The Nature Effect
How green space can improve a province’s bottom line
In the early 1990s the Clinton
administration put a stop to logging in huge swaths of old growth forest in the
U.S. to protect a small, non-descript brown bird that was facing extinction:
the northern spotted owl. Many people predicted that forestry-dependent
communities in Oregon and Washington State
would be eviscerated by the decision to protect “owls over jobs.” That fear was
exploited by George Bush Sr., who attacked Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan with the
claim that “We’ll be up to our necks in owls and every mill worker will be out
of a job.”
Bush’s prediction that environmental protection would cause an
economic apocalypse in the region proved to be unfounded. Rather, job losses in
the forestry sector were more than offset by a boom in new types of employment.
Economic growth was driven by the arrival and expansion of high-tech firms,
like Sony and Hewlett-Packard, and federal programs that retrained former
loggers and mill workers for diverse new employment opportunities, including in
the high-tech manufacturing sector.
Every socioeconomic indicator showed that, far from facing economic
ruin, former resource-dependent communities responded positively to increased
nature conservation. Over the following decade, the region’s graduation rates
increased, income levels rose, poverty fell, and the unemployment rate remained
unchanged despite a 91 per cent reduction in logging on public lands. Today,
despite being the historical timber-basket of the U.S.,
Oregon now
credits high-tech manufacturing with producing 10 per cent of its economic
output – more than eight times the national average.
To the north, in the Chilliwack Forest District of southwestern British Columbia,
resource-dependent towns that were built on logging and milling ancient forests
into two-by-fours now support a far more diversified employment base as well.
The proportion of employment from logging in the region now represents less
than 1 per cent, compared to growing film production (2 per cent), high-tech (8
per cent), and tourism (10 per cent).
This shift in employment patterns is partly because many former
resource-dependent communities located near larger urban areas have been
successful in attracting diversified businesses – drawing city people who want
to shift gears and enjoy the benefits of living in a community more connected
with nature.
For many firms, the motivation to establish workplaces in communities
like Eugene and Portland
in Oregon and Victoria, B.C., or nearby bucolic bedroom
communities, is a recognition that employees benefit from access to nature and
improved quality of life. As the mayor of the mill town of Springfield,
Oregon, told
the New York Times shortly after logging restrictions came into effect to
protect the spotted owl, “It wasn’t blind, dumb luck that helped us land Sony;
the company wanted a pristine place on the river.”
Indeed, many of today’s most successful companies are recognizing
the importance of quality of life for their employees – at work and at home.
Many are willing to locate their operations closer to nature, and to green
their own workplaces. Thus we have seen a boom in the number of green roofs,
green walls and rain gardens integrated into the design of office complexes.
This green wave in the workplace has been bolstered by the many
positive benefits of green time over screen time. Over the last decade,
researchers from fields as diverse as biology, psychiatry, ecology,
horticulture and medicine have come to the conclusion that spending time in
nature is good for our own health and well-being. Their research has shown that
access to natural assets like parks and green spaces can improve our physical
and mental health while enhancing community.
University
of Illinois researcher
Frances Kuo has documented that access to nature close to where people live and
work can result in less stress and more job satisfaction among employees, as
well as increased productivity and reduced absenteeism and employee turnover.
In addition to health benefits, nature also provides a myriad of
non-market economic benefits, according to research by the David Suzuki
Foundation and others. These benefits come in the form of services provided by
the community’s natural ecosystems, or natural capital. Forests purify the air
and keep the city cool in summer. Wetlands filter drinking water and protect
communities from floods. Fields and farms provide local food and habitat for
pollinators and other wildlife.
The benefits of easier access to nature have not been lost on
governments. Ontario has permanently protected
more than 700,000 hectares of near-urban green space and farmland through its
internationally renowned Greenbelt.
Quebec recently announced its plan to wrap Montreal and Quebec City in
protected greenbelts as well, and the federal government plans to create Canada’s first
urban National Park, in the Rouge Watershed in the heart of the Greater Toronto
Area.
These initiatives to protect nature, literally in the backyards of
millions of people, are happening at a time when fewer Canadians are visiting
our existing system of far-flung wilderness parks. Visits to the National Parks
system are down 7 per cent across Canada
as a whole, down 10 per cent in Quebec and Ontario, and 18 per cent
lower in the Maritimes. Parks Canada officials are now openly talking about the
creation of the new Rouge National Park as a “gateway park” for the Canadian
public, with the hope that citizens will become better connected with nature in
their backyards and more likely to visit Canada’s cherished wild spaces.
The fact is, nature is clearly worth much more than
we think. It provides essential services and produces health and economic
benefits that far exceed the short-term gains obtained from its destruction.
Faisal Moola 120611
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