I published Nearby Nature Project /29 more than 10 months ago. Since then, we traveled 5 weeks through Norway, where receding glaciers and melting permafrost = good reminders that we shouldn’t take Nature for granted. Nature is more than something that’s there when we need a pick-me-up or photos/videos for our social channels.
Canmore
Close to home, developer Three Sisters Mountain Village is tearing up the landscape to put in the roads, utilities and other infrastructure required for Phase I of the Three Sisters Village project. It’s heartbreaking to walk past the mud pits and to watch the displaced wildlife trying to navigate the changed landscape. I try my best to put the desecration in the context of the need for more – and affordable – housing in our community.
Alberta
Also close to home, the provincial government passed the All-season Resorts Act. Despite their initial framing of the Act as a means for spreading outdoor activities across more areas or the province and more seasons, the applications over the first six months would add more visitors to already crowded areas and turn some parts of provincial parks and protected areas over to for-profit leaseholders. Decisions regarding All-season Resorts applications are made within the Ministry for Tourism and Sport, which seems to me to put tourism ahead of environmental considerations. And I am deeply concerned that more than half the pages in the Act aim to limit any questioning or appeal of decisions made by the Ministry for Tourism and Sport.
On top of the All-season Resorts Act, the current provincial government has taken a “death by a thousand cuts” approach to relaxing hunting regulations, without public consultation.
And after introducing a bill that canceled a citizen-led petition against coal mining in the Canadian Rocky Mountains AND repeatedly reassuring Albertans that any coal mining activity around Tent Mountain (aka Grassy Mountain) will neither result in selenium leaching NOR any water use, the current government of Alberta is entertaining an application for an even bigger footprint Grassy Mountain coal mine that has also filed a water use application. It feels like a full-time job writing emails, making phone calls and sending letters aimed at trying to hold the UCP accountable to ALL Albertans and to Nature. 🙁
Think Globally, Act Locally
As a result of all of the above – and more – I sometimes find it’s hard to remain upbeat about the prospects for Nature. Fortunately, one of our main takeaways from a month exploring Patagonia and the high Atacama desert is that a small group of determined individuals – even a single person – can make a huge difference for the good of Nature.
My hope for the Nearby Nature Project series of blog posts has always been to make at least a small difference for the good of Nature. Our recent visit to Patagonia reinvigorated my determination to keep researching, writing and publishing posts in this series!
News Feed
Here are just a few Nature-related articles from the past 10 months:
World’s Highest Court Finds That a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment is a Human Right
Last July, the UN’s International Court of Justice (IJC) affirmed that a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a human right, just like access to water, food and housing. While the IJC doesn’t have the power to establish new international laws, it clarifies existing ones and is likely to be cited in future climate litigation and UN negotiations.
COP 30
The 30th annual UN Climate Change Conference, held last November in Brazil, was meant to focus on how to achieve the major commitments already made to tackle global warning and ensure humanity can adapt to impacts of climate change. Honestly, between the US stepping back from anything related to climate change and a wider spread pull back from the phase out of fossil fuels, it’s hard to see much progress on curtailing climate change. And the hard reality is that renewable energy sources simply don’t have the energy density of fossil fuels, making a complete changeover a very long-term project. So it’s a good thing that climate adaptation took up much of the COP 30 spotlight. Here’s a decent summary of the outcomes.
Parks and Conservation Areas Contribute to the Economy
A recent study from Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) concludes that conserved and protected areas contribute more than 5x as much to Canada’s GDP as the federal government spends on those areas. They also generate jobs and support tourism. This article from CBC runs through the numbers.
Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature
Canada’s federal government just refreshed it’s strategy to protect Nature, pledging $3.8 billion to protect and restore critical habitats, ensure industrial strategies complement conservation efforts, and mobilize new capital for Nature. Specifics include up to 10 new national parks and 15 national urban parks with the aim of conserving at least 30% of Canada’s land by 2030.
As a retired CPA, I read with interest that mobilizing new capital for Nature includes launching a taskforce to explore how to better account for the value of Nature and how to integrate it into decision-making.
Watch a video of Prime Minister Mark Carney announcing the strategy here.
Cultivating My Nearby Nature Connection
This might seem kind of weird, or may even make some readers a little squeamish. I initially had mixed feelings about whether to go see artist Christopher Marley’s “Exquisite Creatures” exhibition. His medium is dead creatures, scavenged and painstaking preserved before he arranges them for display. His groupings of sea urchin skeletons, preserved beetles and butterflies, orchids, snakes and more, are strikingly coulorful, deepened my appreciation for Nature’s seemingly infinite variations and triggered admiration for his ability to use composition, light and shadow and background colours to showcase so many exquisite creatures. The exhibition is expected to run until September/October 2026.
My Nearby Nature Projects
Birding
We haven’t done much in the way of local birding over the past several months. I was reluctant to put out winter feeders and then be away for 5 weeks, as I didn’t want to condition local birds to a source of food and then remove it in the middle of winter.
Birding highlights from last summer’s travels in Norway included massive colonies of kittiwakes and glaucous gulls, along with charismatic puffins, eider ducks and Arctic terns.
We had the good fortune of spotting several types of flamingos in the high Atacama desert of Chile. During the Patagonia phase of our South American travels, highlights included the Southern crested caracara, a pair of torrent ducks and lesser rhea. Our birding in South America was incidental to our hiking, kayaking and landscape photography adventures.
Wildflowers
It’s mid-April and I have yet to spot a prairie crocus this spring. Maybe this coming weekend?
While traveling, spotting wildflowers was incidental to our hiking, biking and kayaking adventures. What’s interesting to me is that so many wildflowers from here in the Canadian Rocky Mountains have close cousins in the far northern and southern parts of the world.
Wildlife
A long half-day spent puma tracking turned out to be the wildlife highlight of our month in South America. We booked through Magellania, a local operator. They collaborate with the owners of Estancia Laguna Amarga to promote a harmonious coexistence between humans and pumas. The estancia is committed to conservation, has been featured in documentaries on BBC and National Geographic, and advocates for the economic and environmental benefits of protecting local species and Nature so they contribute to the well-being of landowners, the local economy and communities.
Our driver and guide picked us up very early in the morning and we were exploring the 22,000 acres of Estancia Laguna Amarga shortly after sunrise. A few hours passed with sightings of birds, guanacos (prey species) and a South American grey fox. But no pumas.
Petaka
Fortunately, our driver/guide was just one member of a larger team that included experienced trackers who were out on the estancia for hours. They know the habits and preferred hunting areas for each member of the local puma population. So around mid-morning, our driver/guide received a call that the head tracker had spotted Petaka – one of the most observed pumas on the estancia and one habituated to and relaxed around respectful humans.
We joined four other photographs to form a small group of six eco-tourists a considerable distance from the napping puma. One couple departed after about 45 minutes of not much activity, which left just four of us (and our guides) observing Petaka as she roused herself from a morning rest.
She eventually traversed grassy fields, stalked up ridge lines, circled back to a carcass that still had meat on its bones and eventually traversed a ridge with the famous Torres del Paine in the background. We spent a remarkable two hours or so, following quietly and at a respectful distance, all under the close supervision of our guides. I was thankful I packed along my teleconverter, which doubles the reach of my longest telephoto lens. But I also pulled out my phone from time-to-time, shooting video clips and framing compositions that place Petaka in the grander scale of the landscape that’s her home.
Nature-Friendly Gardening
Co-existing with wildlife in Canmore makes outdoor gardening challenging. So I’ve kept a small garden plot in Calgary these past 16 years. But this year, with repeated water main outages in Calgary making me doubt whether there will be a reliable water supply for Calgary gardening, I’ve decided to try something new in Canmore – an indoor garden!
It’s very small, and designed specifically for growing salad greens. I already have a 9-pod Aerogarden I use for herbs. So I will dedicate my new Click and Grow 25 to kale, chard, pak choi, lettuce and similar water-intensive, heat- and bug-sensitive leafy greens that I’ll incorporate into my daily lunchtime salads.
I planted week 1 a few of days ago: rainbow chard, pak choi, two kinds of kale and green romaine lettuce. The idea is to plant sequentially in one week intervals, for a five week rotation. I’m not sure all those varieties will be mature enough to eat in 5-weeks, but I look forward to figuring out how best to make use of my new indoor garden.
Call to Action / Upcoming
2026 City Nature Challenge
The 2026 City Nature Challege is coming up for participants around the world. Get out and snap photos of local flora and fauna the weekend of April 24-27 and upload your observations to iNaturalist not later than May 10. You’ll find more details here.
Silvertip Gondola All-seasons Resort Proposal
For those who live in Alberta, please consider submitting feedback to the provincial government re: the proposed Silvertip Gondola All-season Resort. The Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley outlines wildlife-related concerns here. The applicant’s website is here. And here’s the link to provide feedback to the Alberta government not later than May 14, 2026.
I have written directly to the applicant with questions about their wildlife assessment process. My concerns include traffic and over-tourism in the Bow Valley, as well as the carve out of yet more provincially-protected land to accommodate the gondola. I also wonder about water use. And finally, given that most of the major attractions in Banff are now owned by an American company, I wonder if there’s any way to require Canadian resort-ownership for the entire term of the All-season Resort lease arrangement. I’m still doing research before providing my feedback, but will do so before the deadline.