Leave Your Shoes at the Door: Three Ways To Be a Friendly Visitor to Your Environment

When you visit a friend’s place, do you leave your shoes at the door, tread lightly, and attempt to have a minimal impact on the things he or she owns? Or, do you thrash around like a baby, and take and leave what you like?

We are just visitors here, and individually, we come and go. As humans we are increasingly messy and have historically been bad houseguests to our surroundings. Some would say that it is our right - as free-world inhabitants - to consume, affect, and do as we please (see 2^nd to last / 8:14pm comment ) because our time on this earth is to be enjoyed. But, my friends, it is possible to minimize one’s impact by being aware, and simply using your surroundings with compassion. We are visitors here, yet we:

…smear concrete and asphalt like pâtés wherever we see fit. So, use it to walk where it’s pleasant.

Roads and asphalt for the purpose of transport take up to 20 percent of urban space in certain cities in England, while in North America, roads and parking lots account between 30 and 60 percent of the total urban surface. So, who likes to walk? From the same source as above: Walking accounts for 88% of all movement inside Tokyo, while this figure is only 3% for Los Angeles. It’s not your fault that too much focus has been put on the experience of getting somewhere with the culture of personal vehicles, but what you do (we are a market, remember) will have an impact on what is built for your future needs.

Luckily, urban planning and design have put new focus on pedestrian, and car-reducing design. I have always been perplexed by how unpleasant a city can be for the person, and how - clearly - someone would want to spend as much time as possible inside a vehicle.

Overall, the pleasantness of your urban experience will have an effect on how much you walk and bike, but those two options will have a priceless impact on our land and air. Over the course of a month try crossing out up to ten of those normal drives, replace them with that alien, outside experience. Then, choose your next locale based on its non-vehicle options.

… have historically disregarded the need for habitat and nature’s services. So be aware of what has replaced it and the effect on its surroundings.

Along the lines of the above point, city living can be rather unpleasant. Habitat and natural space in a city is not just for increased pleasantries though, it is important to keep hydrology and cycles in its natural state for the sake of the city’s surroundings.

The biggest issue with hydrology is the passage of surface water - as roads and general infrastructure have almost completely bypassed the cycle of water through soils. Being aware of the connection between drains and runoff is important too. In some cities (I see it here in Victoria) storm-drains and gutters will have a little seashell or starfish symbol reminding you that what goes in there sees the ocean or other water next. Just knowing that this replaces soil hydrology is an important first step. The importance of soil is underrated, and we generally don’t know enough about it and our impacts on it. When our city’s roads and parking lots cover up to 60 percent of it, how could we? It is best if we take advantage of any natural space we have, and let the important people know if you need more!

…consume resources like there’s no tomorrow. So reduce waste and be a conscious consumer.

Things are changing fast: people are increasingly environmentally aware, and we have long passed any sort of industrial revolution; but the best time to have an impact by curbing consumption is now, recession-wise, and Dip wise. There is no better time to show resource, material, and crap-you-don’t-need producers that the future of their product is changing. Curbing consumption is the quickest way to a producers heart, especially of the things that will long outlive us - like cars, chemicals and plastics. As a visitor, know that when you leave it is only polite to try to leave as little an impact as possible, especially waste wise.

Companies that produce resource products, logging co’s for example, need to focus on either 1) re-stocking, or 2) restoring sites in light of the fact that there is a tomorrow. Being a conscious consumer is part of the equation too. One should at least attempt to buy the product that took the least amount of fuel to get to you. If that brings down Canada’s timber another notch, so be it: I’ve always been a supporter of corporate sacrifice for landscape positives. There are ways to do it, and consultants like myself need to find the ways to make them viable.

The message is simple and plausible, act the cautious guest. At the risk of seeming morbid, imagine that next to your gravesite (or what have you) when you die lies a pile of things that you have consumed and discarded over your lifetime - especially the non-recyclables. Finally, pass a good ethic to the generation below you, ensuring that they are cautious visitors, that their ‘death-pile’ will be considerably smaller than yours.