rights and take action against

rich-country crop breeding regulations adopted into less developed countries, where the vast majority of food is grown by peasant farmers using seeds they save and exchange.

Eco-activist Vandana Shiva has been called an environmental hero for her actions in support of her mission to fight genetically engineered foods. She created Navdanya or Nine Seeds, an organization that has established over 100 seed banks in India. She also lives on her own farm where she saves seeds and has cultivated more than 250 species.

Vandana Shiva spoke to Mary Hines on the CBC’s Idea Tapestry about the state of the earth and the power of individual actions to make a difference. Despite the world having lost 60 percent of its wildlife species since 1970, Shiva finds hope. “Ninety-three percent of our cultivated species have been lost since 1970, but saving seeds has reversed the trend,” she says. “Natural trends are irreversible, but trends caused by human irresponsibility can be turned around.”

This optimism and reverence for the earth and its bounty are the premise of Shiva’s work, which is so vast it spans a Canadian degree in mechanical engineering to small plot farming in India. To say she is knowledgeable is an understatement, and to buy into her critics’ view that she is romanticizing farming is naive.

It all begins with the seed—literally and figuratively. We may look at the world’s state with despair, but there is beauty in small action, Shiva says. “Seeds are small. Saving seeds is a

small action. But as a global shift from the idea that GMO seed is inevitable and patentable, that monoculture is inevitable, that little seed brings a mind shift of celebrating biodiversity and becoming co-creators and co-conservers.”

The secret is creating beauty, which is not found in the work of drudgery. “The creation of beauty to regenerate the earth—to do that we have to shift from the idea of work as money and engaging in destruction and towards the creation of beauty that nourishes us and the earth,” Shiva says.

No matter what happens, we have responsibilities to each other and the earth, including the preservations of joy and flowing with the paths that are laid out for us, she says. “We can look at collapse in despair and say, ‘Oh my god, we are going over the precipice!’ or you can take that one seed and plant it, and ask everyone around you to plant seeds—seeds of joy, love, and hope. “People like Steven Hawking say there are only two options: extinction or escape. But there is a third option: caring for the world.” -GG Jessica Kirby is a freelance editor and writer covering the environment, lifestyles, and the built environment for publications across Canada and the United States. She can usually be found among piles of paper in her home office or in the Vancouver Island wilderness enjoying nature's incredible bounty.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 27

LOCAL FOOD QUESNEL —

Guardian of the Vegetables: —

Seed Talk

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Article by Terri Smith

uring my workshops I am often asked what the difference is between GM seed, hybrid seed, organic seed, heirloom or heritage seed, and open-pollinated seed. Here is my short answer: Genetically modified (or GM) seed has been altered in a lab so that the plant will have certain characteristics that misguided growers think they want (my bias is showing, I know). This seed is always patented. Crops from GM seeds may or may not produce food that is fit to eat; it seems the jury is still out on that one. There is an equal amount of propaganda from both sides claiming that GM food is either totally safe and healthy or that GM food will definitely kill you.

My issue with generically modified organisms (GMO) is that as these crops inevitably cross-pollinate natural species, the offspring become increasingly less viable, and we risk contaminating naturally bred seed, which would mean that we could become completely reliant on giant corporations for food and biodiversity would be compromised. My other issue is that these seeds are usually bred so that growers can spray the heck out of them and grow them in huge monoculture systems, and this sort of growing depletes the soil, contaminates the water, and destroys ecosystems.

Hybrid seed is a bit confusing. Hybrids are not GMOs. Hybrids are created by crossing two different varieties within the same plant species to try to get specific characteristics simply using pollination. Here’s an imaginary example: kohlrabi and cabbage are the same species and can crosspollinate even though each plant is quite different. Their offspring could be something completely different than either parent, or something similar to one of the parents but with different characteristics (like faster growth). We will call this imaginary offspring a kohlage. The kohlage may be a wonderful plant and have many great features, but if you saved the seed of the kohlage, it may grow something odd or it may just throwback to one of its parents’ types, if it germinates at all. It may not, because all of the kohlage seed you purchased will be genetically identical, and we know that genetically identical things should not breed.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with hybrid seed. You will want to buy new seed each year,but unless it is patented, it is not illegal to save the seed from hybrids. Hybrids are often resistant to disease and have other advantages like being ready to harvest all at once. These advantages are known as “hybrid vigour.” You can tell a plant is a hybrid in a seed catalogue by the symbol: (F1).

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Hybrid seeds are sometimes patented.If it has a © symbol after its name, then it is patented. I grow a combination of hybrid, open-pollinated, and heritage seed, but I never buy patented seeds just on principle. I don’t believe in patenting life. I do understand that a lot can go into breeding a plant with specific characteristics, and I understand wanting to protect it. But I believe more strongly in protecting biodiversity and the importance of seed saving as so many varieties of important plants are disappearing rapidly.

Open-pollinated seeds come from two parent plants that are alike. To continue with my above example, both parents of open-pollinated seeds would be either a cabbage or a kohlrabi, but not one of each. Open-pollinated seeds can be saved, and their offspring will be true to type. Openpollinated seeds are represented by the OP symbol in your seed catalogue. Since 1985, patents have also been allowed on open-pollinated seeds.

Heritage seed and heirloom seed are interchangeable terms.These seeds are all open-pollinated and must have been in cultivation for a set amount of time. How long is still open for debate. Some say 100 years and others say 50 years, and still others argue that it’s not the number of years, but rather, that the seed must predate the mass plant hybridization that began after WW II. Heritage seeds will have unique characteristics and will often perform well in a specific environment. They are not always as easy to grow as hybrid seed. They often produce distinctive and tasty produce.

Organic seed comes from plants that were grown organically, and while you may not think this matters since you are not eating the seed you are planting, remember that if you are growing organically, you are buying the best seed to grow using organic methods.If you care about organic practices, then you probably also want to support the existence of organic seed.

Saving seed from year to year allows a gardener to develop plants that are adapted to the specific area where that gardener lives. Over time these carefully cultivated varieties will out-perform other varieties of the same plant because they will develop characteristics uniquely suited to where they grow. -GG An erstwhile market gardener and mother of goat, Terri lives on a small farm near Quesnel, BC. There she gardens, makes art, writes about local food, teaches workshops, and works at Long Table Grocery as Guardian of the Vegetables.

A few of my favourite heritage seed varieties saved from my garden (clockwise from top left: Painted Mountain corn, Little Marvel shelling pea, Tohya soya bean, dwarf sunflower, Hungarian pepper, Romanesco zucchini, and a purple bean. Photo credit: Terri Smith

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 29

Good Green News for a Change: Five Examples of Hope in Action Article by Erin Hitchcock

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he devastation happening to our world is scary to say the least, but we mustn’t allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by the darkness when so many others are working to illuminate it.

People all over the world are pooling together to heal our planet, be it Greta Thunberg and the Fridays4Future movement that has led to millions of people calling for climate justice, or the individual seeking out ways to have a smaller footprint. Finding examples of hope in action helps propel us forward in creating the peaceful and healthy future we want for this world. This column is about focusing on examples of changes for good happening all around us.

I was fortunate to be present at World Religion Day in January in Williams Lake, which was held to support unity across all religions. Spiritual representatives from the Sikh, Christian, Bahai, Muslim, First Nations, and Buddhism communities all shared their prayers for peace, love, and healing for us all.

This coming together of faiths was so moving, as it showed how we can all put aside our socalled differences, as we all share the same moral commonalities and are part of the same sentient family.

This is perhaps one of the most important things we can do as individuals, because peace won’t come on its own. So, a first example of good news for change is to strive to practise peace and kindness every day. As Charles Eisenstein says in his new book, Climate: A New Story, we need to “expand the circle of compassion to include every being on this earth.”

Springtime is the perfect time to witness the unity and symbiosis nature practises every day. We can help by giving back with extra compassion for ourselves and for the rest of Earth.

Actor, producer, and philanthropist Morgan Freeman recently converted his 124-acre

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ranch into a bee sanctuary to help the bees, which are in danger due to many factors including habitat loss, colony collapse disorder, and pesticides.

While we don’t all have the land or the means to do what Freeman has done, we can still help the bees and other pollinators by creating pockets of habitat and food for them where we can, and by reducing or eliminating foods and products that contain chemicals such as glyphosate.

Another way to help the birds and other wildlife is to reduce your use of plastics, which can kill birds and wildlife if ingested and also contribute to climate change when they’re produced.

If you don’t already have a garden, consider planting one, even a small box or some pots if you lack space, and include flowers when planting—pollinators especially love lavender, bee balm, fireweed, dandelions, and many others. You can also set up bird feeders or (properly made) bee houses. I purchased a beautiful, well-crafted bee house made locally in Quesnel by Pause to Feather Creations. And remember, when feeding the hummingbirds, to make your own solution using sugar and water, rather than the solutions made with red dyes, which are actually poisonous to the birds we are trying to help. (I also found a neat little post about repurposing chipped tea pots by hanging them up to provide shelter for birds.

It is always best to repurpose something you already have rather than to buy new).

Another way to help the birds and other wildlife is to reduce your use of plastics,

which can kill birds and wildlife if ingested and also contribute to climate change when they’re produced.

The Ocean Cleanup Project is also providing hope after capturing and removing plastic, including microplastics, from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, with its huge, plastic capturing floating device. The Dutch non-profit is set to deploy more devices to the mouths of the most polluted rivers to stop many of the plastics from entering the oceans.

The City of Williams Lake is still working on plans to ban single-use plastics in the city, and the provincial and federal governments are also working on legislation to ban certain plastic items.

But we shouldn’t wait for the laws to change. Avoid plastic whenever and wherever you can. Remember your reusables: coffee mugs, water bottles, metal straws, take-out containers. One of the best ways to prevent the Earth from choking on plastics is to not use them at all. Recycling is great but reducing or eliminating is key.

Finally, trees. CBC reported there are plans to plant 310 million trees this year alone in BC, in response to the mountain pine beetle, forest fires, and climate change. Most of the trees will be planted in the Central Interior, Cariboo-Chilcotin, and East Kootenay regions.

Countries including Ethiopia, Scotland, and India, among others, have also been taking similar initiatives.

Each one of us can do our part for the planet, shaping a better future by how we choose to live and give back so we can contribute to a healthier planet for all. -GG Erin Hitchcock is a stay-at-home mom, environmental activist, and member of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Pachamama Alliance and the Williams Lake Climate Action Coalition.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 31

Skywatch

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with Bill Irwin

ormally, I avoid deep sky observing around the full moon.

It takes centre stage, washing out all the faint fuzzies. Only the brightest stars are visible; like seeing would be from downtown Vancouver.

The full moon is very bright in an astronomical telescope, which is designed to gather as much light as is practical. In my 5" refractor, which has exquisite optics, the view is like what you would see if you were 2000 km away. Features from 2 km and up would be visible. You can see the very smooth area of Mare Tranquillitatis, where Apollo 11 landed.

No sign of the actual landing, of course.

The moon is soooo stark! You don’t get deep shadows at full moon, but you do see the maria, the darker areas once thought to be oceans. The bigger craters are visible, starting with Plato, then Archimedes, Copernicus, and then Tycho, with its magnificent ray system.

The features visible on the moon are always changing with the phases. There is so much detail visible, it’s overwhelming. You owe it to yourself to see the moon in a good telescope at least once. No photograph or TV documentary

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can convey the reality of looking at it where it actually is.

Just for fun, I checked out the Pleiades, the famous open cluster in the shoulder of Taurus.

I could barely make it out with the naked eye due to the moon’s brightness, but the scope showed the ‘diamonds on black’ look of it.

I tried unsuccessfully to see the pup, which is a companion star to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. But the air turbulence revealed a dancing blob.

The star Betelgeuse, in Orion, is a red supergiant very near the end of its time. It will go supernova sometime in the next 100,000 years. Although it is known to be variable, it has become unusually dim since last fall. This is quite visible. You can see that it is about the same brightness as Bellatrix, which is next to it and is considerably dimmer than Rigel, in Orion's foot.

The dimming could be due to a carbon build-up in its atmosphere. In other words, it’s sooty. There is some speculation that it might blow soon, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

That’s Venus in the SW sky in the evening.

It will be its farthest from the sun on March 24. On April 3 it will pass thru the Pleiades.

Worth checking out with binoculars. Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are close in the predawn sky.

This is the year for a close approach of Mars

in October. It’s going to much higher in the sky this time, and this will be one of the closer oppositions. More on this later.

Let’s hope for some good weather this year and a smoke-free summer. There’s lots to see up there. You are welcome to join us at Bells Lake Observatory near Horsefly. I can be reached at irwin8sound@gmail.com. If it’s cloudy, you are welcome to check out my gallery of speaker system designs, all solar powered. -GG

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The Vision for a Natural Burial Sanctuary in the Cariboo Article by Nicola Finch, Cariboo Community Natural Burial Association

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“There is no reason why the plans we make around our own burial or cremation cannot be in keeping with practices that are supportive of nature and mindful of the environment.”

—Green Burial Society of Canada

he Cariboo Community Natural Burial Association is a new nonprofit organization based in Williams Lake. Our purpose is to establish a natural burial sanctuary here in the Cariboo.

Natural or green burial at its most simplistic is direct burial in the ground in a manner that does not inhibit decomposition. There is no embalming, no metal or exotic hardwoods, and no concrete or fiberglass vaults.

We envision a green burial ground for people and their pets that is dedicated to conservation and remembrance, and that features a tumulus or ossuary for the keeping of cremated remains. The sanctuary will include community gathering spaces, a ceremony and celebration hall, forest paths, open areas for meditation and contemplation, an outdoor labyrinth, and a ‘Little Spirits Garden’ like the one at Royal Oaks in Victoria.

The sanctuary, ideally a 10- to 20-acre parcel of land, will be outside of Williams Lake municipal boundaries and within the Cariboo Region of the Central Interior. The sanctuary is intended to serve individuals and families who wish to minimize their impact on the environment in death and will appeal to those who in life embrace the values of conservation and sustainability. It’s about having options.

Currently, there are just two disposition options available at the Williams Lake Municipal Cemetery. The cemetery offers cremation in our local crematorium or an in-ground casket burial with a mandatory fiberglass grave liner.

We began last year to lobby the City to include green burial options at our local cemetery; however, the municipal services department at the City of Williams Lake has informed us that our current cemetery location does not have room for expansion for natural burials.

Communities and cities across Canada are forming organizations like ours to establish their own natural burial grounds. It’s admittedly a bit daunting for a small group of community volunteers to take on a project of this magnitude, but we are determined.

Consumer Protection BC oversees the establishment of new cemeteries and states that green cemeteries are not considered to be different from any other place of interment in respect to zoning and approvals.

The Denman Island community established the first contemporary green cemetery in Canada, and we will lean on them for any sage

advice they have to offer as well as seeking counsel from the Green Burial Council, the Green Burial Society of Canada, and the Conservation Burial Alliance.

In respect to the inclusion of a tumulus or barrow for the keeping of cremated remains, we understand that cremation is not the greenest choice for disposition but that it’s likely to remain the default option for some time to come. According to The Cremation Association of North America, British Columbia rates as the province with the highest cremation rate in Canada at over 70 percent.

While all cemeteries offer options for the inurnment or scattering of cremated remains, we would like to see this as a prime feature of the sanctuary in a setting that mimics the beauty of Conservation Burial Grounds.

The seven members on our board of directors are Nicola Finch, Angela Gutzer,

Photo: Nicola Finch

Dave Prentice, Laura Dean, Barb Brown, David Finch, and Penny McIntosh. Each board member brings to the table a passion for the environment, a strong personal desire for green burial, enthusiasm to get this accomplished, and a wide range of skills and experience. We invite you to join us in growing our network and in our quest for land and resources to accomplish our vision of green burial in the Cariboo Region. -GG Visit our website at: www.cariboonaturalburialsanctuary.ca, Facebook: Cariboo Natural Burial Sanctuary Instagram @cariboonaturalburialsanctuary or Email info@cariboonaturalburialsanctuary.ca.

Follow us on Facebook at Natural Burial in BC and Instagram @greenburial_bc .

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 33

Illegal and Unsustainable Trade Threatens Otters Article by Dr. Chris R. Shepherd and Lalita Gomez

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The trade in otters In Asia, otter species are facing a perilous future due to the increasing loss of suitable habitat, the impact of pesticide use and human-otter conflict.This is exacerbated by an even more pressing and growing threat—the illegal wildlife trade. Hunting for commercial trade is considered a key reason for the depletion of otter populations across Asia.

Otters are primarily traded live for the rapidly growing pet trade, for their skins used to make hats and other garments, and for their parts, which are used in traditional medicines. In fact, the pet trade, often carried out on the internet, is a rapidly increasing threat to a number of species. Online monitoring has shown hundreds of juveniles for sale, and anecdotal information suggests that much of this trade involves otters taken from the wild. In Indonesia alone, a four-month online survey, with just one hour of survey effort per week, revealed between 500-900 otters for sale. The Asian small-clawed IUCN CITES otter, for example, is traded in growing numbers to supply Endangered I demand for pets in Indonesia, Thailand, andJapan. Much of Least Concern II this trade is illegal but persists due to weak enforcement, Near I corruption, and legal loopholes threatened that are exploited by wildlife traffickers.

Endangered I In other parts of the world, the fur trade has caused major Endangered I declines in many species, such as the Giant otter and the Sea otter. While some species Endangered II of otters have recovered from large-scale hunting and trapping for the fur trade, Near II others continue to struggle. threatened Here in Canada, otters are Endangered II trapped for their skins, which are used locally and exported.

In 2017, Canada exported Near I more than 10,000 otter skins, threatened skin pieces, and garments made from otter skins. More Near I/II than 8,500—the majority—of threatened these were exported to China, Near II and 1,000 were exported to threatened the United States. Finland, Germany, and Iceland made Vulnerable I up the remainder of importers of Canadian-sourced otters in that year. While River otter Vulnerable I populations were significantly reduced by the late 1800s

here are 13 species of otters, all belonging to the subfamily Lutrinae.

These largely aquatic carnivores are found on all continents, with the exception of the Antarctic and Australia (there are no otter species found east of the Wallace Line that runs through Indonesia). Like many carnivores around the world, the future for many otter species is threatened due to direct and indirect anthropogenic activities.

Otters are threatened by habitat degradation, water pollution, channelization of waterways, conflict with fish farmers, loss of prey species, and illegal and unsustainable exploitation for commercial trade.

Of the 13 species of otters, seven of them are considered Threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable), five Near Threatened, and one, the North American river otter, is assessed as being Least Concern, by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Table 1) Species

Range

Giant Otter Pteronura brasiliensis

South America

North American River Otter Lontra canadensis

North America

Neotropical Otter Lontra longicaudis

South America

Marine Otter Lontra felina

South America

Southern River Otter Lontra provocax

South America

Sea Otter Enhydra lutris

North America, Japan and, the Russian Federation

Spotted-necked Otter Hydrictis maculicollis

Africa

Hairy-nosed Otter Lutra sumatrana

Asia

Eurasian Otter Lutra lutra

Eurasia

African clawless Otter Aonyx capensis

Africa

Congo clawless Otter Aonyx ongicus

Africa

Small-clawed Otter Aonyx cinereus

Asia

Smooth-coated Otter Lutrogale perspicillata

Asia

Table 1. Status of the world's otter species

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Smooth-coated Otters have recently been listed in Appendix I of CITES, as international trade has become a serious threat to their continued survival. Photo: Nicole Duplaix.

due to over-trapping for trade, this species has recovered across much of its former range in Canada. They are found across all provinces and territories in Canada, although populations are fragmented in parts of this range. On Prince Edward Island, they have been extirpated.

Otters and CITES All otters are listed in the appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Seven of those are listed in Appendix I, meaning no international commercial trade is permitted, and five are listed in Appendix II, meaning international commercial trade is permitted provided it is done so in accordance with national legislation. One species is listed in both Appendix I and II, depending on the range countries. Two species, the Smoothcoated otter and the Asian small-clawed otter, were only recently moved from Appendix II to Appendix I due to increasing threat from the international pet trade. In 2019, proposals for the up-listing of both these species were presented at the CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP 18) where the proposals gained sufficient support. As of November 26, 2019, the Appendix I listing for these two species went into force.

In 2018, The IUCN SSC Otter Specialist Group launched the Global Otter Conservation Strategy, with the first objective in the strategy being, “To rebuild and maintain healthy populations of all otter species across all parts of each species’ range as held before major human-induced declines.” The strategy can be viewed and downloaded at www.otterspecialistgroup.org/osg-newsite/ wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IUCN-OtterReport-On-Line-SP.pdf. Monitor is working on the implementation of key sections of the action plan, striving to ensure otters are adequately protected from illegal and unsustainable trade.

Endangered Species Day on May 15 is a reminder to learn about the importance of protecting endangered species and taking action to help protect them. -GG Dr. Chris R. Shepherd and Lalita Gomez are members of the IUCN SSC Otter Specialist Group.Both work for the Monitor Conservation Research Society (Monitor) where Dr. Chris R. Shepherd is the Executive Director and Lalita Gomez is a Programme Officer and lead on otter-related work. For more info see Monitor’s website: www.mcrsociety.org or Facebook page www.facebook.com/mcrsociety/

Changing Tides

An Ecologist’s Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene

By Alejandro Frid New Society Publishing

Book Review by Sage Birchwater

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he latest book by Bowen Island marine ecologist Alejandro Frid carries a message of hope in a world fraught with worrying environmental uncertainty. Five years ago, Frid published his first book on a similar theme, A World For My Daughter: An Ecologist’s Search for Optimism (Caitlin Press 2015). There, the author’s brilliant analysis of the ecological stress facing the planet, measured from the relatively pristine environment of the Central Coast of British Columbia, suggested a dire future.

His latest work, Changing Tides, offers more hope.

Frid says he made a conscious shift to find optimism. “Like many of my scientific colleagues, I am often overwhelmed,” he says.

“Climate change, ocean acidification, species extinctions: we contemplate these difficult issues constantly. I know well what it is like to just want to give up.”

For the past three decades Frid has worked as an ecologist on marine conservation with modern Indigenous peoples of the Nuxalk, Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, and Wuikinuxv nations. He is seeking to merge science and Indigenous knowledge to steer us toward a more benign Anthropocene.

Anthro-what, you say?

Anthropocene is an environmental buzzword coined by Nobel laureate atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen back in 2000. It refers to our current geological age where human activity has become the most dominant influence on the planet, including the climate and the environment.

Frid finds his optimism by fusing Western science with the intrinsic knowledge and practices of Indigenous cultures.

He says aboriginal societies all over the world developed intentional and socially complex practices for sustainable resource management over thousands of years. The book details his research with Indigenous managers on the Central Coast in co-operation with Department of Fisheries officials to

improve understanding of depleted marine habitats and species. It’s a process that requires understanding and respect. A learning curve for everyone involved.

In the last decade Frid expanded his ecological footprint to the Chilcotin Plateau where the headwaters of the Chilcotin River are a vital spawning and rearing habitat for salmon that infuse the marine environment he knows so well.

Several years ago, Alejandro and his daughter, Twyla Bella, then about 10, spent the night at our place in Williams Lake, along with two other dads and their daughters from Bowen Island. They were on their way to Nemiah Valley to attend the XeniGwet’in Culture Week at Naghtaneqed School. There they learned firsthand the importance of Pacific salmon to the Tsilhqot’in people and the austere measures they have taken to preserve the fishery.

They learned about the stand taken by the Tsilhqot’in to prevent a copper and gold mine at Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) that would endanger salmon survival in the whole Chilcotin River system. They came away refreshed and invigorated by the cultural sharing, inspired by the stewardship role of the XeniGwet’in in their caretaker area.

As an ecologist Frid sees the vital connection between healthy salmon stocks in the marine environment and the integrity of spawning grounds in the headwaters of streams feeding the Pacific.

The cover of Changing Tides pictures a man drumming, standing on the shore of Teztan Biny. Above the drummer is a swirling circle of fish. The author explains the significance.

Alejandro says his dad, Samuel Frid, acquired the drum from Kwakwaka’wakw artist Eugene Hunt in the 1980s, then passed it on to him in the 1990s. In September of 2018 Alejandro gifted the drum to Cecil Grinder and

Doreen William as a wedding present. Cecil is an inspirational cultural leader who has led the charge identifying the spiritual significance of Teztan Biny. Doreen’s father, the late Joseph William, grew up there.

Frid says the web of social, geographic, and cultural relationships depicted on the cover of the book reflects the trade economy, crosspollination, and adaptability that are integral to First Nations. “These are all major themes in the book,” he says.

Changing Tides is an attempt to chart a course through the world as it is today toward a positive future.

“Catastrophe can be our teacher,” he concludes. “But it need not be the only one...

We are on a knife’s edge, and this is the time to act.”

He says his daughter gives him a reason to keep writing. “It’s my hope that this book will do its small part in inspiring her, and the rest of us, to do all we can to rebuild a world where people from different cultures relate to each other and to our non-human kin, with respect, reciprocity, and love,” Frid says.

Copies of Changing Tides are available at the Open Book in Williams Lake or wherever great books are sold. It’s an important narrative worth checking out. -GG Sage is a freelance writer and lives in Williams Lake with his partner, Caterina. He has been enjoying the rich cultural life of the CaribooChilcotin Coast since 1973.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 35

Top Findings from EWG's 2019 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce:

Choosing Store Bought Fruit and Veggies

• More than 90 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines, and kale tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.

Dirty Dozen or Clean 15?

Article by Jessica Kirby

36 | March/April/May 2020

• More than 70 percent of fruit and vegetable samples on the Clean Fifteen list had no pesticide residues. Only 6 percent of Clean Fifteen fruit and vegetable samples had two or more pesticides.

Visit www.ewg.org for more information.

EWG's 2019 Dirty Dozen

Agency (EPA) as a potential human carcinogen for more than 20 years, and its use has been illegal in Europe for a decade.

“We were surprised kale had so many pesticides on it, but the test results were unequivocal,” said EWG Toxicologist Alexis Temkin, Ph.D, in a press release from EWG. “Fruits and vegetables are an important part of everyone’s diet, and when it comes to some conventionally grown produce items, such as kale, choosing organic may be a better option.”

However, the EWG quotes nutritionist Jaclyn London in her article for Good Housekeeping: “There is evidence suggesting that eating kale can reduce one's risk of chronic disease, lower blood pressure, and improve bone health—so it’s up to you to decide if the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Overall, nearly 70 percent of the conventionally grown produce sold in the United States comes with pesticide residues, according to EWG’s analysis, reported in a press release from the organization.

“The main route of pesticide exposure for most Americans who do not live or work on or near farms is through their diet,” said EWG Research Analyst Carla Burns. “Studies have shown that eating fruits and vegetables free of pesticides benefits health, and this is especially important for pregnant women and children.”

The American Academy of Pediatricians Council on Environmental Health emphasizes that children’s exposure to pesticides should be as limited as possible. Pesticide exposure during pregnancy and early childhood increases the risk of brain tumors, leukemia, neurodevelopmental defects, and other adverse birth outcomes.

EWG recommends consumers purchase organic versions of produce on the Dirty Dozen list. When organic versions are unavailable or not affordable, EWG advises consumers to continue eating fresh produce, even if conventionally grown.

“The health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure,” Burns said.

In Canada, pesticide use is regulated by Health Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency monitors residue limits in both domestic and imported food.

The best choice is to support local food initiatives and to buy directly from a local farmer or shop at a Farmers’ Market, there

EWG's 2019 clean 15

S

ince 2004, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released an annual list of the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15—produce items that contain the highest and lowest concentrations of pesticides. The purpose is to promote the value of shopping organically with a specific focus on balance.

“The Dirty Dozen is a list of products we recommend buying organically,” EWG says.

“We believe the Clean 15 are the safest foods to buy conventionally. EWG recommends buying organic whenever possible—reducing your exposure to pesticides is a smart move and buying organic sends a message that you support environmentally friendly farming practices that minimize soil erosion, safeguard workers, and protect water quality and wildlife.

“However, we know that organics are not accessible or affordable for everyone, so we created EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce to help consumers make the healthiest choices given their circumstances.”

The lists are assembled based on data from tests conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the USDA's Pesticide Testing Program and the Food and Drug Administration. Researchers collect data by washing and / or peeling the produce to replicate the process a consumer would use when preparing the food to eat.

Organic food shoppers generally list avoiding consuming pesticides as their main motivation for doing so. According to a 2013 study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, evidence on the relationship between chronic illness and exposure to pesticides is overwhelming.

“There is a huge body of evidence linking exposure to pesticides with elevated rate of chronic diseases such as different types of cancers, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson, Alzheimer, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), birth defects, and reproductive disorders,” the study says.

A development that turned the Dirty Dozen / Clean 15 phenomenon on its head last year was kale’s appearance in the Dirty Dozen. Coming in third, right after strawberries and spinach, which retained their spots from previous years, kale tested positively for pesticide called Dacthal, aka DCPA, on 60 percent of the samples and 92 percent carried at least two different pesticide residues. Dacthal has been listed by the Environmental Protection

• Avocados and sweet corn were the cleanest. Less than 1 percent of samples showed any detectable pesticides.

1. Strawberries 2. Spinach 3. Kale 4. Nectarines 5. Apples 6. Grapes 7. Peaches 8. Cherries 9. Pears 10. Tomatoes 11. Celery 12. Potatoes 1. Avocados 2. Sweet corn 3. Pineapples 4. Frozen sweet peas 5. Onions 6. Papayas 7. Eggplants 8. Asparagus 9. Kiwis 10. Cabbages 11. Cauliflower 12. Cantaloupes 13. Broccoli 14. Mushrooms 15. Honeydew melons

you can meet the hardworking people who grow your food and find out about their growing methods. Another great option is to experience the satisfaction and health benefits of growing your own produce from natural, organic, or heirloom seeds every season. -GG Jessica Kirby is a freelance editor and writer covering the environment, lifestyles, and the built environment for publications across Canada and the United States. She can usually be found among piles of paper in her home office or in the Vancouver Island wilderness enjoying nature's incredible bounty.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 37

New Toxic Ten Guide Top Chemicals for Canadians to Avoid in Skincare Products

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nvironmental Defence has launched its new Toxic Ten Skincare Guide to help Canadians make safer and more informed choices when shopping for cosmetics and personal care products.

“Canadians are increasingly concerned about the impacts of toxic chemicals in their bodies and the environment,” says Muhannad Malas, toxics program manager at Environmental Defence. “Our new guide lists 10 harmful chemicals, or groups of chemicals such as phthalates and Teflon-like chemicals known as PFAS, that consumers should avoid to better protect their health and the environment.”

“It is critically important that consumers make smart decisions to avoid products containing known and potentially toxic and persistent compounds,” says Dr. Miriam Diamond, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto. “But making smart decisions isn’t always possible without labelling. When in doubt, remember to reduce use first, which can protect not only yourself, but also workers who make the products and the environment that receives the product when you wash it away.”

Many of these chemicals are unregulated or have weak restrictions on their use in consumer products in Canada. For instance, phthalates, which are reproductive toxicants

Environmental Defence’s new Toxic Ten list includes: 1. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) 2. Formaldehyde & formaldehyde releasing agents 3. N-Ethylpentedrone (NEP) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) 4. Oxybenzone 5. Parabens 6. Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) 7. Phthalates 8. Siloxanes 9. Talc 10. Toluene

38 | March/April/May 2020

typically added to cosmetics as fragrance stabilizers, have been found by U.S. and European agencies to be harmful to human health at current levels of exposure, especially during pregnancy and childhood. However, the Canadian government has decided not to regulate them in personal care products. More troubling is the fact that these chemicals are usually undisclosed on product labels due to labelling exemptions for fragrance ingredients.

PFAS, a large class of chemicals known for being used in non-stick cookware, stain and water-resistant carpets, and outdoor clothing, are highly persistent in the environment.

Canada has regulated some legacy PFAS chemicals, but there are more than 4,000 new PFAS that may be used in products sold in Canada. Most PFAS have not been adequately tested for their safety or lack of harm.

Other chemicals include parabens (preservatives in cosmetics and suspected hormone disruptors), oxybenzone (a sunblock ingredient that has harmed coral reefs around the world), and toluene (a toxic chemical used in nail products).

For the full list of chemicals including information on each one, please visit environmentaldefence.ca/toxicten -GG Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian advocacy organization that works with government, industry, and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate, and healthy communities. (www.environmentaldefence.ca)

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 39

Williams Lake on Track to Become the Rail Tie Burning Capital of Western Canada

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ten-year Electricity Purchase Agreement (EPA) approved Oct 1, 2019 between Atlantic Power Corporation and BC Hydro will allow the burning of more than 2.4 million toxic rail ties per year at an energy plant in Williams Lake, beginning as early as September 2021. This comes despite a concerted effort by local citizens to oppose the Ministry of Environment’s decision to allow rail ties as fuel.

The rationale for accepting rail ties as a fuel source is the projected shortfall of available clean wood fibre to run the plant. The EPA stipulates that rail ties treated with creosote or pentachlorophenol (PCP) can make up 50 per cent of the fuel stock daily or 35 per cent annually. In contrast, Washington state completely prohibits the burning of PCP contaminated ties, and both Washington and Oregon will not allow the burning of rail ties for public power. Other communities, such as Kamloops, have rejected the use of rail ties for energy production.

Rail Ties Be Wise (RTBW) is a citizens group that formed in 2016 to oppose Atlantic Power’s application with the Ministry of Environment for a permit to burn retired rail ties in its Williams Lake plant. The group pursued every possible legal avenue and supported citizen appeals of the permit during the Environmental Appeal Board process. The group also identified concerns about the leaching, stability, and airborne particulate dangers of the energy plant’s ash disposal site located on the escarpment above Williams Lake river valley.

These concerns were dismissed by the board.

As a result of RTBW efforts, only 35 per cent of the fuel burned annually can consist of rail ties, not the 50 per cent originally requested in the application. The board also implemented RTBW demands that Atlantic Power must participate in air quality monitoring with other stakeholders and publicize results on the internet. An additional air quality monitoring station is to be set up, and monitoring will be carried out for one year to establish baseline emission levels before any rail tie burning is permitted.

Rail Ties Be Wise pinned its hopes on the BC Utilities Corporation turning down the rail tie burning proposal in compliance with

40 | March/April/May 2020

Submitted by Rail Ties Be Wise

Airshed quality is a concern in Williams Lake as plans move forward to burn rail ties. The region experienced significant air quality issues during the 2017 wildfire season. Photo: Scott Horley

the Clean Energy Act. However, the provincial government issued an Order-in-Council exempting the EPA from BCUC scrutiny.

Rail Ties Be Wise was supported by stakeholders in the forest industry working to create employment and revenue by selling waste wood from logging operations to the energy plant. The Cariboo Chilcotin Teachers Association also expressed concern. Members of Rail Ties Be Wise met with the Deputy Minister of Environment and representatives from BC Hydro and the Ministry of Mines and Energy, presenting 1450 petition signatures and postcards from the Williams Lake community opposing this project. Many individuals also voiced their concerns.

Numerous questions and concerns arise around importing, processing, and burning rail ties in a valley with an urban population—not the least of which is the impact of emissions and incremental toxicity on human and environmental health. Other concerns include the toxicity of the ash residue, its susceptibility to wind dispersal, and the stability of the ash storage landfill site.

The forest industry is currently supplying the plant with clean wood fibre from logging and wildfire debris. If it’s more profitable for Atlantic Power to burn rail ties over other abundantly available clean sources, these jobs could be lost.

If Williams Lake becomes known as the Rail Tie Burning Capital of Western Canada, the tourism industry and property values will likely be affected. Retirees and professionals – such as teachers, lawyers, doctors, and engineers – may not want to relocate or remain here with their families.

Atlantic Power may have won its legal right to burn rail ties in Williams Lake plant, but does it have the social licence?

If the people of Williams Lake are concerned, they need to make their voices heard.

If you care about these issues and would like to get involved, join the Rail Ties Be Wise Facebook page or join the email list at wlrailtieinfo@gmail.com to stay informed of developments and actions.

Rail Ties Be Wise is not giving up. -GG

Protecting Species by Making Room for Nature

By Gauri Sreenivasan, Nature Canada’s Director of Policy and Campaigns

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et’s face it: we wish there was no need to mark Endangered Species Day. Unfortunately, for now the trends seem to indicate otherwise. In Canada, half of all monitored species have declined (see WWF-Canada’s Living Planet Report www. wwf.ca/about_us/lprc/) in Canada since the 1970s, many of them by more than 80 percent. In BC’s central interior that includes species like the Peregrine falcon, white sturgeon, and the mountain caribou (www. ccconserv.org/sar).

It’s our responsibility to make sure these species continue to thrive, for the health of the planet and for our children and grandchildren. But nature is under threat, and it’s time for us to act. With this urgency, Nature Canada and more than 20 environmental organizations across the country launched Make Room for Nature in 2019.

The campaign is a collaborative call to action for all Canadians.

Together, we support – and when necessary, pressure – the Canadian government to meet its commitment to protect 17 percent of land and 10 percent of marine areas by the end of 2020, and a full 25 percent by 2025.

The campaign is urging the government to take an international leadership role in protecting even more nature. This means moving beyond 25 percent by 2025 to 30 by 2030 and 50 by 2050. Canada’s wilderness is vast. Protecting more of it will reduce habitat loss and give populations of endangered species the chance to recover and adapt to the changing climate.

The Make Room for Nature campaign also underscores that Canada’s efforts to protect biodiversity and avert species loss can only be achieved if we support and elevate Indigenous-led conservation. First Nations communities have a close relationship with their traditional territories, and their stewardship efforts and traditional knowledge are an invaluable part of the solution moving forward.

Of course, British Columbia has already seen establishment of important new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA).

These include Qat’muk in the Purcell Mountains west of Invermere.

The creation of this IPCA recognizes the Ktunaxa Nation as stewards of the land who will continue to conserve the park in partnership with provincial and national partners and in accordance with their own laws and rights. Recognition of Indigenous rights and governance in this way can makean important contribution towards reconciliation goals.

We all need nature, regardless of our occupation, our political beliefs, or our age—for wellbeing, for clean air and water, and for support to diverse livelihoods. Fortunately, we can each play a role in protecting nature. Whether it’s writing a letter to your MP about protected area targets, working with neighbours to improve backyard habitat for endangered species, or organizing a lunchtime nature walk at the office, you can make a difference. Nature is our home, and protecting it is our responsibility.

To learn more, visit www.makeroomfornature.ca/#home and www. naturecanada.ca/about. -GG

Peregrine falcon. Photo submitted by Nature Canada

Nature Canada is one of the oldest national nature conservation charities in Canada. For 80 years, Nature Canada has helped protect over 110 million acres of parks and wildlife areas in Canada and countless species.

Today, Nature Canada represents a network of over 100,000 members and supporters, and more than 800 nature organizations.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 41

Celebrate Seed Sovereignty

Seedy Saturday and the Early Bird Farmers Market in Williams Lake, May 2 Article by Erin Hitchcock

From L to R: At Seedy Saturday 2019 Oliver Berger helps sell “compost gold” from the Potato House Sustainability Society, Mary Forbes ensures the event was very green and zero waste, and City of Williams Lake’s economic development officer Beth Veenkamp and resident Pat Teti do a little shopping while supporting community growers and farmers. Photo: Pat Radolla

L

ittle can compare to the first bite of a freshly picked veggie, grown yourself or by a friend or neighbour.

You can imagine how it formed from a tiny seed and was nurtured by careful hands, fed by nutrients in the soil, and quenched by the rain and the sunshine.

Visitors to the 12th annual Seedy Saturday taking place May 2 in Williams Lake will get a taste of that biological wonder and more as our community celebrates that amazing process and the local gardeners and farmers who put so much attention and passion into their craft.

The event, co-organized by the Williams Lake Food Policy Council and the Williams Lake Farmers Market, provides an opportunity to stock up on local seedlings and seeds, to mingle with folks from our wonderful community and with fellow gardeners and farmers, and to share in the spirit of spring.

It also promotes plant biodiversity, heritage and organic gardening, and seed sovereignty— the right of farmers to save, use, exchange,

42 | March/April/May 2020

and sell their own seeds. It’s important we cherish a food system that respects the ecological processes, our health, social justice, and traditional agricultural methods.

The event will include numerous garden and market vendors, educational displays and demonstrations, as well as Fennel Cup Food Truck and Big Dog Hot Dogs to satisfy growling tummies. LeRae Haynes and Friends, Harry Jennings, and Sharon Hoffman have also confirmed their presence, providing some listening entertainment while guests tour around.

As this is a family event, be sure to bring the kids, who will get to enjoy some dirty, handson activities just for them and their caregivers.

The Potato House will again have compost for sale, and the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society will ensure the event is zero waste.

Members from the Williams Lake Garden Club will also share their gardening passion and accept seedlings and extra seeds to share with others. They will chat about their latest Seed Library initiative, as well.

Visitors can learn about the Memory Garden Community Garden and how to sign up for a free garden bed, as well as how to help support local food and food security in the Cariboo.

“Last year this joint event was buzzing with happy vendors, musicians and visitors,” says Seedy Saturday organizer Deb Radolla. “We invite everyone to join us for this collaborative gathering.”

Seedy Saturday will take place at the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex parking lot, next to Kiwanis Park, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, May. 2. Visit the Williams Lake Food Policy Council or Williams Lake Farmers Market Facebook pages for regular updates on who and what else will be there, as more and more is being added to the day’s offerings. -GG Erin Hitchcock is the food-action co-ordinator for the Williams Lake Food Policy Council and is passionate about seed sovereignty and food security.

The New Roaring Twenties Article by Jim Cooperman

This large fir tree was one of many that shattered from the pressure of too much wet snow and wind at the beginning of January, the start of the new Roaring Twenties.

Photo: Jim Cooperman

T

he arrival of the new decade that finally has a familiar ring provides an opportunity to reflect on the previous one, make predictions about the upcoming one, and compare it to its namesake: The Roaring Twenties. No doubt it will be as roaring as the last one, but more likely the roar will not be coming from the wild dance parties; instead it will emanate from wildfires, intense storms, rising social upheavals, and yet more wars.

With so many countries now run by leaders seemingly populist—but increasingly authoritarian and in cahoots with the greedy elites—it is likely at some point citizens will rebel when they see themselves increasingly marginalized. As climate change impacts more people, it is inevitable that the public opinion tide will turn with Greta Thunberg’s movement gaining support and influence.

What is too often missing in any article about climate change is the true nature of the problem that all predictions call for exponential growth. We are witnessing the exponential growth of most impacts already, including glacier loss, wildfires, ocean acidification, and intense, unpredictable storms. There is little doubt that the upcoming decade will be much warmer, which could provoke a tipping point in public opinion towards greater uncertainty about the future and greater distrust of status quo governments.

It has been an ominous start to the new decade with fires devastating Australia, a Mideast assassination, and a major health crisis. Here in much of B.C., at the beginning of January, an unprecedented, climate-changefuelled storm combined massive amounts of heavy, wet snow with strong winds to result in thousands of trees either snapped in half or fully down. As a result, many homes experienced a power outage, while some were without power for up to four days.

The impacts from the new year’s “snowmegeddon” will be felt far into the year, as many hiking and cross-country skiing trails are crisscrossed with hundreds of trees. The downed trees can also attract fir bark beetles,

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a strong correlation with rising temperatures. Global temperature anomalies averaged and adjusted to early industrial baseline (1880-1910) Source: NASA GISS, NOAA NCEI, ESRL www.climatecentral.org/gallery/download/co2-and-rising-global-temperatures

whose populations can then expand into the standing forests.

With record amounts of snow and more on the way, the possibility of flooding in the spring increases. As well, if warm weather arrives early and is accompanied by heavy rains, there will be more slides and other erosion events as we have already seen too often in the province.

We have passed the point of no return when it comes to climate change. The tipping points are kicking in, as methane, which is 70 times stronger than CO2 in warming the planet, is escaping from the warming arctic and leaking from all the fracking sites. Forest fires are releasing more CO2 and are covering glaciers with ash, causing them to melt faster. When the sea ice is gone, the oceans warm faster and the ice melts faster.

Despite all the global efforts and climate change confabs, the levels of CO2 continue to increase. There is a 40-year time lag between the release of CO2 and the resulting warming, due to the delay in the ocean heating. Thus, even if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, the temperatures would continue to rise for at least another 40 years.

While it is critical that citizens demand action to mitigate climate change, it is obvious that we need to address the need for adaptation.

Wildfire is the biggest threat in B.C., and the government needs to invest more money into removing forest fuel around communities.

More effort should be directed to food security—Canada cannot depend on imported food in the future because climate change will likely impact southern food growing regions.

The fires in Australia should be a wake-up call and prompt immediate action to reduce emissions and prepare for an uncertain future.

By the end of this decade, I predict the major concern for most people on the planet will be survival.

At best, we can begin the decade with our fingers crossed with the hope that one of the best places in the world to live will continue to remain green and viable. -GG Jim Cooperman was a forest activist with the BC Environmental Network during the 1990s.

He now focuses on local issues in the Shuswap, where he has lived for 50 years. His bioregional book, Everything Shuswap, is a local bestseller.

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 43

Geshe Sherab Returns for his Fifth Visit to the Cariboo

Buddhist Teacher, Geshe Sherab.

Photo: www.geshesherab.com

G

endun Drubpa Buddhist Centre in Williams Lake was established in 2012 to provide a place in the community for people to access Buddhist teachings, meditation, or just quiet space for spiritual contemplation. Part of a world-wide network, the centre is affiliated with the parent organization known as the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). The centre has hosted numerous workshops and classes with resident FPMT and travelling teachers and offers peace and insight through Dharma teachings, which develop understanding in how to lessen suffering and bring greater happiness. Part of integrating these teachings into our daily life comes from sitting in meditation or contemplation. Regular classes on meditation are also provided.

This April, Gendun Drubpa Buddhist Centre is pleased to be hosting Buddhist teacher Geshe Sherab on his fifth visit to the Cariboo.

Geshe-la holds deep knowledge of Buddhist philosophy (a Geshe degree is roughly equivalent to a PhD in the West). Geshe Sherab travels the world offering teachings to FPMT centres and is a highly regarded teacher.

Geshe’s humility, warmth, sense of humour, and genuine interest in people shines through, and we consider him part of our family at the Centre. He relays the wisdom of Buddhist teachings in language we can all relate to and gives practical applications of its relevance in our daily lives.

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Geshe Sherab was born in Nepal and went to Kopan Monastery as a child, eventually studying with Lama Yeshe, founder of the FPMT. Around age 18, he was inspired to study to become a Geshe when he realized that people in his home province, although extremely devoted, lacked in-depth comprehension of the Dharma. The role of a Geshe in Tibetan Buddhist society is to teach Dharma and share their knowledge in the monasteries, schools, and among lay people.

He was greatly influenced by studying with eminent teachers, including H.H. Dalai Lama, Gaden Tri Rinpoche, H.E. Khensur Rinpoche, and Lama Zopa Rinpoche (spiritual director of FPMT), observing how they practised and engaged in their daily lives.

Geshe-la believes that both study and practice are critical.

Observing how students tend to favour one over the other, he says that the most important path for beginners in the Dharma is to integrate both the intellect and heart.

Learning how to live a happier life prepares one for a more calm, peaceful death. Join us

for a public talk at the Williams Lake Library titled, “Peaceful Living/Peaceful Dying” on Friday April 17, 7–8:30 p.m. (all are welcome) and a weekend seminar at our Centre, 212 S. 3rd Avenue, titled,“Death and Rebirth” (registration required) on Saturday and Sunday April 18 and 19. Please check our website for details: www.gendundrubpa.org. -GG Geshe Sherab currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as resident teacher at Thubten Norbu Ling for six months of the year, and travels to other centres for the other six months.

For more info on Geshe Sherab visit www. geshesherab.com

The gompa, or meditation room, at Gendun Drubpa Buddhist Centre in Williams Lake. Photo: Colleen O’Neill

The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 45

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46  |  March/April/May 2020

Directory Listings Healthy Food / Farms Continued

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ISLAND MOUNTAIN ARTS

Art in the Heart of the Cariboo since 1977 44th Annual School of the Arts Artist-in-Residence Exhibitions & Events 17th Annual ArtsWells Festival Northern Exposure Conference Wells & Barkerville • July 31 - August 3 • artswells.com

www.imarts.com • 1-800-442-2787 The Green Gazette www.thegreengazette.ca | 47

48 | March/April/May 2020