Dear Editor,
Imagine Nex̱wlélex̱wm (Bowen Island) 500 years from now with abundant healthy old growth forest, sitting like a green jewel in the sparkling blue Salish Sea, alive with herring, leaping salmon, tail slapping seals, and whales spouting and breaching.
What if our community has an essential role to play today in creating this beautiful future and helping ourselves and others to live in harmony and peace with each other and with Nature? I’ve recently submitted a proposal for the new Park called Nex̱wlélex̱wm Ecospiritual Regional Peace Park: Restoring, Regenerating and Rewilding Nature, to Mayor and Council and Metro Vancouver Regional District. In it, I ask us to consider questions of our relationship with the proposed land for the park that is in the unceded territory of Squamish Nation.
I also suggest that the current model for the park with 100 campsites proposed by Metro Vancouver is an old model. I invite you to consider whether it has truly served in the face of continued habitat destruction, collapsing biodiversity, accelerated climate change. There are many including children and youth who are feeling anxious, depressed, hopeless, and powerless to do anything about all these issues facing them.
It’s time to consider a new leading edge model for parks that connects people more deeply to nature, inspires them, and that provides opportunities for learning how to give back to Nature. An ecospiritual connection to Nature is essential for our survival and the survival of remaining species. By learning to listen to and be guided by the spirit of the land and waters, together with understanding Nature’s laws, we are capable of making wiser decisions.
The Park will serve people of all generations, and what if it has a special focus on serving children and youth as leaders of the future? What if we can equip them with spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical knowledge, wisdom and tools to begin making those wise decisions now?
What if there is a special focus on outdoor experiential ecospiritual education for children and youth, that gives them powerful experiences of awe and wonder in nature and opportunities to participate in restoring, regenerating, and rewilding Nature?
Because the vision is to maximize rewilding of the Park, including restoring old growth forest, human infrastructure would be minimized and clustered. Instead of 100 campsites there would be 2 group campsites for 40 people and/or a Big House for winter use that can accommodate children, youth, teachers, and supervisors throughout the school year. In the summers, and on weekends, other groups who are enrolled in ecospiritual park programmes including adults could use these facilities.
For day use of the park, advance reservations would be necessary and bus access only with 2 buses into the park and 2 buses out of the park/day. This combined with a policy that only residents can bring their cars on the ferry would keep traffic and the Park and island green. It has worked well for Iona in Scotland since 1978, a slightly smaller island, with 177 residents who host 133,000 visitors per year.
To view the full details of the proposal for the Nex̱wlélex̱wm (Bowen Island) Ecospiritual Regional Peace Park, see Section 12.3 of the Bowen Island Municipality’s June 12, 2023 agenda package.
If you support having an Ecospiritual Regional Peace Park at the Cape or have other ideas for the Park, I encourage you to write a letter to Mayor and Council and to Metro Vancouver. Together let’s co-create a Park for this time, that leaves an inspiring legacy of living in peace and harmony with each other and Nature that will serve past, present and future generations!
With Love and In Spirit and Peace,
- Ellen Hayakawa
