While in Costa Rica this week, I visited an ancient Rainforest in Nosara.  This protected space was teeming with wildlife covered by a canopy of huge, ancient trees that were hundreds of years old according to our guide (one was over 600!).  I was reminded of America's redwoods and giant sequoias.  These massive trees are protected and it is illegal to cut them down, but only within the ecological preserve.  As we rode along on our horses, we heard the strange, haunting howls of howler monkeys, beautiful bird songs, and saw multi colored lizards and iguanas, red and black crabs, butterflies and trees with huge, emerald green leaves.  After our horseback ride through the forest, we left the preserve and I thought I could hear the distant sound of chainsaws.  As we came around a sharp bend, the dense forest opened up and I saw row upon row of hundred year old trees that had just been logged, lining the road.  Sadly, they would never grow into the giants we had just encountered.  Our code of life must include caring for our earth.  Our treatment of the environment around us MUST change, before we lose the beautiful, incredible diversity of plants and animals we have been lucky enough to enjoy.  I am reminded of a song by Crosby, Stills and Nash...

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,  
and feed them on your dreams
the one they pick
the one you'll know by...

REDUCE instead of just recycling plastic.  Just because you put something in a recycling bin, doesn’t mean it gets recycled!  50% of items put in recycling bins doesn’t get recycled.  Why? China is no longer accepting as much recycled material, so now it is going into landfills.  As a result, our earth is swimming in plastic.  It is estimated that 14 billion pounds of plastic per year ends up in our oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers 1.6 million square kilometers — 617,000 square miles — according to a new report from The Ocean Cleanup foundation. Wow!  We need to focus more on reducing or stopping our use of plastic. Plastic is choking our oceans, killing our whales, dolphins, turtles and sea life.  There are huge patches of floating plastic in the ocean, some bigger than the state of New Jersey!  All this started around 1950 and it keeps getting worse every year.  Let’s stop the madness!  I challenge you to purchase items not packed in plastic.  Don’t use plastic bags, don’t drink water from plastic bottles, don’t use straws or plastic or Styrofoam drink cups. Take it a step further and don’t purchase clothing made with polyester, nylon, acrylic and synthetic fibers.  Re-use old clothing for rags, woven rugs, or dog bedding.  If you must purchase polyester, buy polyester cotton blends which shed less plastic in the wash than pure polyester or acrylic clothing.  Bring a glass container to take home leftovers from the restaurant.  Place a thin mesh bag on the end of the washing machine hose to capture fibers.  Most of all, change your life style and live more mindfully.  

​Recently, my aunt told me she was planning to cut down trees on her Maine tree farm as part of her Forestry Plan.  I was glad she is protecting the area of old growth forest on her beautiful farm.  Everyone who visits her small patch of mature forest, falls in love with the ancient white pines that stand like sentinels watching over the fern lined, mossy forest as it slopes toward the nearby pond.  Oddly enough, I also stumbled across an article in a scientific magazine reviewing the amazing work of Peter Wohlleben who wrote The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (public library).  In it he explains how trees form supportive networks, “families” if you will, nurturing and helping other trees to survive in surprising ways.  He discovered this when he found an ancient tree stump felled hundreds of years before that was still alive!  Trees nearby were “feeding” it with nutrients and sugars through their roots as well as using an interesting fungal network.  Again, I thought of clear cut forests and even woodlands where many, but not all, trees have been culled.  Often the few remaining trees die because they have lost their supportive network, their protection from wind, heat and sun provided by nearby trees.
 
“There are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish a consistent local climate. It is at the mercy of wind and weather. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old.”

Interesting to me was the discovery that “mother” or parent trees were supporting younger saplings that struggle to reach sunlight in the dense canopy and were unable to easily use photosynthesis to convert sugar into food.  Here the older nearby trees helped by sending sugar through their network of roots to feed the younger trees. We need to recognize that forests are families…interconnected ecosystems…and treat them with respect as we consider our forestry plans. 

[Photo by Bob Moul}
Monarchs in North America are amazing in that they cover vast distances of up to 3,000 miles during their migration (or rather, several generations of monarchs eventually help complete the journey).  Key to their survival are milkweed plants, the caterpillars only source of food.  The trouble is many open fields that had milkweed have become subdivisions.  Also, farmers spray weedkiller on their fields killing the important milkweed plants - not good for our faithful and beautiful monarchs.  Can we help?  Certainly.  Plant milkweed!  Buy organic fruits and vegetables.  Lobby for protection of the oyamel fir tree forests and preserves in Mexico.  Small steps DO make a difference.

While we wait for America and the rest of the world to stop burning fossil fuels, we can take small steps to do our own part to slow climate change. Really?  Yes!  Something as simple as planting trees and gardens or using your own compost goes a long way toward holding carbon in the soil. This in turn slows climate change. Eating homegrown vegetables and fruit also helps because this uses less fuel.  Buying clothing in thrift stores or re-using items helps even more since there are so many steps in manufacturing clothing or furniture and then bringing them to market that use fossil fuels. It seems odd that such simple steps can leave a smaller carbon footprint, but each small change helps!  

I think what is most disturbing to me about the current administration (and I will not go into politics here) are the changes to our environmental policies.  Believe what you want, but there are real statistics available to us on how our animals, plants, trees, and oceans are being harmfully affected by what we humans have done in the past 200 plus years.  First, if you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, watch it.  If you have no idea what is happening to our climate, seek out vetted news, read and explore scientific information.  If you are wealthy enough, visit the arctic circle and watch polar bears and penguins.  Travel to Africa and observe poaching first hand.  If you are not wealthy (like me) take the time to watch Nature or other shows about what is happening to our planet.  I am deeply distressed that our country is not doing everything we can to make a difference for the animals and creatures of our planet. Climate change and things like the hole in the ozone layer (which we DID do something about) are not "fake news". I wish all this was fake news.  It is not.  Things like melting glaciers, loss of animal populations, and destruction of animals and animal habitat are measurable. 

My husband sometimes kids me that I care more about animals than I do about people.  Well, possibly... because animals do not have a voice!  They can't do the things that need to be done to reverse this dangerous trend.  Animals can only try to adjust, not an easy task when natural adaptation or finding a new habitat (if it is even possible) can take centuries... When I see the extensive bleaching of coral reefs, starving polar bears, monocultures devoid of healthy ecosystems, slash and burn farming in the rapidly disappearing rainforests, animal species going extinct - I am not proud to be a human.  I am sad. 

So of course, there are thousands of websites that offer constructive suggestions for how to make a difference.  I suggest at a minimum you do this:  Study the views of future candidates and vote accordingly.  Teach your children how to care for all animals, how to plant a garden, how to cherish the earth's creatures, how to sit still and watch the wildlife around them, how to be empathetic, how to make a difference, how to live differently.  Then do the same! 

Join in on the fun with the Six Rivers Adventure League!  Some events include: paddling scenic stretches of rivers, exploring rugged trails in local recreation areas, and biking through some of Michigan’s best trail networks.  Check the schedule for upcoming events and bring the family for some great outdoor adventures!