February 11, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode of Sound Ground, Aggie and co-hosts Anne-Marie and Abigail take you on a journey through Nature R&D's Rush Initiative. Join us as we dissect the profound impacts of community mapping on urban resilience.
The Rush Initiative champions a contextual perspective on climate resilience. Anne-Marie shares her experiences in community building, the challenges of maintaining ecological integrity, and promoting well-being.
The discussion expands into an exploration of the integral role of community and culture in reinforcing urban resilience. Hear unique insights from Anne-Marie and Abigail's personal experiences with the circular economy map. We highlight the complexities of working within the intricately connected economies and ecological systems. This episode inspires an introspective reflection on our connection to the environment, and how we can contribute towards urban resilience.
The episode concludes by drawing attention to the incredible work of the Rush Initiative. Its proactive measures seek to inspire people to think more deeply about sustainable urban living and consider our role in positive urban transformation. The Rush Initiative prompts individuals to spark change in their communities.
To learn more or get involved visit:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
Nature are leading. You're listening to Sound Ground, a celebration of sound,
of voice, of story, and change, where we seek to illuminate instances of relationships with nature.
I'm your host, Agnieszka Zuchora, or affectionately known as Aggie.
We express our infinite gratitude for Mother Nature, for Earth,
and everything that it carries us through.
(00:28):
We also want to acknowledge the land where this is being recorded.
I myself am on the land of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples, the Songhees and
Esquimalt First Nations.
Your other host Anne-Marie is located on the land of the Wasanich people,
and Abigail Lalonde is on the land of the Ghani Gahaga.
We give gratitude for the wisdom and leadership of Indigenous communities and
(00:48):
a continued commitment to living in harmony with nature.
On today's episode, Anne-Marie and Abigail share with us Nature R&D's incredible
project, the Rush Initiative.
We explore conversation around community mapping, the history of maps,
community building, and what is possible in building resilient urban systems. We hope you enjoy.
Right. Okay. So, Anne-Marie, you just got out of this conversation,
(01:13):
so you must have lots to tell us about, but why don't we just start with what is Rush?
Well, great. So glad to be here with Abby and Aggie on the Soundground podcast.
And what is is RUSH. The reason we're talking about RUSH today is that it's
one of Nature R&D's main focuses.
(01:34):
So RUSH is the Resilient Urban Systems and Habitat Initiative.
At the moment, it's focused on the Wasedna-Chenla-Kwongun Territories,
Southern Vancouver Island.
The regional government here is the Capital Regional District.
And so we're focusing on this area as a prototype.
(01:57):
This is where I live. And I started to create Rush because I wasn't able to
interpret the reports to know what I needed to think about in terms of climate
change here and what I could do about it.
And so I needed to see it, kind of beginner's mind. And so that's how Rush came about.
(02:21):
So it sounds like you were witnessing a problem that you were experiencing in
your community. and you chose to actively pursue a solution.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. The problem I was witnessing was that I was like ponying
up to be a good citizen and getting on all of these committees.
You know how the big joke is strike a committee and take forever.
(02:45):
And so I was on the climate change select committee. I was on the advisory working
group for the official community plan.
And even though we were saying all kinds of nice things, climate change every
now and then, we were not looking at any climate change data.
And so there's a big mandate in BC for affordable housing, which we do need.
(03:08):
But the dynamic I was seeing is everybody was saying, oh, no,
not here, not here. You can't have it here.
And so the affordable housing was getting pushed to the traffic circle by where
all the highways intersect. intersect and no considerations around,
wait a second, is this affordable housing going to be conducive to well-being?
(03:28):
Is it going to be conducive to ecological integrity?
Is it going to be good for the people that live there essentially and for the
fragmented ecosystem that is is, you know, having a hard time doing its thing.
So I needed to see the data and it wasn't readily available in a way that I could understand it.
(03:51):
And so thanks to smart people, because people like me need smart friends, and Abby and others.
Deb Johnson is one of the people on Rush and the community mapping department
at UVic and Peninsula Streams and Shorelines was like, you know what,
what will help you figure that out?
And so they helped me find a grant and they've been great.
(04:15):
I mean, obviously all the stewardship groups are doing great things in this
space. This is not a new thing for them. They know it all, but they're all scientists.
So it's about getting it for the average person to understand.
And so is this like a mapping platform? Yeah.
It's a website essentially with, I don't know how many buttons we have now,
(04:38):
but let's say there's 12 or 14.
And so they say that climate change is the existential question of our time.
My background in mediation tells me that self-interest is not a bad thing.
You actually do need to take care of yourself.
We can take care of each other, but ultimately we have a responsibility to look
(05:02):
out for ourselves so we can show up.
And so the questions on the different Different maps are associated to different
existential questions.
How do I beat the heat? How do I protect the coast?
How do I orient myself, you know, culture compass wise? How do I get a sense
of peace, you know, mental health and all?
How do I protect the wood wide web? How do I...
(05:26):
Drop in a circular economy? How do I travel with a light footprint?
How do I power this place?
These are the kind of questions that there's a map for each with simple visualizations
to help you start to think, this is how I do that.
It can be really tricky to try to orient yourself in that space of change and
(05:49):
visualize it. There's a lot of conversation.
There's a lot of legislation isolation, surrounding it that you can get tangled in.
So I find that being able to see the maps that are offered on Rush helps me
at least to understand the edges and the edges, not even boundaries,
(06:11):
just edges of the issues.
And it's interesting to orient yourself within that, because it is hard to look
at the problems and decide how to apply yourself to them.
Like you worked on the circular economy one, Abby. Talk about those edges.
So when I was working on the circular economy map, I had a little bit of a struggle
(06:33):
trying to decide what was contributing to a circular economy.
Economy I got to document a lot of spaces where positives and negatives were occurring so,
places where you could contribute to the ecosystem through the economy I suppose
(06:55):
so you could like offer clothing or buy clothing second hand that was something
that I focused a lot on but I also focused on a lot of like auto repair spaces
and places where you could donate scrap metal places places that you could put landfill waste,
places that you could purchase landfill waste or like purchase,
I guess, scrap metal or auto scrap to be reused or recycled.
(07:17):
So there's a lot of different components there, but I never really had considered.
Is that true? I wonder. No, I think I have considered like, and that's why I sort of made this map,
was how to invest yourself within this economy in a way that feels reciprocal
and feels engaging rather than exploitative.
(07:42):
So how can you support your community with your dollar?
And what ways can you do that? And what ways can you not do that?
Like, how can you divert things from land waste in an attempt to orient yourself more cyclically?
So making that circular economy map in a lot of ways was less about edges and more about,
circles and spirals and and finding
(08:05):
things repurposing them and starting again i
love that question how can i invest myself in this economy such a tough question
we're all tripped up by that one so yeah they're like all the different kinds
of recycling but even the coffee shops and the food systems you looked at it's
true i didn't i did map i got the chance to um,
(08:27):
It's been a while since I've looked at it, honestly.
I think I was working on it way in the summer, probably quite early.
But I had to think a lot about coffee because I work in cafes and I've thought
about green buying a lot.
And what it means to take a plant from halfway across the world and bring it
into spaces and roast it and distribute it.
(08:51):
And it's pretty cool. People are pretty cool, and people within the coffee community
are pretty cool at creating relationships with growers and with roasters and
with people who sell coffee.
Pretty cool community, but that's a story for a different time.
But it reminds me of another story that is also showcased on Rush.
(09:11):
So Rush is about leveraging all the good work that's going on,
but putting it all in one place. So it's a one-stop shop that you can orient
yourself in a foundational way to the issues.
And there is an organization called Iye Creative, and they work to help people
orient to their own cultural foods.
(09:33):
And they also help connect with farmers and even individuals to say,
what cultural foods Can you grow so that if someone who's new to this area from
another culture is looking for a certain kind of pepper or something,
where can they find this?
And if they're in this situation where they have to access the food bank,
(09:56):
how can that food bank have access to different cultural foods so that one continues
to have a sense of belonging through as much as possible, let me say.
And so instead of this organization,
EA Creative, instead of the food always coming halfway across the world, the mango,
(10:18):
whatever it is, they're now identifying the growers in the city and that stuff
is on the rush map of where can you find your special pepper?
Or where can you find your special mango?
And even is there a grower who you can get a supply, get a line on mangoes from?
We have Kiwis up the road here. Oh, that's so great. Yeah. Yeah.
(10:42):
I think that's such a valuable part of Rush because we focus on resiliency and urban systems,
but community is such a big part of that and a sense of belonging and a sense
of connection to culture and especially living in a country where there's so
much diversity and culture.
To be able to have access to something that feels
like or tastes like or smells like home creates
(11:05):
it it gives us a
special kind of strength that creates the resiliency to be
able to find ways to connect to community with
where we are and to build those relationships and strike up conversations right
like so much of of building resiliency and community is through storytelling
and through finding those those similarities and those connections so although
(11:26):
it's like a predominantly environmental thing it like really touches on the different layers of
of the sense of self and how important that is for us to be able to build a
relationship with the land.
Because also if the land that we're on can grow the things that feel like home,
then that'll deepen our connection, right?
Yeah. And we have to be careful about that,
(11:48):
of course, because one of the things that has happened to Victoria is that people
come from other parts and they want it to look like England here or whatever,
and then we get an ivy infestation.
But yeah, in the sense of farming and greenhouses and yeah, how can we create
that sense of belonging?
And you're also those different layers of belonging.
(12:11):
One of the big partnerships Rush has is in working with community mapping student
teams from the UVic map shop.
And so precisely to what you're speaking about, they went around and interviewed
different people and cultural communities and says, what is it about the belonging?
What is it about the food? And there's a most beautiful story map that unfolds
(12:36):
all of these different connections that you get about belonging with food,
whether it's the act of the story around the table, the sound of your grandmother's voice, the smell,
all of these things. So cool. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's so beautiful. And I fully agree that, you know,
we have to be mindful of not altering an environment from its natural state,
(12:58):
but that, you know, we have these places and we can in controlled ways create
a sense of home and community building in ways that isn't harmful to the environment,
but can be regenerative to it.
And there was a really cool organization in Australia that did just that.
They funded community gardens for spaces that had predominantly immigrant families
(13:22):
so that they could learn how to grow their own food in that landscape and grow
food that was more deeply connected to them.
Yeah well and okay so that brings
up another sort of grassroots initiative from with
rush which is the plotting of pollinator gardens which
there you can be growing you know the vegetables and
(13:43):
spices and things that you want and so
we have three community groups gorge telecom
community association quarter cedar hill and swan lake are all working together
to start to plot their their pollinator gardens through the tool of open green
maps to see if we can get connectivity across the region so that we know there's
(14:04):
enough habitat for, you know,
everything from slugs to bats to hummingbirds to bees to, you know,
even wasps actually pollinate.
But that pollinator garden connectivity is so important to food security and
adds so much to that sense of of belonging and ability to create beauty in the
(14:28):
world by working with nature.
Yeah. I really love what you just said, Enri, but also what you just finished
saying, Aggie. What I'm getting from that is,
this desire to contribute to the creation of a landscape.
In a lot of ways, Rush does that digitally because we get to understand the
(14:49):
projection of the land and then pull out things that are relevant to us in that.
But then it's stemmed and grounded and rooted in this very real aspect of how
can we as individuals interact with and within nature.
So figuring out how to grow that pepper, or grow that kiwi, how to grow that
(15:09):
plant that is going to provide a haven for your pollinators.
All of those things exist within a consideration of how can I feel at home here,
but then how can the land feel like mine, but how can I also belong to the land?
How can I contribute to the growth of this space in a way that is considered
(15:32):
of its legacy, both ancestrally, but also going forward?
And then how can I feel supported by that as well?
So it touches back to this idea of reciprocity that I think is really interesting
and really special about brush.
Yeah, we took the data on sensitive ecosystems.
So you can sort of see which ecosystem you're ballpark living in,
(15:56):
so that you can plant those plants and extend the reach of it.
And yeah, Yeah, there's all kinds of like plotting of big trees,
even down to the sense of belonging, plotting of inclusive washrooms.
Belonging is really like we are creative beings. We need to be working with
nature. We need to be working with each other.
(16:17):
And it's through that that we can then address the bigger issues of,
but it starts with planting, right?
Like we need cover we need rain gardens we need pollinator gardens we need more
urban ecosystem functioning.
And I didn't mean to say that, I mean, I know well that you know all about invasive species.
(16:38):
That's another thing we can plot, you know, in order to start to take care of it.
It's an interesting thing of how do we feel like we're at home and also get
a good sense of place for where we are and be curious about that.
It's a really good said. I
(16:59):
feel like so much of belonging is
also building that relationship with where you are and creating
that sense of home within within the self and Abby I
loved what you were saying of about like being of the land not just like connecting
with the land and finding ways that it can benefit us but how do we benefit
it and so you know having these conversations around pollinator gardens and
(17:21):
connecting with the local species and native plants and seeing how we can minimize our footprint.
And that way, by creating these kind of like green pathways for nature to use
throughout the urban landscapes that we've created is something that I feel
like is maybe new in the city planning and urban planning space.
(17:43):
You know, it's always been maybe we need a tree here for shade,
maybe we need like, you know, something to prevent flooding.
But the conversation around having
pollinators, like having a pathway for pollinators feels really new.
And I think that's just so great that Rush is considering these things.
And it sounds like it goes, like Rush goes beyond just the physical and like the ecological idea.
(18:08):
You were talking about inclusive bathrooms and I'm curious, like what are the
parameters of Rush or is it just kind of all expanding?
Well, the parameter, I guess, is health. And it runs from, I guess it's about
protection and connection.
So nature protects itself, but often by being connected.
(18:35):
So if you think about a leaf, it's protecting itself by getting rays from the
sun, but it's also protecting what's underneath and connecting in that way to
the rest of the web of life.
And then when it protects itself to let go of the leaf, that leaf that falls
on the ground then creates a protection layer for the winter, for the soil.
(19:00):
And then, you know, of course, the big thing is that when that all breaks down,
not only has the root system been protected, but then there's all the nutrition
that gives the right medicines for new leaves to sprout and that sort of thing.
So the range is everything that helps us as a community be more protected Connected
(19:22):
and connected so that we can be a node of health,
both personally as neighborhoods, as an urban ecosystem, and then be a node
of connection for other communities.
We're very, I don't know if it's luck or if it's just a matter of time,
but this is a piece of paradise.
Ice and so if we
(19:47):
can you know really support nature in
her good work then then we can create
a node of stability here that will serve the communities uh nearby for greater
connectivity i'm not sure if i answered your question i think so yeah greenhouse
(20:09):
gas emissions and carbon draw What are all the areas where,
you know, how much greenhouse gases are the forest absorbing or the eelgrass beds absorbing?
It does that, but it also publishes our emissions as well. Mm-hmm.
(20:29):
It sounds very, like a very holistic view that, you know, immediately hearing
about rush, it seems like it would come off as something that's focused on climate
change and the kind of technical aspect of the environment.
But just in this conversation and how you're explaining it, it seems like it's, you know,
the intricacies of the relationships that we have with ourselves,
(20:52):
with each other, with our neighbors, with the neighboring communities,
with the physical land, with the flora, with with the fauna,
it's like this kind of, it's an acknowledgement that we are not separate from
anything and nothing is separate from us.
And so, looking at all these different layers of connections and threads,
kind of like thinking of a mycelium network and how it's feeding and,
(21:17):
you know, helping the trees communicate and the trees are providing all these
different nutrients and resources for all the plants below and all the,
creatures and everything like that it kind of sounds to me that's what
i'm picking up on anyways that that's what rush is trying to be you
know it was yeah boris in fact
abby you should talk about what you did on the wood wide web map because it's
(21:39):
exactly that trying to make space for the trees to talk to each other can i
work on the wood web map i don't think i did yeah you did with the my three
trees icons oh i guess that is the wood web okay i imagine tell us about it abby.
I mean I've mostly worked on the icons the plotting
is all left to like these amazing students at UVic but
(22:03):
I was I had this like long conversation with Anne-Marie about like
the three tree rule and different big trees and plotting big trees and thinking
about the relationship people have with trees and how they are connected to
that landscape and how being connected to trees connects you to the soil connects
you to another tree connects you to another tree connects you to a leaf connects
you to the leaf that falls.
(22:25):
And so I created these icons about the three-tree rule, which is the idea of
finding three trees that are in your nearest vicinity.
If you just look out a window and you see three trees, you're like,
that one, that one, and that one, those are my trees.
It helps you develop a relationship with them, keeps you accountable,
keeps you grounded, and then,
(22:45):
We had some icons for heart trees or like mother trees or trees that were really
significant to people that like really felt and resonated to you,
which is something that I completely resonate to.
Because off the top of my head, I can think of like some gods that live in my
parents' backyard that I have just worshipped my entire life.
Yeah. And I'm like trees specifically.
(23:06):
Well, and so the tree equity standard, it came out of a Nature Canada report.
Report, they realized that the big cities across Canada, there's a relationship
between income level and canopy cover.
And so they came up with this standard that says, I need to see three trees
from my window, I need to have 30% canopy cover, and I need to have a park of
(23:30):
at least a hectare, 300 meters from my house.
And so what we're trying to do and the icon that, which is so cute,
that Abby created, people are
starting to plot their three trees that they can see from their window.
And they're plotting broadleaf trees and conifer trees, and they're measuring
the circumference of them.
(23:52):
And then ideally, we're going to start to identify places where compaction rates
of the soil don't need to be compacted.
So stick to the sidewalks and plant those little little areas around the trees,
because actually we need the soil to be aerated in order for greenhouse gases
to be absorbed and for those mycelial networks to work between the trees.
(24:16):
So we are trying to create a wood wide web within the city by getting people
to start to build better relationships with their, like Abby's talking about with their trees.
But it's been wild to see like every day now I'm getting emails popping up on the.
At first, when I was getting those emails, I anticipated, I thought that it
(24:38):
was the students that were adding icons in.
And I was like, this is sort of silly because I don't need to have a notification
every single time they plot something.
But then I realized that it's individuals within communities who feel like they
resonate with this map and want to share their trees.
And so you can go on the map and see pictures of people's trees,
(24:58):
which is just the sweetest thing.
It's just the sweetest thing to feel connected to other people's special trees.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so beautiful. And there's less chance of them being
cut down if people love them. Right.
It's a bigger fight, which is, and it's an important one because if we're going
to have affordable housing, we need canopy cover or that's going to be a heat dome. Yeah.
(25:24):
I mean, you probably know a lot of like, how, how does this touch your work
and environmental assessment, Aggie?
Oh, not at all. Really? Really?
Yeah. I mean, my work's a bit different. I can't speak too much to it,
but it's less in the urban spaces.
It's more in like, yeah, out in like smaller communities and open areas.
(25:49):
But it does, it brings me to think of how you're talking about affordable housing and,
you know, witnessing and living in spaces where,
which were lower income and generally not having access to parks and not having
green spaces because they're just kind of like throwing up a bunch of buildings
(26:11):
and trying to fit as many people for the lowest price as possible.
And obviously, that creates a division between people and their relationship
to land, but also has a pretty significant impact on mental health.
And that's kind of where my mind is going with like, you know,
being able to see three trees out your window and how lucky we are with where
(26:33):
we live, at least on, you know, on this island that just about anywhere you
live or look, you're going to be able to find three trees.
But, you know, you go into spaces in Vancouver, like the downtown east side,
and you don't have that. That's not there.
And it's just like concrete.
And it's almost, to me, it feels a little bit dehumanizing to put people in
(26:59):
these places where they can't see nature and can't see a piece of what,
you know, we are all interconnected.
And being a human is part of that is being human.
Able to touch the soil or to hug a tree or to like witness nature expanding, right?
Well, you're actually putting your finger on how the whole thing started.
(27:20):
We had a student in UVic geography, Jillian Voss, who did a project where she
looked at the temperature ranges over the last four years, and she identified
all the potential heat domes in the city.
And then another student team through the community-based participatory research,
(27:40):
and And this is all on the Rush Initiative.
It's like a call out of a yellow square in North Park because in North Park,
there is more concrete and there is a higher degree of people without homes.
And so they went and worked with the businesses and community organizations
in North Park and had them identify where are the cool buildings?
(28:03):
Where are the drinking fountains? Where are the parks?
Kind of where are the areas of concern, the big parking lots,
the big stadiums, like in the last heat dome or heat event, you know,
what caused concern? CERN.
And as a result, the community-based participatory research team created this
(28:27):
map that now serves as an advocacy tool.
So you can go online now on the Rush website and you can, if you saw someone
having a hard time with heat, you would be able to direct them to these places.
And you would be able to take the Rush information, because now we've identified
cool buildings and water fountains, you know, in a broader area to be able to
(28:50):
say, like, we need this parking lot to disappear.
It's causing too much heat in this neighborhood.
So it's exactly, it gets to that kind of environmental racism.
It needs to stop. It's not good for anyone.
And through mapping, which can be used to divide or it can be used to bring
(29:11):
communities together to act towards health for everyone.
Exactly right. I really appreciate that element of equity that you're bringing
into it and that acknowledgement as well, that mapping has been this like deeply
colonial, deeply unsettling, but also resettling tool.
(29:33):
I'm not sure how much we've talked about this in general, but like studying
geography, being a geography student, one of the first things that we learned was to map.
Appreciate or understand the subjectivity of maps, how they've been used as tools, but not.
They're not truths. And for a long time, maps have been used to assert dominion
(29:57):
over space, to dominate space, and to give people the right to dominate space
as well, along with other tools.
But I have always been interested in how maps can be used as a tool to illuminate
space, space, create spaces that are accessible,
help understand the land, and invite connection.
(30:21):
I think Rush does a really fantastic job at offering that kind of space,
but then also offering people the tools to map as well.
Because for a long time, mapping has been something that has been only,
that's an ability or a tool that has only been able to be, like maps were created by certain people.
And those people became authorities. If you have the ability to map something,
(30:44):
you had the ability to tell people how space was.
So to be able to invite communities to contribute to
the process of mapping their worlds and have the
idea that people's truths and people's worlds are valid and deserve to be documented
and how the connectivity of all of those worlds helps us to interact with our
(31:05):
space in a way that is kinder and more equitable and quite radical is something
that's so special to to me.
Yeah. And to be clear, the community mapping program really does work very ethically
in that space you describe.
(31:25):
I've learned a lot and just been so impressed by these teams of what they make
happen and how they enter that space.
Yeah i do want to say before this conversation is
over that it's a prototype that it's in development there's
a feedback button it's only on the
(31:47):
south island right now but we are looking we've made it with 100 open access
software because we want to scale it to have it be scalable to other communities
and if they put in their own questions but like a tool that That helps people
make sense of the issues, the vulnerabilities,
the opportunities. That's one of the goals.
(32:10):
Well, I just wanted to say thank Abby for bringing up that history of how oppressive
and colonial maps were and still continue to be in so many ways.
And the possibility that exists with mapping, especially with citizen-led mapping
(32:30):
and the community development potential.
And Anne-Marie, I think that's so great that Rush is open source and that,
you know, being a prototype right now,
you're so open and willing to have this move through different communities and
be accessed in so many different ways is heartwarming.
And truly, what are the words that I'm looking for?
(32:54):
I feel like it really reflects the space that we're trying to head into,
which is more of that village mentality and really taking care of each other
and looking for ways to support each other.
And so I'm curious, yeah, how do people access Rush and how do they get more involved?
Well, you go to whatstherush.ca.
Whatstherush.ca, great. And the Rush is that there is a Rush.
(33:17):
Of course, we have to take it in stride and find our flow. that's
part of climate action is you know finding your
flow so you don't get too scattered and make too many little trips
everywhere i think that's the easy it's the it's the
one-stop shop go take a look give us some feedback if you'd
like to collaborate if you know of an opportunity if you want to explore the
(33:39):
tools on open green map that you can do around the globe and and And one day
we will have created something that has data sets in all communities,
but we're just not there yet.
So we're trying to, it's a bit of a heal yourself,
heal the world kind of idea of what can we do here to figure out how those conversations
(34:02):
can happen in a way that affirms people's dignity and puts the tools in their hands,
change the critical questions that get asked and create a shared language.
Sounds wonderful. And we'll put all these links in the description to make them easily accessible.
But if someone's interested in collaborating or has a network that they want
(34:25):
to connect in this sort of way, is there an email they can reach out to or is
there a form on the Rush website?
There is a feedback form on the Rush website, but you could always go to naturernd.com as well.
That's a hard one to spell or say, but it's, well, it's not hard to spell,
(34:46):
but hard to figure out how to spell.
N-A-T-U-R-N-D dot com.
So that'll, if you go to the Nature R&D website, there's a contact form there too. Yeah. Perfect.
Thank you so much for this conversation. thank
you it's been such a pleasure and it's just it you know really exciting to hear
(35:10):
about the initiatives that are coming forward and the passion that you both
have for this and just your your perspectives and your willingness to to be
diving into this it's so special it's going to be so big yay,
all right until next time right on
thanks thanks so much thank you thanks so much for joining us visit whatstherush.ca
(35:36):
to learn more about the rush initiative and bring it to your community and click
subscribe be notified of future episodes until next time you're listening to sound ground.
Music.
Presented by nature rd.
Music.
(00:07):
Nature are leading. You're listening to Sound Ground, a celebration of sound,
of voice, of story, and change, where we seek to illuminate instances of relationships with nature.
I'm your host, Agnieszka Zuchora, or affectionately known as Aggie.
We express our infinite gratitude for Mother Nature, for Earth,
and everything that it carries us through.
(00:28):
We also want to acknowledge the land where this is being recorded.
I myself am on the land of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples, the Songhees and
Esquimalt First Nations.
Your other host Anne-Marie is located on the land of the Wasanich people,
and Abigail Lalonde is on the land of the Ghani Gahaga.
We give gratitude for the wisdom and leadership of Indigenous communities and
(00:48):
a continued commitment to living in harmony with nature.
On today's episode, Anne-Marie and Abigail share with us Nature R&D's incredible
project, the Rush Initiative.
We explore conversation around community mapping, the history of maps,
community building, and what is possible in building resilient urban systems. We hope you enjoy.
Right. Okay. So, Anne-Marie, you just got out of this conversation,
(01:13):
so you must have lots to tell us about, but why don't we just start with what is Rush?
Well, great. So glad to be here with Abby and Aggie on the Soundground podcast.
And what is is RUSH. The reason we're talking about RUSH today is that it's
one of Nature R&D's main focuses.
(01:34):
So RUSH is the Resilient Urban Systems and Habitat Initiative.
At the moment, it's focused on the Wasedna-Chenla-Kwongun Territories,
Southern Vancouver Island.
The regional government here is the Capital Regional District.
And so we're focusing on this area as a prototype.
(01:57):
This is where I live. And I started to create Rush because I wasn't able to
interpret the reports to know what I needed to think about in terms of climate
change here and what I could do about it.
And so I needed to see it, kind of beginner's mind. And so that's how Rush came about.
(02:21):
So it sounds like you were witnessing a problem that you were experiencing in
your community. and you chose to actively pursue a solution.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. The problem I was witnessing was that I was like ponying
up to be a good citizen and getting on all of these committees.
You know how the big joke is strike a committee and take forever.
(02:45):
And so I was on the climate change select committee. I was on the advisory working
group for the official community plan.
And even though we were saying all kinds of nice things, climate change every
now and then, we were not looking at any climate change data.
And so there's a big mandate in BC for affordable housing, which we do need.
(03:08):
But the dynamic I was seeing is everybody was saying, oh, no,
not here, not here. You can't have it here.
And so the affordable housing was getting pushed to the traffic circle by where
all the highways intersect. intersect and no considerations around,
wait a second, is this affordable housing going to be conducive to well-being?
(03:28):
Is it going to be conducive to ecological integrity?
Is it going to be good for the people that live there essentially and for the
fragmented ecosystem that is is, you know, having a hard time doing its thing.
So I needed to see the data and it wasn't readily available in a way that I could understand it.
(03:51):
And so thanks to smart people, because people like me need smart friends, and Abby and others.
Deb Johnson is one of the people on Rush and the community mapping department
at UVic and Peninsula Streams and Shorelines was like, you know what,
what will help you figure that out?
And so they helped me find a grant and they've been great.
(04:15):
I mean, obviously all the stewardship groups are doing great things in this
space. This is not a new thing for them. They know it all, but they're all scientists.
So it's about getting it for the average person to understand.
And so is this like a mapping platform? Yeah.
It's a website essentially with, I don't know how many buttons we have now,
(04:38):
but let's say there's 12 or 14.
And so they say that climate change is the existential question of our time.
My background in mediation tells me that self-interest is not a bad thing.
You actually do need to take care of yourself.
We can take care of each other, but ultimately we have a responsibility to look
(05:02):
out for ourselves so we can show up.
And so the questions on the different Different maps are associated to different
existential questions.
How do I beat the heat? How do I protect the coast?
How do I orient myself, you know, culture compass wise? How do I get a sense
of peace, you know, mental health and all?
How do I protect the wood wide web? How do I...
(05:26):
Drop in a circular economy? How do I travel with a light footprint?
How do I power this place?
These are the kind of questions that there's a map for each with simple visualizations
to help you start to think, this is how I do that.
It can be really tricky to try to orient yourself in that space of change and
(05:49):
visualize it. There's a lot of conversation.
There's a lot of legislation isolation, surrounding it that you can get tangled in.
So I find that being able to see the maps that are offered on Rush helps me
at least to understand the edges and the edges, not even boundaries,
(06:11):
just edges of the issues.
And it's interesting to orient yourself within that, because it is hard to look
at the problems and decide how to apply yourself to them.
Like you worked on the circular economy one, Abby. Talk about those edges.
So when I was working on the circular economy map, I had a little bit of a struggle
(06:33):
trying to decide what was contributing to a circular economy.
Economy I got to document a lot of spaces where positives and negatives were occurring so,
places where you could contribute to the ecosystem through the economy I suppose
(06:55):
so you could like offer clothing or buy clothing second hand that was something
that I focused a lot on but I also focused on a lot of like auto repair spaces
and places where you could donate scrap metal places places that you could put landfill waste,
places that you could purchase landfill waste or like purchase,
I guess, scrap metal or auto scrap to be reused or recycled.
(07:17):
So there's a lot of different components there, but I never really had considered.
Is that true? I wonder. No, I think I have considered like, and that's why I sort of made this map,
was how to invest yourself within this economy in a way that feels reciprocal
and feels engaging rather than exploitative.
(07:42):
So how can you support your community with your dollar?
And what ways can you do that? And what ways can you not do that?
Like, how can you divert things from land waste in an attempt to orient yourself more cyclically?
So making that circular economy map in a lot of ways was less about edges and more about,
circles and spirals and and finding
(08:05):
things repurposing them and starting again i
love that question how can i invest myself in this economy such a tough question
we're all tripped up by that one so yeah they're like all the different kinds
of recycling but even the coffee shops and the food systems you looked at it's
true i didn't i did map i got the chance to um,
(08:27):
It's been a while since I've looked at it, honestly.
I think I was working on it way in the summer, probably quite early.
But I had to think a lot about coffee because I work in cafes and I've thought
about green buying a lot.
And what it means to take a plant from halfway across the world and bring it
into spaces and roast it and distribute it.
(08:51):
And it's pretty cool. People are pretty cool, and people within the coffee community
are pretty cool at creating relationships with growers and with roasters and
with people who sell coffee.
Pretty cool community, but that's a story for a different time.
But it reminds me of another story that is also showcased on Rush.
(09:11):
So Rush is about leveraging all the good work that's going on,
but putting it all in one place. So it's a one-stop shop that you can orient
yourself in a foundational way to the issues.
And there is an organization called Iye Creative, and they work to help people
orient to their own cultural foods.
(09:33):
And they also help connect with farmers and even individuals to say,
what cultural foods Can you grow so that if someone who's new to this area from
another culture is looking for a certain kind of pepper or something,
where can they find this?
And if they're in this situation where they have to access the food bank,
(09:56):
how can that food bank have access to different cultural foods so that one continues
to have a sense of belonging through as much as possible, let me say.
And so instead of this organization,
EA Creative, instead of the food always coming halfway across the world, the mango,
(10:18):
whatever it is, they're now identifying the growers in the city and that stuff
is on the rush map of where can you find your special pepper?
Or where can you find your special mango?
And even is there a grower who you can get a supply, get a line on mangoes from?
We have Kiwis up the road here. Oh, that's so great. Yeah. Yeah.
(10:42):
I think that's such a valuable part of Rush because we focus on resiliency and urban systems,
but community is such a big part of that and a sense of belonging and a sense
of connection to culture and especially living in a country where there's so
much diversity and culture.
To be able to have access to something that feels
like or tastes like or smells like home creates
(11:05):
it it gives us a
special kind of strength that creates the resiliency to be
able to find ways to connect to community with
where we are and to build those relationships and strike up conversations right
like so much of of building resiliency and community is through storytelling
and through finding those those similarities and those connections so although
(11:26):
it's like a predominantly environmental thing it like really touches on the different layers of
of the sense of self and how important that is for us to be able to build a
relationship with the land.
Because also if the land that we're on can grow the things that feel like home,
then that'll deepen our connection, right?
Yeah. And we have to be careful about that,
(11:48):
of course, because one of the things that has happened to Victoria is that people
come from other parts and they want it to look like England here or whatever,
and then we get an ivy infestation.
But yeah, in the sense of farming and greenhouses and yeah, how can we create
that sense of belonging?
And you're also those different layers of belonging.
(12:11):
One of the big partnerships Rush has is in working with community mapping student
teams from the UVic map shop.
And so precisely to what you're speaking about, they went around and interviewed
different people and cultural communities and says, what is it about the belonging?
What is it about the food? And there's a most beautiful story map that unfolds
(12:36):
all of these different connections that you get about belonging with food,
whether it's the act of the story around the table, the sound of your grandmother's voice, the smell,
all of these things. So cool. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's so beautiful. And I fully agree that, you know,
we have to be mindful of not altering an environment from its natural state,
(12:58):
but that, you know, we have these places and we can in controlled ways create
a sense of home and community building in ways that isn't harmful to the environment,
but can be regenerative to it.
And there was a really cool organization in Australia that did just that.
They funded community gardens for spaces that had predominantly immigrant families
(13:22):
so that they could learn how to grow their own food in that landscape and grow
food that was more deeply connected to them.
Yeah well and okay so that brings
up another sort of grassroots initiative from with
rush which is the plotting of pollinator gardens which
there you can be growing you know the vegetables and
(13:43):
spices and things that you want and so
we have three community groups gorge telecom
community association quarter cedar hill and swan lake are all working together
to start to plot their their pollinator gardens through the tool of open green
maps to see if we can get connectivity across the region so that we know there's
(14:04):
enough habitat for, you know,
everything from slugs to bats to hummingbirds to bees to, you know,
even wasps actually pollinate.
But that pollinator garden connectivity is so important to food security and
adds so much to that sense of of belonging and ability to create beauty in the
(14:28):
world by working with nature.
Yeah. I really love what you just said, Enri, but also what you just finished
saying, Aggie. What I'm getting from that is,
this desire to contribute to the creation of a landscape.
In a lot of ways, Rush does that digitally because we get to understand the
(14:49):
projection of the land and then pull out things that are relevant to us in that.
But then it's stemmed and grounded and rooted in this very real aspect of how
can we as individuals interact with and within nature.
So figuring out how to grow that pepper, or grow that kiwi, how to grow that
(15:09):
plant that is going to provide a haven for your pollinators.
All of those things exist within a consideration of how can I feel at home here,
but then how can the land feel like mine, but how can I also belong to the land?
How can I contribute to the growth of this space in a way that is considered
(15:32):
of its legacy, both ancestrally, but also going forward?
And then how can I feel supported by that as well?
So it touches back to this idea of reciprocity that I think is really interesting
and really special about brush.
Yeah, we took the data on sensitive ecosystems.
So you can sort of see which ecosystem you're ballpark living in,
(15:56):
so that you can plant those plants and extend the reach of it.
And yeah, Yeah, there's all kinds of like plotting of big trees,
even down to the sense of belonging, plotting of inclusive washrooms.
Belonging is really like we are creative beings. We need to be working with
nature. We need to be working with each other.
(16:17):
And it's through that that we can then address the bigger issues of,
but it starts with planting, right?
Like we need cover we need rain gardens we need pollinator gardens we need more
urban ecosystem functioning.
And I didn't mean to say that, I mean, I know well that you know all about invasive species.
(16:38):
That's another thing we can plot, you know, in order to start to take care of it.
It's an interesting thing of how do we feel like we're at home and also get
a good sense of place for where we are and be curious about that.
It's a really good said. I
(16:59):
feel like so much of belonging is
also building that relationship with where you are and creating
that sense of home within within the self and Abby I
loved what you were saying of about like being of the land not just like connecting
with the land and finding ways that it can benefit us but how do we benefit
it and so you know having these conversations around pollinator gardens and
(17:21):
connecting with the local species and native plants and seeing how we can minimize our footprint.
And that way, by creating these kind of like green pathways for nature to use
throughout the urban landscapes that we've created is something that I feel
like is maybe new in the city planning and urban planning space.
(17:43):
You know, it's always been maybe we need a tree here for shade,
maybe we need like, you know, something to prevent flooding.
But the conversation around having
pollinators, like having a pathway for pollinators feels really new.
And I think that's just so great that Rush is considering these things.
And it sounds like it goes, like Rush goes beyond just the physical and like the ecological idea.
(18:08):
You were talking about inclusive bathrooms and I'm curious, like what are the
parameters of Rush or is it just kind of all expanding?
Well, the parameter, I guess, is health. And it runs from, I guess it's about
protection and connection.
So nature protects itself, but often by being connected.
(18:35):
So if you think about a leaf, it's protecting itself by getting rays from the
sun, but it's also protecting what's underneath and connecting in that way to
the rest of the web of life.
And then when it protects itself to let go of the leaf, that leaf that falls
on the ground then creates a protection layer for the winter, for the soil.
(19:00):
And then, you know, of course, the big thing is that when that all breaks down,
not only has the root system been protected, but then there's all the nutrition
that gives the right medicines for new leaves to sprout and that sort of thing.
So the range is everything that helps us as a community be more protected Connected
(19:22):
and connected so that we can be a node of health,
both personally as neighborhoods, as an urban ecosystem, and then be a node
of connection for other communities.
We're very, I don't know if it's luck or if it's just a matter of time,
but this is a piece of paradise.
Ice and so if we
(19:47):
can you know really support nature in
her good work then then we can create
a node of stability here that will serve the communities uh nearby for greater
connectivity i'm not sure if i answered your question i think so yeah greenhouse
(20:09):
gas emissions and carbon draw What are all the areas where,
you know, how much greenhouse gases are the forest absorbing or the eelgrass beds absorbing?
It does that, but it also publishes our emissions as well. Mm-hmm.
(20:29):
It sounds very, like a very holistic view that, you know, immediately hearing
about rush, it seems like it would come off as something that's focused on climate
change and the kind of technical aspect of the environment.
But just in this conversation and how you're explaining it, it seems like it's, you know,
the intricacies of the relationships that we have with ourselves,
(20:52):
with each other, with our neighbors, with the neighboring communities,
with the physical land, with the flora, with with the fauna,
it's like this kind of, it's an acknowledgement that we are not separate from
anything and nothing is separate from us.
And so, looking at all these different layers of connections and threads,
kind of like thinking of a mycelium network and how it's feeding and,
(21:17):
you know, helping the trees communicate and the trees are providing all these
different nutrients and resources for all the plants below and all the,
creatures and everything like that it kind of sounds to me that's what
i'm picking up on anyways that that's what rush is trying to be you
know it was yeah boris in fact
abby you should talk about what you did on the wood wide web map because it's
(21:39):
exactly that trying to make space for the trees to talk to each other can i
work on the wood web map i don't think i did yeah you did with the my three
trees icons oh i guess that is the wood web okay i imagine tell us about it abby.
I mean I've mostly worked on the icons the plotting
is all left to like these amazing students at UVic but
(22:03):
I was I had this like long conversation with Anne-Marie about like
the three tree rule and different big trees and plotting big trees and thinking
about the relationship people have with trees and how they are connected to
that landscape and how being connected to trees connects you to the soil connects
you to another tree connects you to another tree connects you to a leaf connects
you to the leaf that falls.
(22:25):
And so I created these icons about the three-tree rule, which is the idea of
finding three trees that are in your nearest vicinity.
If you just look out a window and you see three trees, you're like,
that one, that one, and that one, those are my trees.
It helps you develop a relationship with them, keeps you accountable,
keeps you grounded, and then,
(22:45):
We had some icons for heart trees or like mother trees or trees that were really
significant to people that like really felt and resonated to you,
which is something that I completely resonate to.
Because off the top of my head, I can think of like some gods that live in my
parents' backyard that I have just worshipped my entire life.
Yeah. And I'm like trees specifically.
(23:06):
Well, and so the tree equity standard, it came out of a Nature Canada report.
Report, they realized that the big cities across Canada, there's a relationship
between income level and canopy cover.
And so they came up with this standard that says, I need to see three trees
from my window, I need to have 30% canopy cover, and I need to have a park of
(23:30):
at least a hectare, 300 meters from my house.
And so what we're trying to do and the icon that, which is so cute,
that Abby created, people are
starting to plot their three trees that they can see from their window.
And they're plotting broadleaf trees and conifer trees, and they're measuring
the circumference of them.
(23:52):
And then ideally, we're going to start to identify places where compaction rates
of the soil don't need to be compacted.
So stick to the sidewalks and plant those little little areas around the trees,
because actually we need the soil to be aerated in order for greenhouse gases
to be absorbed and for those mycelial networks to work between the trees.
(24:16):
So we are trying to create a wood wide web within the city by getting people
to start to build better relationships with their, like Abby's talking about with their trees.
But it's been wild to see like every day now I'm getting emails popping up on the.
At first, when I was getting those emails, I anticipated, I thought that it
(24:38):
was the students that were adding icons in.
And I was like, this is sort of silly because I don't need to have a notification
every single time they plot something.
But then I realized that it's individuals within communities who feel like they
resonate with this map and want to share their trees.
And so you can go on the map and see pictures of people's trees,
(24:58):
which is just the sweetest thing.
It's just the sweetest thing to feel connected to other people's special trees.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so beautiful. And there's less chance of them being
cut down if people love them. Right.
It's a bigger fight, which is, and it's an important one because if we're going
to have affordable housing, we need canopy cover or that's going to be a heat dome. Yeah.
(25:24):
I mean, you probably know a lot of like, how, how does this touch your work
and environmental assessment, Aggie?
Oh, not at all. Really? Really?
Yeah. I mean, my work's a bit different. I can't speak too much to it,
but it's less in the urban spaces.
It's more in like, yeah, out in like smaller communities and open areas.
(25:49):
But it does, it brings me to think of how you're talking about affordable housing and,
you know, witnessing and living in spaces where,
which were lower income and generally not having access to parks and not having
green spaces because they're just kind of like throwing up a bunch of buildings
(26:11):
and trying to fit as many people for the lowest price as possible.
And obviously, that creates a division between people and their relationship
to land, but also has a pretty significant impact on mental health.
And that's kind of where my mind is going with like, you know,
being able to see three trees out your window and how lucky we are with where
(26:33):
we live, at least on, you know, on this island that just about anywhere you
live or look, you're going to be able to find three trees.
But, you know, you go into spaces in Vancouver, like the downtown east side,
and you don't have that. That's not there.
And it's just like concrete.
And it's almost, to me, it feels a little bit dehumanizing to put people in
(26:59):
these places where they can't see nature and can't see a piece of what,
you know, we are all interconnected.
And being a human is part of that is being human.
Able to touch the soil or to hug a tree or to like witness nature expanding, right?
Well, you're actually putting your finger on how the whole thing started.
(27:20):
We had a student in UVic geography, Jillian Voss, who did a project where she
looked at the temperature ranges over the last four years, and she identified
all the potential heat domes in the city.
And then another student team through the community-based participatory research,
(27:40):
and And this is all on the Rush Initiative.
It's like a call out of a yellow square in North Park because in North Park,
there is more concrete and there is a higher degree of people without homes.
And so they went and worked with the businesses and community organizations
in North Park and had them identify where are the cool buildings?
(28:03):
Where are the drinking fountains? Where are the parks?
Kind of where are the areas of concern, the big parking lots,
the big stadiums, like in the last heat dome or heat event, you know,
what caused concern? CERN.
And as a result, the community-based participatory research team created this
(28:27):
map that now serves as an advocacy tool.
So you can go online now on the Rush website and you can, if you saw someone
having a hard time with heat, you would be able to direct them to these places.
And you would be able to take the Rush information, because now we've identified
cool buildings and water fountains, you know, in a broader area to be able to
(28:50):
say, like, we need this parking lot to disappear.
It's causing too much heat in this neighborhood.
So it's exactly, it gets to that kind of environmental racism.
It needs to stop. It's not good for anyone.
And through mapping, which can be used to divide or it can be used to bring
(29:11):
communities together to act towards health for everyone.
Exactly right. I really appreciate that element of equity that you're bringing
into it and that acknowledgement as well, that mapping has been this like deeply
colonial, deeply unsettling, but also resettling tool.
(29:33):
I'm not sure how much we've talked about this in general, but like studying
geography, being a geography student, one of the first things that we learned was to map.
Appreciate or understand the subjectivity of maps, how they've been used as tools, but not.
They're not truths. And for a long time, maps have been used to assert dominion
(29:57):
over space, to dominate space, and to give people the right to dominate space
as well, along with other tools.
But I have always been interested in how maps can be used as a tool to illuminate
space, space, create spaces that are accessible,
help understand the land, and invite connection.
(30:21):
I think Rush does a really fantastic job at offering that kind of space,
but then also offering people the tools to map as well.
Because for a long time, mapping has been something that has been only,
that's an ability or a tool that has only been able to be, like maps were created by certain people.
And those people became authorities. If you have the ability to map something,
(30:44):
you had the ability to tell people how space was.
So to be able to invite communities to contribute to
the process of mapping their worlds and have the
idea that people's truths and people's worlds are valid and deserve to be documented
and how the connectivity of all of those worlds helps us to interact with our
(31:05):
space in a way that is kinder and more equitable and quite radical is something
that's so special to to me.
Yeah. And to be clear, the community mapping program really does work very ethically
in that space you describe.
(31:25):
I've learned a lot and just been so impressed by these teams of what they make
happen and how they enter that space.
Yeah i do want to say before this conversation is
over that it's a prototype that it's in development there's
a feedback button it's only on the
(31:47):
south island right now but we are looking we've made it with 100 open access
software because we want to scale it to have it be scalable to other communities
and if they put in their own questions but like a tool that That helps people
make sense of the issues, the vulnerabilities,
the opportunities. That's one of the goals.
(32:10):
Well, I just wanted to say thank Abby for bringing up that history of how oppressive
and colonial maps were and still continue to be in so many ways.
And the possibility that exists with mapping, especially with citizen-led mapping
(32:30):
and the community development potential.
And Anne-Marie, I think that's so great that Rush is open source and that,
you know, being a prototype right now,
you're so open and willing to have this move through different communities and
be accessed in so many different ways is heartwarming.
And truly, what are the words that I'm looking for?
(32:54):
I feel like it really reflects the space that we're trying to head into,
which is more of that village mentality and really taking care of each other
and looking for ways to support each other.
And so I'm curious, yeah, how do people access Rush and how do they get more involved?
Well, you go to whatstherush.ca.
Whatstherush.ca, great. And the Rush is that there is a Rush.
(33:17):
Of course, we have to take it in stride and find our flow. that's
part of climate action is you know finding your
flow so you don't get too scattered and make too many little trips
everywhere i think that's the easy it's the it's the
one-stop shop go take a look give us some feedback if you'd
like to collaborate if you know of an opportunity if you want to explore the
(33:39):
tools on open green map that you can do around the globe and and And one day
we will have created something that has data sets in all communities,
but we're just not there yet.
So we're trying to, it's a bit of a heal yourself,
heal the world kind of idea of what can we do here to figure out how those conversations
(34:02):
can happen in a way that affirms people's dignity and puts the tools in their hands,
change the critical questions that get asked and create a shared language.
Sounds wonderful. And we'll put all these links in the description to make them easily accessible.
But if someone's interested in collaborating or has a network that they want
(34:25):
to connect in this sort of way, is there an email they can reach out to or is
there a form on the Rush website?
There is a feedback form on the Rush website, but you could always go to naturernd.com as well.
That's a hard one to spell or say, but it's, well, it's not hard to spell,
(34:46):
but hard to figure out how to spell.
N-A-T-U-R-N-D dot com.
So that'll, if you go to the Nature R&D website, there's a contact form there too. Yeah. Perfect.
Thank you so much for this conversation. thank
you it's been such a pleasure and it's just it you know really exciting to hear
(35:10):
about the initiatives that are coming forward and the passion that you both
have for this and just your your perspectives and your willingness to to be
diving into this it's so special it's going to be so big yay,
all right until next time right on
thanks thanks so much thank you thanks so much for joining us visit whatstherush.ca
(35:36):
to learn more about the rush initiative and bring it to your community and click
subscribe be notified of future episodes until next time you're listening to sound ground.
Music.
Presented by nature rd.
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