Author: yellowpointecologicalsociety

Here are the slides that report on our work during 2021:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/28dt7m9pp776ms0/2021%20YES%20AGM.pptx

By Guy Dauncey

Published in Take 5 Magazine, April 2022

Let’s start with a test: what does OCP stand for? Old Cobbler Pudding? Off-duty Celibates Party? No, it stands for Official Community Plan, the draft of which concerns everyone who lives in the Cowichan Valley outside of North Cowichan, Duncan, Lake Cowichan and Ladysmith.

A good OCP is an inspiring vision of a community’s future. A bad OCP is a book of waffle that make your brain weary and includes no commitments to act. We want the good one, not the other kind.

The CVRD planners have written the first draft of CVRD Bylaw 4373, which you can print and read. During April they are offering 14 opportunities to participate in on-line workshops, two for each of seven of the OCP’s eight Goals. You can sign in and register for a workshop here.

It opens with a Vision Statement: “Surrounded by thriving natural environments and farmlands, the Cowichan Valley is a collective of vibrant and distinct communities.” That’s pretty good. It continues: “Our connection to nature is at the heart of our identity … growth is incremental and managed … resilience to emerging trends will define our community’s future.”

So let’s dive in! Goal #1 is ‘Mitigate and Adapt to the Climate Crisis’, and the workshops are on Wednesdays April 13^th and 27^th, 6pm-7:30pm. Are the actions and policies proposed sufficient to reduce our climate pollution from transportation and natural gas by 40% by 2030, within 8 years? What more is needed? That’s for you to decide.

Goal #2 is ‘Manage Infrastructure Responsibly’, and the workshops are on Tuesdays April 5^th and 19^th, 6pm-7:30pm. This is about solid waste, recycling, sewage, energy, drinking water, and stormwater. It’s also about our aquifers and watersheds, and ecologically destructive logging practices that cause flooding, harm fish habitat, and wash forest topsoil into the ocean. Go to Cowichan Bay after a massive rainstorm and you’ll see what I mean, as the topsoil from forest clearcuts is washed down the Koksilah River, driving the sealions away and turning the ocean brown.

Goal #3 is ‘Make Distinct, Complete Communities’, which addresses – among other things – the affordable housing crisis. The text reads “Compared to the rest of BC, housing is generally more affordable for owners, but somewhat worse for renters,” which might be true if this was the 1980s. Are the policies sufficient to end the crisis? The workshops are on Wednesdays April 6^th and 20^th, 6pm-7:30pm

Goal #4 is Expand Mobility Options. This addresses the reality that 90% of our trips are by private vehicle, producing 79% of our dangerous greenhouse gases; that transit is minimal; that safe separated bike paths are few and far between; and that the CVRD has almost no jurisdiction in this area. The OCP also includes measures the CVRD can advocate for, however. How can we make it easier for people travel by bus and bike? The workshops are on Thursdays April 7^th and 21^st, 6pm-7:30pm.

Goal #5 is Protect and Restore Natural Assets – our forests and rivers, creeks and wetlands. What must we do to protect our watersheds, and the ecological integrity of the forest? How can we protect the frogs, the bees, and the native plants the birds depend on? The workshops are on Saturdays April 9^th and 23^rd, 10am–11:30am.

Goal #6 is Strengthen Local Food and Agricultural Systems. We all love our farmers, yet we import 95% of our food. What changes are needed so that they can grow much more local food? What would it take for farm workers to be able to live on the farms where they work? The workshops are on Saturdays April 9^th and 23^rd, 1pm-2:30pm.

Goal #7 is Enhance Regional Prosperity, which is about business, and the supposed need for more industrial land to build warehouses to store all the things we buy from Amazon. How can we make our economy green and circular, with zero waste? The workshops are on Tuesdays April 12^th and 26^th, 6pm-7:30pm.

Goal #8 is Improve Governance and Implementation, which is how the goals and policies will be implemented and progress will be measured. There are no workshops for this.

If you read the draft OCP you’ll be better equipped to participate. If you have ideas for change, bring them with you. The OCP lays the foundation for our region’s zoning bylaws, local area plans, and development permit areas, so it matters. Ideally, it stands for Obtainable Community Progress. Let’s make it so! See www.planyourcowichan.ca .

By Sabine Alstrom

Published in Take 5 Magazine, August 2021

As a nature lover who has enjoyed native plants for many years, I have noticed that the vast majority of gardens feature hardly any native flora in their designs.

Even more intriguing is the fact that this includes the gardens of people who genuinely care for our natural world and who understand the urgent need to preserve wildness.

The most likely reason is our conditioning from childhood onwards by the gardens around us, which focus on the decorative value of plants, never their ecological function. Nurseries strengthen this cultural mantra by promoting showy flowering species that are native to Asia, the Mediterranean, the tropics and so on.

And why not? I hear you say. After all, they are beautiful to look at. Plus, one might add, they garner respect and admiration from neighbours and visitors, enhancing our status. Regarding native plants, the cultural imperative seems to be: not in my backyard.

But here’s the big catch: introduced plants are not good at providing food for the native animals that drive our ecosystems. A full third of our wild bees are specialists, meaning their larvae, the next bee generation, can only feed on the pollen of certain native plant lineages. Over hundreds of thousands of years, they have evolved with these local plants in a win-win relationship. Bees get pollen, food for their larvae, from specific plant genera or even from a single species, while the plants ensure that their pollen is spread mostly in their own genus, guaranteeing seed production and propagation.

Now, picture a little newly emerged specialist bee, single-mindedly searching for the particular native flower it needs to rear its brood. If this mother bee can’t find those plants, it can’t fulfill the purpose of its short life: nest-building, egg laying and provisioning the babies with a pile of pollen food. When this little bee dies, so will future generations with it.

This scenario is happening around us millions of times, around the neighbourhood, the country and sadly, the world.

For the wild specialist bees, the most stunning introduced plants might as well be made of plastic. Our love affair with foreign plants is killing our bees by leaving them without food. To make things worse, many common introduced garden plants, like periwinkle, mountain bluet, yellow archangel and others, have become invasive inside and outside of gardens, forming smothering carpets that might otherwise be populated by native plants supporting ecosystem function.

Generalist bees, like mason bees, bumblebees or the non-native honey bee fare a little better, as they can make use of the pollen and nectar of some introduced plants. But along with most other insects, all are doomed by the pesticides and insecticides we liberally apply to our gardens for the sake of sterile prettiness and a perfect lawn.

Is it any wonder that an insect apocalypse is happening everywhere?

And yet, we don’t have to despair. There are some powerful positives that can fuel a turnaround:

We are lucky because the insects, although decimated are still around.

We control what grows in our gardens, and we can choose biodiversity over ecological destruction.

We can replace parts of our lifeless lawns and ornamentals with native plants, including shrubs and trees, that are the host plants for caterpillars, which are the indispensable food for baby birds. Introduced plants are essential useless at supporting the caterpillars of our native moths and butterflies.

We can opt against chemical poisons and for a natural variety of insect life, without which by the way, we humans would quickly be “toast”.

Oh, and did I mention that we have the most stunning native plants right here on the Island? They grow in my garden, but we hardly see them in nature anymore. When did you last notice such beauties as Woolly Sunflower, Farewell-to-Spring, Camas, Yellow Monkeyflower or Mountain Sneezeweed in the wild?

Let’s bring them back, and the wild bees, along with countless other insects, will find them. Let’s endow them wit the high status they truly deserve!

Sabine Alstrom lives in Duncan. For free help with your garden or more information, please contact her at sabinealmstrom@gmail.com.

Greetings!
We know that everyone’s holiday celebrations are being severely limited by the Omicron variant of the virus, so that’s all the more reason to pour some love into your family’s stocking. 

The Twelve Days of a Yellow Point Christmas

Here’s a sing-along for your family over the holidays, compiled by members of the Yellow Point Ecological Society: 

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, a raven in an ancient cedar tree.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, two clear streams, and a raven in an ancient cedar tree.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, three winter wrens
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, four hooting owls
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, five forests green
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, six frogs a-hopping
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, seven salmon spawning
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, eight hummers humming
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, nine seals a swimming
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, ten eagles swooping
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, eleven hikers hiking
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, whales a-breaching …

• We are exploring the possibility that a VIU master’s student could do a practicum project to look into the feasibility of purchasing forested land before it’s logged, to establish the forest as a Yellow Point Green Burial and Memorial Park.
• We are exploring ways to stop the frogs from being squashed as they cross Tiesu Road. 
• At our suggestion, the Nanaimo Area Land Trust is looking into ways to make Conservation Covenants on forested lands cheaper and easier to implement. 
• We are making good progress on The Yellow Point Trail – we have been awarded $400,000 from the Area H gas tax, and a feasibility study will be done by BOCA Engineering in 2022, with construction scheduled to start on the first portion of the trail in 2023.
• YES has been asked to become a Project Champion for Active Transportation for BC. We’ll find out what that means in due course!
• The Harmonized OCP for the CVRD has been approved by our Regional Directors, and the process of creating a new Modernized OCP will now begin, for which YES has been invited to form a Community Circle to gather your ideas.  https://www.planyourcowichan.ca
• We are holding our AGM on Thursday January 27th at 7pm, with guest speaker Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, author of Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. Suzanne is one of the world’s leading forest ecologists, who has forever changed how people view trees, their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest–a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery.  https://suzannesimard.com Registration details to follow.
• Our presentation by the wonderful Alexandra Morton on The Joy of Wild Salmon can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JUQmbS6Tso She has been called “the Jane Goodall of Canada” because of her passionate thirty-year fight to save British Columbia’s wild salmon. Her account of that fight in Not on My Watch: How a renegade whale biologist took on governments and industry to save wild salmon is an inspiring roadmap of resistance.
• Our presentation on Save the Cable Bay Trail Area – What’s Happening? can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x81H58hJK_A 
• Our presentation on What’s Happening at Fairy Creek? with Elder Bill Jones, Kathy Code, and David Suzuki chiming in, can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7e6vcpPbE 
• Our presentation on The Mushrooms of British Columbia, with Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther, can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECYsLIjuZTE, and their new book can be found here: https://publications.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/product/mushrooms-of-british-columbia/ 

Wildwood wants your help to  repatriate six acres to Wildwood

From The Ecoforestry Institute Society: Right next to Wildwood, there are 6 acres of old growth forest that are are critical to save – and we have limited time! Once brought back, the old growth trees will be safe for the rest of their natural lives. The Ecoforestry Institute will implement the same extensive covenants as they do in their other Wildwood Trust protections. The land is a biodiverse, ancient forest with trees older than 500 years, in a very precarious landscape which is becoming increasingly rare on Vancouver Island. Your donation, if you can help us,  will be matched up to $30,000 by other generous donors. https://www.ecoforestry.ca/save-the-6-acres

The Hidden Life of Trees – The Movie

Based on forester Peter Wohlleben’s bestselling book The Hidden Life of Trees, the film follows Wohlleben through forests in Europe and BC as he contends that trees are social beings who share food through their root systems, protect each other from insects and time their blossoming for bumper years that will outstrip animals’ ability to eat all the seeds. Wohlleben is not opposed to all logging, but points out that monoculture plantations are unhealthy; clear-cutting destroys the potential of young trees and heavy machinery does irreversible damage by compacting the soil. There are alternative approaches. A walk in the woods will never be the same after watching this film. The film is full of lovely images, macro close-ups and time-lapse photography. To watch on-line on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play or Vudu, click here: https://thestreamable.com/movies/the-hidden-life-of-trees-2020  Here’s the trailer: https://youtu.be/k_xKhHwqeW8

Monday December 27 The Nanaimo Christmas Bird Count 

From Nature Nanaimo: Do you love watching birds? Then this is your chance! Here’s the map, stretching from Cedar to North Nanaimo: https://www.birdscanada.org/download/cbc/maps/BCNN.pdf

Last year a few people were startled by people appearing to be looking at their houses with binoculars, but don’t worry – they are just interested in your bird feeder! Field observers cover a portion of the circle, counting all birds they find. Feeder watchers count birds at their feeders for a portion of the day. Bird species missed on the count day may be recorded during the count week, which is 3 days either side of count day. These may be rare birds or just something that was missed due to bad weather etc. Owl surveys are particularly valuable. They consist of early morning or evening surveys by listening for owls inside the count circle. Contact Heidi Vanvliet heidi.vanvliet@hotmail.ca, cc to Bryan Vroom bvroom@gmail.com

Here’s some Peaceful Winter Music   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N68Ous_DSfc 

And to wrap things up, here’s a jolly Holiday Party Song!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9EAavxrus

We wish you a warm, peaceful and happy holiday, from all of us in the Yellow Point Ecological Society

By Pamela Walker and Carolyn Herriot 

Published in TAKE 5 Magazine, October 2021

Soil, on which all life outside the ocean depends, has been created in part by thousands of years of falling leaves. As they fall down, life rises up. It’s the perennial gift that keeps on giving, but a resource that is often overlooked. After a year of drought we should all be stockpiling leaves to use as a protective mulch for next year’s garden. Broken down leaf mould can hold 300 to 500% of its weight in water. Rich topsoil, by comparison, holds about 60%. Leaf mulch holds in moisture, adds organic matter to the soil and provides nutrients to plants. It’s as precious as bullion to plants and beneficial insects, so whatever you do, don’t burn leaves or throw them away in a large plastic bag!