By Ken Wu
I’m writing this piece on Earth Day, with a belief that going forward in 2022 – with much of the world in the throes of a seemingly never-ending pandemic, expanding climate chaos, and now the potential prospects of World War 3 – that there is big appetite for hope and positive solutions. Plus, I believe this is the best approach in general.
Here is a quick glance at some key areas of hope that I see for our future, and some of my recommendations for taking strategic action. This is not a comprehensive list, just some quick observations from things I’ve learned from over 30 years as an environmental campaigner in Canada.
A New Hope
It is fully true that the planet and all our fates are threatened by a climate and mass extinction crisis. But it’s vital that we also focus on the hopeful areas where opportunities exist for further effective action. Otherwise, a lack of hope can result in inaction, or sometimes worse yet, action can be driven fundamentally by fear, despair, and cynicism, with the poor judgement those mindsets produce.
Here are some areas where I see some major hope:
A massive global movement to expand protected areas is underway, with Canada and over 90 countries joining the “High Ambition Coalition” committing to protect at least 30% by 2030 of their land and marine areas. Later this year the UN Biodiversity Conference will convene to negotiate this potential target and relevant policies, and there will be major citizens movements leading up to the conference and beyond to expand protected areas across the planet. The US government, after Trump’s election loss, has also committed to this goal, although it is not part of the international agreement.
In Canada, which has currently protected 12% of its land area, major protected areas expansion has occurred largely in the North in recent years, driven by First Nations communities working for new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. There has also been significant progress in Nova Scotia and Quebec to expand protected areas, while in BC massive First Nations and citizens pressure has recently resulted in a reluctant provincial government moving to defer old-growth logging on over a million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forests, a pre-cursor to their potential permanent protection, representing about 40% of the areas recommended by the province’s appointed science panel (and a hard struggle yet to get the rest...).
Canada’s interim target is to protect 25% by 2025 of its land area, meaning that the protected areas system needs to double over 3 and a half years. The main problem now is that, except for Quebec, the provinces have generally been major conservation laggards and have failed to adopt and/or implement Canada’s national protected areas targets, nor have they implemented the funding and policies needed to achieve these targets. They must get pushed hard.
The movement of First Nations to establish Indigenous Protected Areas that protect native ecosystems and First Nations rights, including subsistence uses, cultural practices, employment opportunities in stewardship, and Indigenous management authority, has expanded across Canada and much of Earth. Indeed, the vast majority of protected areas expansion in Canada in recent years has been driven by First Nations. If the provinces can be made to get on board to support these initiatives, both policy- and funding-wise, we will see the large-scale expansion of the protected areas system in many endangered ecosystems in Canada, including in the neglected southern, diverse ecosystems most coveted for logging, agriculture and urbanization, and where most governments are hoping to minimize protection.
When it comes to climate change, there's also an increasing global understanding that “nature-based solutions” are vital - protecting nature so that vast amounts of carbon are drawn-down into protected forests, wetlands, and grasslands. That is, there is no feasible path to meet the world’s climate targets unless we protect native ecosystems on a large scale, while also simultaneously making deep cuts in emissions and scaling-up the clean alternatives. National and international climate policies and agreements are increasingly focused on protecting native ecosystems.
Key technological advancements that provide alternatives to fossil fuel extraction, industrial agriculture, and even large-scale industrial logging, are moving ahead quickly. Most people are aware that the price of developing solar and wind power has now made clean energy more economic than fossil fuels across much of the planet (but must be coupled with far stronger government regulations and policies to restrict the last throes of the fossil fuel industry), but fewer people are aware that industrial agriculture, which has fully annihilated more native ecosystems than any other industry, is likely to be supplanted in large part by the development of microbe-based food production in factories that takes far less land, water and energy, and which is being quickly developed in Finland and the US. Within a few short years, with the exception of vegetable farming and some niche-agriculture, most agricultural lands may be reverting back to forests and grasslands, drawing down vast amounts of carbon, supporting biodiversity, and enhancing our quality of lives.
Researchers now are developing a means for bacteria to produce cellulose fiber – wood fiber – in factories in the forms that are needed, such as furniture, doors, or for buildings. This could potentially undermine most of the costly, inefficient, and extremely destructive industrial logging industry focused on building roads into remote wild regions and up rugged mountainsides to log the last primary, old-growth forests (although of courses we need laws ASAP to protect as much as possible right now).
The global environmental movement expanded to unprecedented heights in 2019, thanks to the teenage environmental catalyst Greta Thunberg, and is picking up steam again. While the pandemic of 2020 undermined the momentum, the fact is that a new generation of youth on an unprecedented scale has gained experience in environmental activism, and indeed, it was the largest expansion of the environmental movement in history. There is huge potential to continue this momentum as we move forward in 2022.
Of course, all these areas of hope require government action to speed up the implementation of environmental progress – as the environmental crisis is a time-constrained issue. Governments must eliminate the destructive practices and industries and bolster the more sustainable alternatives with policies, incentives and legislation. To create the political will requires massive citizens’ action.
Some Positive Approaches for Action
Here are some strategic approaches that I've learned over the years that I believe are key to achieve major environmental progress. This is a quick list for now, I’ll elaborate more on them in a future article.
We need to scale-up, using approaches that, in general, maximizes public support and minimizes public opposition. It will take a large scale, broad-based movement of people to influence the political decision-makers, who otherwise will overwhelmingly support the status quo. In this era of social media, it is more possible than ever to reach large numbers of people, but our approach and messaging need to be smart, in a way that informs, inspires and wins over a lot more people in general, rather than alienating them.
We need to organize far beyond our base of environmentalists and activists. With a few exceptions of environmentalist “bubbles” in places like southern Vancouver Island, Portland and parts of Germany, the existing environmental movement is far too small to fundamentally transform society. Engaging and organizing businesses, unions, diverse faith groups, outdoor recreation groups, and major multi-cultural outreach is vital to move the mainstream. Most importantly we need to support Indigenous ecosystem-protection initiatives, where most progress is happening on the ground in Canada.
We need to emphasize in our messaging and communications that environmentalism and protecting nature benefits the daily, proximate needs of the average person, in terms of the economy and our health and well-being. Too often environmentalism is seen as solely a concern about the fate of “others”, whether polar bears in the Arctic in 2100 or our children’s children’s children’s futures, or worse yet, a detriment to the jobs and well-being of people here and now. This is false. Studies show that protected areas attract and support more prosperous, diverse and resilient regional economies by supporting tourism and recreation, enhancing real estate values, attracting skilled labour into areas with a higher environmental quality of life, supporting clean water that supports communities and commercial and recreational fisheries, and benefitting many other industries. Increasing studies show being in forests and nature produces major health benefits, reducing stress, heart diseases, ADHD, and even directly bolstering our immune systems when we breathe in plant compounds known as “phytoncides”. Doctors are now even prescribing going into nature as a remedy for numerous ailments. And of course, the stability of society right now and our near-term ability to flourish as a civilization are heavily contingent on tackling climate change, which is fueling food shortages, wars, mass migrations and global instability.
Environmentalists need to get political, whether tackling government policies and legislation, supporting key candidates and parties aligned with saving ecosystems, or running for office. While voluntary, personal lifestyle reforms, local tree-planting and garbage pick-up are noble and can be a bridge to greater political action for some, they are not a substitute in terms of their scale and effectiveness for government policies and legislation that can eliminate the destructive industries at the point of extraction or production and bolster the alternatives on a major scale through financial and policy incentives. In addition, our lifestyles are fundamentally products of the economies, technologies, and organization of the societies in which we live – what is feasible, practical, affordable, and possible especially on a mass-scale (as required to tackle the scale of the environmental crisis) requires government action to change the societal and economic foundation that creates our base lifestyles.
We need to recognize progress when it happens. Yes, there is a major crisis, but if we only focus on the problems and destruction, while discounting all incremental progress when it happens, it becomes a major obstacle to continued action. If, despite all of everyone’s actions, the only thing that can happen is more destruction - that is, if all you can do is lose - then there’s no point to keep going. Not only is this just not true, for those really paying attention there is significant progress on many environmental fronts - it is to the benefit of the destructive industries, anti-environmentalists and those pushing for the status quo when environmentally concerned people are disempowered from taking environmental action by those who foster cynicism and despair. Recognizing progress gives energy to everyone to keep going, because what they do makes a difference.
This is not an exhaustive list of course, but just thoughts on some areas of hope, progress and solutions for the planet, from where I stand! And in the end we have no choice but to try our best to ensure a viable future for all life forms – so let’s figure out how to make it happen! There is hope!
Ken Wu is the Executive Director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance.