When Indonesians arrived in New Zealand about 1,000 years ago, eight to
10 species of moa, ostrich-like ground birds, were abundant. Within a few
hundred years, most of these were greatly diminished or extinct. The human
population must have exploded with such an abundant food source, to be
followed by a crash which mirrored the downfall of the moas.
Closer to our home, the Haisla of Kitamaat formerly harvested sockeye
after spawning. This allowed the fish to reproduce and also lowered the fat
content in dried fish, reducing spoilage. The Haisla, who probably achieved
balanced resource management, now use outboards and gill nets which increase
their ability to catch fish. To make over-fishing easier.
Indigenous cultures develop rules over lengthy periods of time which have
a conservation effect. I believe these practices minimize ecological damage
and so reduce human suffering through starvation.
First Nations undoubtedly descended from early hunters who arrived in
North America and, over time, eliminated most slow-moving fauna, like giant
ground sloths and mammoths. Studies of plants as indicators of climate
suggest the extinction of these species was human caused. The bounty
available to those early hunters must have resulted in a boom-and-bust
cycle, the end result being starvation for many. Over time, better rules
governing management of resources evolve. However, even when a human society
reaches balance with the local environment, lessons must be relearned every
time a new technology changes the capacity to exploit resources.
In the 21st century, some of us are intuitively, if not intentionally,
attempting to bypass the most painful part of that familiar learning curve.
Given our global population and our current technology, we can easily render
the planet unlivable. But if we can use our intelligence, if we can respect
ecological mandates and introduce adequate conservation measures, we may not
suffer the worst of global warming, of extinction, overpopulation, ozone
depletion and pollution.
Western society has recognized the need for conservation relatively
recently and that understanding is still evolving. National parks,
endangered species legislation, anti-pollution laws, more rational forestry,
are some approaches we are using to tweak our culture into living more
sustainably.
Many conservation efforts attempt to protect areas of scenic,
recreational or biological importance by locking them up in protected areas.
But these are subject to the whim of governments and of changing values.
However daunting the idea of making society more sustainable may be, those
of us optimistic enough to try are forever in need of new ideas on how to go
about it.
)
After long apprenticeships, Ian Green and I, founders of Greenheart
Conservation Company Ltd, are attempting to demonstrate the next approach to
conservation. Our specialty is building canopy walkways as ecotourism
attractions.
We believe that conservation can be economically viable. The fastest
growing part of the global economy is tourism, and the most rapidly growing
segment of tourism is ecotourism. Unfortunately, this term has been misused
so often, it has become almost meaningless, encompassing everything from
trophy hunting to bird watching.
The best in ecotourism profiles a natural environment and often a local
culture. It aims to protect or at least cause a minimal impact. Even this
type of ecotourism may be ultimately unsustainable because it usually relies
on jet fuel and other travel costs. But it can serve as an interim step
between purely destructive resource development and something approaching
sustainability. What sustainability in the modern world actually looks like
is unclear to me. Sustainability is somewhat like health. A person is more
or less healthy; a development is either more or less sustainable.
We think our best hope of creating or maintaining protected areas is by
demonstrating, especially to governments like the B.C. Liberals, that
conservation can also be good business. With that hope in mind, Ian and I
registered a company in BC which aims to be equally for-profit and
for-conservation.
We are the self-proclaimed, but we think undeniably, world leaders in
canopy walkway construction. Canopy walkways are a series of suspension
bridges hanging from tree to tree. They travel out from a hillside and allow
tourists to walk in the upper canopy of the forest. They are effective at
attracting visitors, who then become an audience ripe for information about
environmental issues and approaches such as ecoforestry. And walking through
the tree-tops, far above the forest floor, is fascinating fun.
)
We have a rigorous set of criteria for development of these projects,
acquired in over 12 years of experience in six countries. We will not build
walkways for strictly commercial purposes. Ideally, a walkway has an impact
on a small area but generates the financial capacity to protect a larger
area of ecological value, especially one that would otherwise be destroyed
through resource development.
Candidate areas require large, healthy, long-lived trees, on a gentle
slope, with an expansive view, in an area accessible to people with limited
capacity to walk. Walkways employ local people in construction and
maintenance, as guides and in other visitor services like boat or bus
driving, hotel and restaurant staffing.
The walkway we built in Kakum National Park, in Ghana, West Africa, now
draws 80,000 visitors a year. Prior to the walkway, fewer than 900 people
visited that park. The Kakum walkway grosses about US$1 million a year;
regional economic spin-off is valued at about $5 million a year. The Kakum
walkway pays for the anti-poaching team, it funds economic development in
surrounding communities, it directly employs about 50 people in the park and
uncounted numbers in the region and country.
In many ways, Greenheart has already become a model of how to shift gears
from an industrial to a green economy. Our walkways are engineered to
Canadian standards. The aluminum components are manufactured by a
ship-building company in Steveston, BC. "Mancatcher" netting on
the side of bridges is Workers' Compensation Board-approved. Manufactured in
Canada, it's the best netting available for this purpose. Our bridges and
platforms hang from the Treehugger (patent pending), a suspension system
designed by Greenheart and our engineers to allow trees to grow while
supporting huge loads. We are exporting Canadian expertise, materials,
manufacturing and technology, as well as a green approach to development.
We recently completed a five-bridge, four-platform canopy walkway at
Iwokrama, a protected area in Guyana, South America, which demonstrates the
approach we will probably follow in future. Iwokrama (www.iwokrama.org) has
an international forest centre, dedicated to creating sustainable
conservation-based solutions for both its 360,000 ha forest and the planet.
The walkway is part of a strategy which includes promoting ecoforestry.
Greenheart (our company is named after a tree containing the longest lasting
wood growing in the Amazon) answered a request for proposals and won the
CIDA-funded contract. We conducted a site visit, designed a walkway, came
home and had it engineered. The components were manufactured and every nut,
bolt and tool required was shipped to Guyana in a container.
)
We worked with local people to build it. By the time it was finished,
they were able to do any maintenance required. In fact, they could even
build one on their own if they had the required materials.
We are currently working on a number of projects in North America and
around the world. Working in the tropics is sweaty, often inconvenient,
requires long periods away from home and family, and always involves
innumerable itchy insect bites. This is joy compared to the trials involved
in developing a project in Canada, such as a 600-metre walkway we are
seeking permission to build in North Vancouver's Lynn Canyon. (The
Ecoforestry Institute has offered educational and interpretive support.)
This project is of particular interest to Ray Travers, RPF, retired chair of
the Ecoforestry Institute, because although the site looks like a big, old
forest, it has been logged heavily and repeatedly.
We hope for permission to operate a for-profit business in this municipal
park. The walkway will contribute to the public education mandate of the
park and in the proposed lease agreement, revenues shared with the District
of North Vancouver would remain in the park for improved management and
public education programs. The result would probably increase visits to the
park but traffic would be controlled, reducing its impact.
We believe that small-scale projects like this in public parks are better
than privatization of the parks themselves. Once they are privatized, parks
are gone for good.
One project on the immediate horizon is a National Geographic-sponsored
walkway in the cloud forest of Peru, a few hours drive from Cuzco, to be
built for Adrian Forsyth and the Amazon Conservation Association. Other
upcoming projects are in the redwoods, Tahsis, Sarawak, and Nigeria.
Together, they give us hope that we can make a decent living in conservation
without depending on foundations, government or other charitable sources.
John Kelson lives in Smithers, BC.
250-847-4794. E-mail will reach him at oolichican1@hotmail.com. Ian Green
lives in Vancouver, 604-731-0677 and his e-mail address is
ian@greenheartconservation.com. Visit their website at
www.greenheartconservation.com. For information about Iwokrama,
http://www.iwokrama.org/ecotourism2002.html.
© 2002 Ecoforestry Institute
Originally published in Ecoforestry 17(4):4-7