“The green dark forest, too silent to be real.”

I have had several occasions in the last couple of weeks to reflect on this line from “The  Canadian Railroad Trilogy” by my favourite Canadian folksinger/troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot.  I don’t think I ever asked him about this line - I did interview him once when I was in university, but that is another story  -  but I suspect it refers to the idea that the modern Western world we live in is too often too full of noise. Yet, that is our reality. Then, if we do get to go to the forest, it seems in contrast “too silent to be real.”

I have been wandering through (and wondering in) the forests since my childhood in northern Manitoba. I have to thank my parents for giving us the freedom to do so for hours at a time. Sometimes I did so with my brothers or friends, but often alone. In the latter situation, I became particularly fascinated with birdwatching and finding and repeatedly keeping an eye on their nests. Of course, if there were birds to see there were songs to hear.

Nowadays Lightfoot’s prescient line has taken on a new meaning for me. One can walk for hours in a West Coast rain forest, in the Rockies, or here in the Québec Laurentians, where I am this week, with scarcely hearing a bird. This phenomenon has been noticed by others and attributed to a worrisome decline in songbird population in North America. Some of this  appears to be due to the excessive use of herbicides and pesticides which have negative effects on reproduction when worked into the food chain. Another factor is likely the downright destruction of their habitat, not only here where they nest, but throughout the continent where they migrate south end need to feed en Route and where they spend their winters. Believe it or not, some also contend that not only the excessive numbers of feral cats but also your beloved household kitty whom you let out to run freely, kill a lot more birds than you realize. 

So, if you care for our bird population, if you appreciate their songs in the morning, and own a cat, do not let it out without a bell. Better still, only take it out on a leash if you wish to give it exercise beyond the confines of your home. Cut down on or eliminate the use of herbicides and pesticides. Indeed, many of our jurisdictions have begun to enact bylaws against their use within their boundaries. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, of which I’m a member, has been a strong lobbyist in this regard.   

We might not be able to do much about these factors and destruction of habitat beyond the bounds of our nation.  However, some of it refers to our exploitation of so-called Third World or developing nations’ peoples and lands for our own benefit. We have become used to imported, inexpensive, fruit, vegetables and even flowers, all of which require removal of natural habitat to be supplanted by gardens, orchards and plantations to provide our needs. Another reason to look more closely at the use of resources and foodstuff that have their origins near at hand, e.g. the hundred-mile diet.

Meanwhile, other voices in our world are telling us how much we need the green dark forests, not to mention all the fauna that inhabit them. There has even been research showing that those who take breaks from their work routine that include walks in the park function better in their offices subsequently than those who stayed at their desks or went to the staff room. Another study reported that schoolchildren who were bussed through treed areas and past parks also functioned better than those who were bussed through the more typical urban concrete. Indeed, educators and even mental health therapists who promote mindfulness both realize that we need to get back in touch with nature. The phrase, “Nature Deficit Disorder”, has even been coined.

As a Christian, this takes me back to the beginning, as The Bible Describes it. Besides being told to “multiply and replenish the earth,” to use the familiar old King James language, at least to those of us in my age and older, we were also told to “subdue and have dominion” over the earth. Unfortunately, increasingly with the industrialization of our society in the last few centuries, this has been interpreted as supporting the over-utilization and exploitation of the earth’s resources. We have interpreted this as giving us permission to control nature

Now some of us followers of The Way are realizing anew that there is  is another way to understand these passages. We are meant to look after the Earth as a gardener tends his garden, which is obviously the way God spoke to Adam about his role as a human on this planet. Good gardeners know how to “replenish the earth” by using age-old manual methods of controlling vegetation and returning plant material back to the earth. This is doing on a small scale what we need to do on a larger scale when it comes to ventures such as mining and forestry. The new slogan for this is Creation Care. The last several decades’ awakening to the realities of climate change and humanity’s contribution to it has only further fuelled (pardon the pun) the need for us to change our approach from exploitation of the land to caring for it. Let’s do it.  As another slogan has it, “It's the right thing to do.”