If it’s nearby, is nature still nature? Can we call city parks, even large uncultivated ones, “natural”? Given that over half of humanity now lives in cities, and that by 2050 an estimated 68% will, preservation of large urban green spaces is the only way most kids will grow up without nature deficit disorder.
Wilderness these parks may not be, but nature can appear even in a parking lot, perhaps as flowering weeds in pavement cracks, or lichen on a fence rail. Insects in puddles create a mini-society at our feet, and a stand of trees is a whole kingdom of bio-subjects. We must preserve wild and remote places, but nature is not all grizzly bears and caribou; it is also butterflies, hummingbirds and urban bees.
Qualicum Beach has done a terrific job of winding its streets around patches of woodland and threading walking paths among trees. Like the rest of the world, Qualicum has an aging population. In 2016, 8.5 percent of humanity was over age 60, and by 2050 the figure is expected to reach 22 percent.
Platoons of Qualicum’s seniors (and their dogs) gather for morning walks in the town’s suburban forest, kitted out with hiking boots and walking staffs. They want to feel earth underfoot and smell the aromas of forest bathing, the contemplative immersion in wooded landscapes which became popular in Japan in the 1980s and spread to the rest of the world as a form of mental and physical therapy.
The difference between urban and wild nature exploration is a matter of focus. When exploring the urban wild, instead of viewing mountain-top vistas we might peer into a tree cavity from which a squirrel peers back. We listen to a woodpecker drumming for a mate, and looking upwards spy an eagle nest. Now that the forests of BC have been logged up to city limits, the eagles have had to move into towns to find nesting space. Along city shorelines they compete with herons and raid the nests of crows. The resulting aerial battles, raptor vs corvid, make a show as dramatic as the contest between lion and wildebeest.
The same interactions which drive evolution in the wild – competition or symbiotic sharing of niches – also drive it in the city. The urban “Bio-blitz” is a popular way to investigate this. A species-counting Bio-blitz makes us ponder relationships among life forms and focuses attention on the micro- rather than macrocosm, nature’s detail rather than its grander sweep. It suits families with small children, and the suburban Bio-blitz serves as an entree for young naturalists not yet graduated to big league wilderness hiking. Exploring the semi-wild can be a dress rehearsal for exploring the extreme wild. To a five year old, even a bee in a jar or a spotted fawn in the backyard is a spectacle.
Every urban nature site is a petri dish. We need to preserve and learn from these sites. First thing we learn: nature is as powerful in town as in the wild.* The scale differs, but wind is wind everywhere, as are rain and the curse of drought. The “red tooth and claw” are also the same: no one can watch a crow snatch a garter snake from a grassy boulevard and dangle it in mid-air, without a sense of shock at nature’s brutality. No one can watch a non-native species like the Mediterranean wall lizard proliferating cheerfully in west coast gardens without accepting the unstoppable migration of species. Planet Earth is a dynamic household.
A city shouldn’t be overcrowded and over-paved, yet needs convenient transport corridors that actually enhance access to nature-exploration. Vancouver’s 1001-acre (405-hectare) Stanley Park was called the world’s best urban park by TripAdviser in 2014, based on reviews by its eight million annual visitors. The reason: it sustains real forest right next to down-town and citizens can drive right into it.
Similarly, Mount Douglas Park offers a salmon-bearing stream and shoreline estuary plus a forest-clad peak 738 feet (225 meters) high, while at its feet lie residential neighbourhoods.
Here’s something to ponder: will driver-shaming (and fuel costs) eventually reduce access to Canada’s wilderness parks? Some conservationists denounce all-terrain trucks, jeeps and camper vans. Yet if people cannot transport themselves to wilderness parks they tend to underestimate their value. On the other hand there can be too much access: Mount Everest, after all, has become the most famous landfill site on Earth. In some ways the near-town wilderness experience is the most ethical.
Nature is nature, right down to Blake’s famous grain of sand, and we needn’t apologize for preserving it on the small as well as the grand scale. Spacious urban parks are called “jewels” for a reason. They call the ones dotting Seattle an “emerald chain”. These were established initially by the same Olmstead brothers of the Garden City Movement which preserved the Uplands neighbourhood for large lots, winding roads (the famous “disappearing curve”) and gracious shade-giving Garry oaks. Whether you live there or just visit for a walk or bike ride, such neighbourhoods, like all urban green space, are precious for the lungs of everyone.
Recently a group of neighbours persuaded Saanich to buy from BC Hydro a field containing paths and mature trees flanking a stretch of Bowker Creek. Accessible to Jubilee Hospital workers on breaks, neighbourhood kids and off-leash dogs alike, this is another small gem. Everyone can look out for such spots in their neighbourhoods and prepare to defend those vulnerable to being “developed” (more properly termed “degraded”, from the nature point of view). The denser an urban population becomes the more vigilant urban conservationists need to be.
What should the vigilant urban nature-defender do then? Notice green “gems” near you. Notice before it’s too late which ones are at risk of development. Gather allies for their preservation. Lobby local officials and politicians, making sure they know where you stand (and where the trees stand). Defend these stands and the grassy corridors between them, as “emerald chains”. Isolated islands surrounded by pavement are not sufficient; animal and bird species need contiguous corridors of habitat in order to flourish. Help draft an emerald-chain map for the CRD.
British 19th century housing advocate Octavia Hill (who was instrumental in preserving London’s public royal parks), emphasized that housing for the poor must include gardens: “the need of quiet … of air … of exercise and the sight of sky and of things growing, seem human needs.” Octavia wrote that in 1888. These needs haven’t changed.
( *If you doubt it, read Menno Schilthuizen’s fascinating recent book detailing the surging onward unfolding of animal and plant evolution in urban contexts: Darwin Comes To Town (Picador, 2018). )
S. B. Julian, BA (History), MLS (Library Science), researches and writes free-lance about nature, conservation and history. The latest book from her personal imprint Ninshu Press is THE HORSE WHO MOVED BONES, a middle-school tale about work horses used in the dinosaur digs of the Alberta Badlands 100 years ago. (www.overleafbooks.blogspot.com)