Tag: nature

In Search of Quiet Places

  • Gordon Hempton uses a mic stand shaped like a human head to accurately capture the sounds we hear. (Photo by D Harrington)

There are very few truly quiet places left in this country. There’s noise pollution even in the wildest, most remote national parks.

Gordon Hempton has been traveling to some of those last quiet places and he wants to protect them. He’s an Emmy-winning professional sound collector. He’s traveled the world to record everything from city streets to howler monkeys. He’s the author of One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet. He’s joining me from Olympia National Park in Washington State.

You’ve said that you’ve found just 12 places so far in all of the U.S. where there’s an interval of at least 15 minutes without human noise. What do you think we’re missing out on if we lose those places?

AUDIO EXTRA: Hear more from Gordon Hempton

The Sound Tracker

Hempton on WBUR’s On Point

Hempton in Newsweek

Transcript

HEMPTON: In a quiet place in nature not only are we listening to many, many square miles, but we are connecting, we are re-connecting, with where we come from, who we are and how our bodies have evolved to take it all in.

RW: A documentary has been made about you – called Soundtracker – and in it, the thing that struck me the most was when you talked about having to trust your gut feeling. You were in Sri Lanka, it was dark and you were recording…


(sound of Hempton’s Sri Lanka recording comes up under)


HEMPTON: Right, I learned a very important lesson that morning in the Sri Lanka rainforest of Sinharaja. And I was there to record morning bird song and that means getting up early, so I was walking into the forest, in the dark, and started to roll. And then my good feeling changed to panic. I could honor my panic and simply leave my equipment running, and so I walked away. Months later, I’m sitting in my Seattle studio reviewing the tape… I hear my footsteps disappear and moments later, there’s the guttural growl of the leopard.


(leopard growling)


RW: I have to tell you I found that sound to be terrifying!


HEMPTON: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, I know. I hate to think what would’ve happened if I’d remained there.


RW: So you’ve recorded all over the world for 30 years. How do you find these true quiet places?


HEMPTON: You know, I’ve been looking at Michigan. The very first thing I do, I look at the nighttime view of the United States, and I looked in this case at the nighttime view of Michigan. The upper half of Michigan was surprisingly dark. Then I went to the FAA chart to see all the airways that are charted and I could see that most of Michigan was covered. But there were two areas that were not. So I went to Google Earth and zoomed in on those places and I could see there were quite a few roads. But there were two locations: Manitou Island, particularly a site on that island that is Perch Lake. And also Lily Lake on Isle Royale National Park.


RW: So what can we do to protect these places?


HEMPTON: There’s one action we can all participate in to save the vanishing quiet places of this country. And that is to pass a single piece of legislation that will create for the very first time these areas off limits to all aircraft over our most pristine national parks.


RW: Gordon Hempton is a professional sound collector and the author of: One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet. Thank you so much.


HEMPTON: Well, all right, thank you Rebecca.


RW: You can hear some of Gordon Hempton’s work and his favorites on our website: environment report dot org. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Interview: President of the National Wildlife Federation

  • Larry Schweiger says that we as a society are losing connection with nature, but those who are in nature every day are seeing the changes of global warming take place. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, David Parsons)

The head of a hunting, fishing and bird-watching group has written a book that indicates to save nature as we know it, we have to come to grips with climate change. Larry Schweiger is the President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and author of the book “Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth.” Lester Graham recently talked with him:

Transcript

Graham: You write in your book, “like it or not, global warming is the defining issue of the twenty-first century,” but you also note that there’s a significant amount of what you call “cynical obfuscation” of the science on global warming. If the overwhelming amount of science supports the fact that climate change is happening, and burning fossil fuels is contributing to that change, why is skepticism among the American public growing?

Schweiger: Well I think you need to look at how much money’s being spent by the fossil fuel industry, the oil and coal industry, to confuse the American public on this issue, and they have done a masterful job, as we’ve seen, in creating doubt, sending signals of confusion…

Graham: Most scientists tell me the effects of global warming are happening faster than first predicted, but those effects are often lost on the general public. Your group, the NWF represents hunters, fishers, bird-watchers, people who are out in nature. Are they noticing changes?

Schweiger: They are, and they are helping us to communicate to congress, and helping us to get the word out about what’s taking place. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans today spend 7 hours or more in front of a computer screen or a TV screen, or in some other way disconnected from nature. The average child, for example, spends some 7 minutes a day in nature, so we as a society are losing connection with nature, but those who are in nature each and every day are seeing the changes take place ‘cause they’ve watched it over their lifetime.

Graham: Your book not only makes the case that the world of nature as we know it is worth saving, but you note some things that everyday folks can do—you can protect natural areas near you, talk back to news media, push the politicians, get your hands dirty, literally, by organic gardening at home, but I get the impression most of us are looking to someone else to solve this global problem, I mean after all, the earth is just too darn big for any one of us to make much of a difference.

Schweiger: Well that’s a very important question because in America we assume that our government is gonna just solve our problems, but really what we need to do as Americans is we need to give voice to these problems, and demand that we see action. I think we need to step up and tell our lawmakers what we believe, what we want to see done.

Graham: Now you’ve spent some time in the halls of congress. We saw the house pass climate change legislation last year. The senate has kind of scrapped that whole thing and now senators, Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham, are working on a new plan. When do you think we might actually have some policy put into law that will help us deal with this climate change situation?

Schweiger: Well let me first say that the three senators working on this legislation are doing the type of legislating that we need because they’re working together, it’s a tripartisan bill—

Graham:–Alright, Kerry’s a Democrat, Lieberman an independent, and Graham is a republican—

Schweiger: –Right. So we have all three working together. And I particularly want to acknowledge Lindsey Graham—he has bucked his own party saying we need a new energy policy in America, we need to wean ourselves from dependency on foreign oils, very powerful things, and I think it’s very influential in the way it’s playing out here.

Graham: Larry Schweiger is the president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, and the author of the book ‘Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth.’ Thanks very much.

Schweiger: Thank you.

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Interview: Sesame Street

  • Elmo is surprised when he and Rosita find a baby bird as part of Sesame Street's 40th season. (Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Sesame Street)

Sesame Street is going green.
The children’s program will
focus on nature education during
its 40th season with the “My
World is Green and Growing”
project. Lester Graham talked
with Carol Lynn Parente.
She’s the Executive Producer
of Sesame Street:

Transcript

Sesame Street is going green.
The children’s program will
focus on nature education during
its 40th season with the “My
World is Green and Growing”
project. Lester Graham talked
with Carol Lynn Parente.
She’s the Executive Producer
of Sesame Street:

Lester: Letters, numbers, social interaction, all things we’d expect from Sesame Street. Why nature?

Parente: We learned by having our academic research advisors that by giving love and exposure to the environment was the best way to hopefully create citizens that will want to take care of it.

Lester: What kind of things will kids be able to pick up from this effort?
Parente: Well, we want to just get them out and exploring the environment and nature in general. And that can be in whatever their environment is. So nature doesn’t necessarily have to be a camping trip, although Elmo does go on one of those in our season 40, but it can be out experiencing what is in their environment, whether it be urban or rural and –

Lester: yeah, I wanted to note that. I mean, Sesame Street is an urban setting for kids whose lives are more about concrete and asphalt than flowers and grass. How will you relate to them?

Parente: Well, when you talk about noticing your environment, those environments and habitats are all around us. So, grass for a child in a suburban big wonderful meadow or field might be what their version of grass is, but there is also grass that pops up between the concrete of the sidewalks in an urban setting. And there are habits of wildlife in every environment you’re in and getting kids to understand that is part of the fun.

[Clip from Sesame Street Episode]

Lester: Some of these environmental issues are complicated, a little scary, take global warming for example. So where do you draw the line on Sesame Street?

Parente: When we talked about how the environment affects our audience, some of the messages that are common with environmental conservationist messages like “Save the Earth” and that’s a really scary concept for very young children because it implies something is wrong and something is going to happen and you don’t what that is and what needs saving. So we really stayed away from those kinds of messages. It’s really about having fun interacting with the environment and I think for our audience, that’s where we really put the focus.

[Clip from Sesame Street Episode]

Lester: So, how often in a typical show will we hear about nature and how long will this nature education effort last on Sesame Street?

Parente: It’s definitely has a presence in every single show in season 40, which is great because it’s a really thorough, um, jump into the curriculum. We’re definitely dealing with it through all of season 40 and the science part of the environment, which it really what it is, a science and nature curriculum, will extent into season 41 as well.

Lester: Carol Lynn Parente is the executive producer of Sesame Street. Have a sunny day!

Parente: Thank you, you as well!

[Clip of Theme Song]

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Big Name Design With a Green Twist

  • New York fashion designer Issac Mizrahi during a fitting session. Mizrahi used salmon leather to create an ensemble that includes a dress, jacket and shoes. (Photo by Mackenzie Stroh, courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum)

You might not have heard of the design firm Pentagram, but more than likely you’ve seen
its work. Pentagram designed the shopping bags for Saks Fifth Avenue, the logo for
Citibank, the layout of the New York Times Magazine. In short, its designers make
things look pretty. Recently, Pentagram got a call from the nonprofit Nature
Conservancy. As Hammad Ahmed reports, it wasn’t the usual request for a nice new logo
or packaging:

Transcript

You might not have heard of the design firm Pentagram, but more than likely you’ve seen
its work. Pentagram designed the shopping bags for Saks Fifth Avenue, the logo for
Citibank, the layout of the New York Times Magazine. In short, its designers make
things look pretty. Recently, Pentagram got a call from the nonprofit Nature
Conservancy. As Hammad Ahmed reports, it wasn’t the usual request for a nice new logo
or packaging:

The Nature Conservancy wanted Pentagram to issue a challenge to big name designers.
And the challenge was this: design environmentally friendly stuff. In other words, you
have to use renewable, abundant, and natural materials… instead of plastic.

Pentagram stepped up the challenge, recruited some designers, and, now, I’m here to see
what they came up with.

Curator Abbott Miller and I are standing at the Smithsonian Design museum in
Manhattan.

“The exhibition actually goes, um, this way.”

The exhibition is called “Design for a Living World.” And honestly, it looks like a
Pottery Barn. Bowls, chairs, and rugs. When you look closely though, you see all this
stuff is made from really interesting materials. For example, salmon leather.

Miller: “Salmon leather is stripped away from salmon in the process of canning and
literally was considered waste, but is actually an incredible material.”

Ahmed: “So this is just like salmon scales?”

Miller: “It’s the skin of salmon that’s been preserved.”

Working with the preserved salmon skin fell upon big-name fashion designer Isaac
Mizrahi, who’s more used to designing with silk and satin.

“If you’re weighing like sort of you know ecology and glamour, I think they weigh the
same to me, sorry to say that.”

Ecology or glamour, huh? Well, Mizrahi took this salmon leather and he turned it into a
dazzling pair of high heels you’d expect to see on the red carpet.

“For some people, that kind of product, represents a negative.”

Gary Bamossy is a marketing professor at Georgetown’s Business School.

“These very expensive green items that are really just sort of ‘fashionista’ kinds of
acquisitions, they see that as frivolous and maybe even as a waste of money.”

So, not exactly a ‘green ethic.’

And this makes me wonder which way of being green is better. Buying more shoes made
from salmon leather? Or not buying more shoes at all?

Abbott Miller admits it’s a valid question.

“That whole question of should we buy less, I think the answer is probably yes. You
know everyone knows that we’re an over-consuming culture.”

So if the real problem is over-consumption, what’s the point of green design?

When I ask Gary Bambossy, the marketing professor, he comes back with another
question.

“Green design as it relates to museum and as fashion? Or green design as part of a
business model process?”

And that question makes me realize green design isn’t just a new look for the same
products. It’s a new way of making those products, and educating the consumer.

Abbott Miller says we really ought to know more about what we buy, what is used to
make it.

“We may come to a point of such hyperawareness of the materials that we use that that’s
part of the story of why you buy something.”

Miller and Bambossy agree that buyers increasingly want to know more. And that could
lead to products being more sustainable.

But, the thing is, all this awareness isn’t free. So, you’re left with one last question: are
you willing to pay more for knowing more about the things you buy?

For The Environment Report, I’m Hammad Ahmed.

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Whose Nature Are We Talking About?

  • Several neighbors near Cook County Illinois' Bunker Hill Forest Preserve are concerned about the loss of trees. Bathsheba Burmin is third from the left. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

When somebody says a natural area, does everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:

Transcript

When somebody says a natural area, dose everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:

If you go to the Bunker Hill Forest Preserve just outside Chicago, you find picnic spaces, bike trails, and woods – acres of woods.

If it’s the wrong day, though, a security guard will turn you back from the woods.

Guard: “Closed off for a while? It’s closed off for a while. They’re doing a controlled burn – they’re burning that field over there.”

Man: “What are you doing exactly? Burning?”

Guard: “Controlled burn.”

Forest preserve workers in sooty, yellow fire suits are burning brush and trees.

They say soil tests show this land was once savanna – a kind of grassland with a few trees mixed in.

They’re trying to restore it to that original landscape.

Volunteers help out with this restoration, but a small number of people want to stop it.

“Everything they burned today is area they’ve cleared over the past two years. We’re opposed to cutting our urban forests.”

Bathsheba Burmin shows me the site – after it’s cooled.

She wants me to see what it takes to turn woods into savanna.

Burmin: “It’s a little muddy, so…”

Allee: “It’s hard not to notice.”

(sounds of walking through mud)

Allee: “This place is being actively transformed.”

Burmin: “Yes.”

Allee: “You can see brush piles moved around, trees have obviously been cut because you can see the stumps, and obviously they burned just today.”

Burmin: “What it does is tell the story of what the restructuring of an ecosystem looks like.”

Burmin and a few of her neighbors have protested the transformation of these woods into savanna.

Some don’t believe this was ever grassy savanna in the first place.

Burmin says, even if it was savanna – it’s not now; it’s woodland – and she regrets losing the trees.

Burmin: “If you’re not familiar with the site and you hear there’s an increase in grassland species you must be doing something wonderful. Nobody talked about what happened to all the woodland species. The reason you have an increase in grassland species, but that’s because you took out all the forest.”

Habitat restoration can be violent.

It can involve poisoning or burning unwanted plants or maybe killing animals like deer that graze on more desirable plants.

Wildlife managers use restoration techniques all the time, but on occasion critics like Burmin ask tough questions about it.

When that happens, people like Stephen Packard rush to its defense.

“Now we’re standing in a place where all the brush was cut last year.”

Packard heads the Chicago chapter of the Audobon Society.

He’s offered to show me some restored savanna, about ten miles north of that Bunker Hill spot.

It looks kinda familiar.

Allee: “There’re stumps and sticks everywhere.”

Packard: “Is this ugly or is it not ugly? Here’s my perspective on it. To me it’s like a bunch of broken eggshells after someone made an omelet. I think this is a beautiful thing to see the first stage of recovery. It is stumps, it is bare ground, but from doing this, I know certain plants will start to come up and keep developing.”

Packard says no one restores savanna because they like chopping trees.

It’s just that some plants need open space and light – like in a savanna. Dense woods create too much shade for them.

He says if we let some natural areas literally run wild, a few aggressive species take over, and the rare ones lose out.

“You lose millions of years of evolution of these thousands of species that may be important to the planet, so why not have some places where we can take care of them?”

Packard says some natural areas are so unhealthy, that for now, we need to protect some parts of nature from others.

And if you don’t buy that – you don’t buy restoration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Money Over Mother Nature

  • A Gallup poll finds people feel the economy should be given priority over the environment (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

A new poll shows Americans put money over Mother Nature. Lester Graham reports it amounts to a real shift in attitudes:

Transcript

A new poll shows Americans put money over Mother Nature. Lester Graham reports it amounts to a real shift in attitudes:

A Gallup poll finds people feel the economy should be given priority over the environment.

51% think so. 42% still think the environment is more important.

Frank Newport, Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief, says Gallup has been asking this same question every year for 25 years.

“This is the first time that we have had more Americans say growth should be given the priority not the environment. So, it’s a fairly dramatic and significant change this year.”

Newport says the results reflect people’s concerns about keeping their jobs and keeping their homes in this economy.

He concedes the issue is not just black and white – the environment versus the economy.

Jobs are being created in a shift to greener fuels and energy efficiency. But apparently that’s not clear to the American public. Newport suggests that might be the challenge facing people in the environmental movement.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Interview: Nature Improves Productivity

  • Not everyone can get out and walk along the Lake Superior coastline everyday, but researchers say any walk in a natural setting will help. They count an increase in productivity among the benefits. (Photo courtesy of Dave Hansen.)

You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:

Transcript

You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:

Marc Berman was one of the co-authors of a study on nature and focus published in the journal Psychological Science. He spoke – and walked – with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Wildman Forages for Food in Central Park

  • (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:

Transcript

Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:

It’s a beautiful fall day in New York’s Central Park, and Steve Brill is looking for
something to eat.

“Everyone come over here, we have another species. Come on over here.”

Steve Brill – I’m sorry, Wildman Steve – leads foraging tours in parks all over the New
York area. And today he says he’s going to prove to me and about thirty others that the
park is full of things to eat.

“Try this.”

But the tour starts off a little rough. At first we find a lot more plants that can kill us than
feed us. Yellow violets will make you vomit. So will pokeberries. And, so will
pokeweed.

“Is this the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? The chemical is called buteric
acid. The name comes from rancid butter. This is a common element in
decaying flesh.”

Foraging isn’t for the faint of heart – or the uneducated. Wildman is very careful to tell
people to study up before they start snacking on the weeds in their backyards. But he says
once you learn to recognize edible plants, it’s pretty easy to tell them apart from the
poisonous ones.

“You have to know what the plant is. If you go into a supermarket, you have
to tell the difference between the apples and the cigarettes. The apples are
good for you, the cigarettes will kill you. Black walnut doesn’t look much
like poison hemlock. They all have their identifying characteristics.”

And it turns out there’s a lot of stuff out there that is edible. Chew some birch bark – it
tastes like wintergreen. Primose has a root like a radish. Garlic mustard tastes like, well,
garlic. Mixed with freshly cut grass. We didn’t really love that one. But the crab apples
were great.

“This is a crab apple tree. And the ripe crab apples, they have a texture of applesauce and
a flavor like tamarind. Tell me if this doesn’t taste like tamarind.”

“Just eat it like this?”

“Yeah, just spit out the seeds. These are really addictive. I like these.”

Ok, but before you start poking around in your neighborhood park, there’s one more thing
you should know. The thing about foraging is, it’s kind of quasi-legal. You’re not really
supposed to pick the plants in most parks. And Wildman Steve himself has gotten in
trouble for this. In 1986 Central Park officials busted him for foraging. They led him off
in handcuffs and charged him with criminal mischief. Wildman eventually got off and he
hadn’t had any run ins with the law since, well, until this year.

A week after I met Wildman Steve he was in court again, this time for harvesting
sassafras.

“Defacing the park. That was my crime. There’s no defacing at all. I didn’t damage or
destroy anything. This is just total nonsense.”

Wildman Steve faces fines of up to $2000. But that hasn’t stopped him from leading
tours. Why would he stop, he asks me. His tours can change how people see the world
around them. And that’s more important than a court date.

Take 12 year old Rory Langan. Rory told me his cousin has a black walnut tree in his
backyard. But it never occurred to him that the walnuts he found on the lawn had any
connection to the nuts you buy in the store.

“I actually never thought you could eat these. I thought it was poisonous. It’s pretty cool
though. It’s actually pretty good.”

He says he can’t wait to go home and show his cousin what to do with all those snacks in
the backyard.

For The Environment Report, this is Samara Freemark.

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A Stamp of Approval

  • The 2008 Nature of America issuance, Great Lakes Dunes, is the tenth stamp pane in an educational series that features the beauty and complexity of major plant and animal communities in the United States. A description of the dunes and a numbered key to the artwork appear on the back of the stamp pane, along with a corresponding list of common and scientific names for 27 selected species. (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

The new sheet of stamps is the latest in the Postal Service’s “Nature
in America” series.

John Dawson created the painting depicted on the sheet of stamps. It
features 27 different kinds of plants and animals found in the Great
Lakes Dunes.

Dawson says he hopes the stamps will make people more aware of the
beauty of the dunes, and the need to save the whole environment.

“The animals, the plants, the flowers, the bugs, it’s all inter-related.
That’s what’s important about showing this stuff – that it’s important to
keep the environment intact, because there’s so many things that
depend on each other.”

Dawson has designed all ten of the Nature of America series. But this
one is special to him because he started his career living in the Great
Lakes region.

For The Environment Report, this is Heidi Chang.

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Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, on a Singing Hike We Go

  • Music teacher Maura Volante leading students on her "Woods Walk Singing", a singing hike (Photo by Karen Kelly)

In many cultures, people sing as
they work or as they travel. But in North
America, most of us aren’t comfortable
singing out loud in public. Karen Kelly
reports on a music teacher who’s trying
to change that – by taking her students
into the woods:

Transcript

In many cultures, people sing as
they work or as they travel. But in North
America, most of us aren’t comfortable
singing out loud in public. Karen Kelly
reports on a music teacher who’s trying
to change that – by taking her students
into the woods:


“Ooh, ah. Ooh ah. Here’s another part: aay-oh”

Maura Volante is leading a troupe of six students through a path in the forest.

It’s rainy, buggy and muddy. But everyone quickly gets into a groove – both with their
feet and with their voice.

(sound of walking song)

“There’s lots to look at all the time: the green and the shadows, the lake, the sky and all
the different vegetation. And when I’m feeling relaxed and I’m in my body and I’m
walking along and I’m in nature like that, it just makes me want to sing. It inspires me to
let my voice out.”

Volante teaches singing in Ottawa, Canada. For her, people don’t need a good voice to be
able to sing. Instead, she says singing just comes naturally to humans, like breathing and
walking. Which is why she tries to get people outside where they can experiment and
make mistakes.

“It’s kind of like recreational softball. It doesn’t matter if someone sucks at it. They can
still play. It’s for fun.”

(sound of more singing)

We spend about two hours hiking around the heavily-wooded Mud Lake.

I did some research to see if I could find any other organized singing hikes. I found one
at a bible camp in Virginia. And there’s one at a kibbutz in Israel. And, at Yellowstone
National Park? They recommend singing loudly – or shouting – to scare the bears away.

Of course, lots of people like to sing when they hike. On this walk, Kathy Woodgold
says she sings differently when she’s walking in nature.

“When we’re in the woods, it brings sort of a primitive spirit. Like, I’m thinking, let’s
pretend we’re not civilized, instincts, and so on. And maybe that opens up a creative
spirit. It frees us to sing random notes, instead of having to feel like we have to do a
predefined melody.”

This isn’t really a conservationist group. But teacher Maura Volante says, in some small
way, doing this helps the planet.

“I think there is a benefit to the environment for people to sing more because that gets
them to appreciate nature more and appreciating nature helps you be committed to
preserving it.”

(sound of singing “O Canada”)

The small group stops at a dock overlooking Mud Lake for their only performance of the
day. The audience? Ducks, frogs and mosquitoes.

But they give it their all.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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