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This case study is part of the 2020 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
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While small-scale biodiversity projects are important, there’s no question that when it comes to nature, size matters: larger spaces allow for a greater diversity of plants that in turn support a greater diversity and number of species. They also provide critical ecological services, such as cleaning the air, managing stormwater, and mitigating urban heat—all of which only become more important as climate change increases environmental stress.
Cities use different policy and planning levers to protect sensitive urban ecosystems or important habitat links, often designating them as Environmentally Sensitive/Significant Areas. For example, Toronto expanded its ESA’s by 68 areas, Montreal instituted an Ecosystem Management Program for its large parks, and Fredericton released two new large park management plans.
However, with 19% of cities reporting citywide biodiversity strategies in place, and a further 52% who have biodiversity objectives embedded in other environmental plans, there’s a need for more holistic citywide planning that examines key species, develops education and stewardship plans, and identifies habitat corridors.
It’s not enough to have habitat patches—even large ones—if they are isolated.
Whether it’s an urban landscape or a pristine natural area, you need connected networks for ecosystems to function properly, said Pamela Zevit, Surrey’s Biodiversity Conservation Planner.
Connectivity ensures wildlife are not confined to what Zevit called “habitat islands,” which can easily become degraded by pollution, disease, or disturbance, leaving wildlife with nowhere else to go.
This is why Surrey has spent so much energy planning what it calls its green infrastructure network: a series of cross-city habitat corridors connecting larger habitat hubs. While important at the city scale, planning must also connect within regional networks—after all, animals don’t stop at city borders—so Surrey has made sure their network matches up with the natural systems of neighbouring cities.
“Surrey has a very strong desire to be a leader,” Zevit said. “So we made this effort early on to connect a lot of the dots and we’ll be able to fit into whatever happens over time at the regional level.”
Within its own borders, the city is also working towards approving its first biodiversity design guidelines. The guidelines will cover not just natural areas but places in what Zevit referred to as the “urban matrix”—all those other land uses outside of parks and natural areas that have an impact on biodiversity.
“The [guidelines] are this long overdue, comprehensive approach to linking all the existing design guidelines and construction documents and everything that we have around us and saying how do we integrate biodiversity objectives into everything that the city does,” said Zevit.
Calgary is another city that has been working hard at restoring natural spaces and ensuring connectivity through a biodiversity strategy the city approved in 2015.
Over the past two years, the city has identified and evaluated the components of its ecological network so it could prioritize restoration and enhancement projects. It has even produced a guide on how to naturalize existing parks.
Until this evaluative work was underway, Calgary didn’t have “a mechanism to set citywide priorities for biodiversity conservation or habitat restoration,” with actions largely done as needed over time, said the city’s Landscape Analysis Supervisor, Vanessa Carney. Like many Canadian cities, she said, urban development happened neighbourhood by neighbourhood, meaning environmental planning has occurred largely at the local scale, rather than comprehensively across the city or region.
“While this approach helps to conserve highly biodiverse and landscape diverse parcels of land as public, we’ve been missing that ecological backbone that allows us to look at how neighbourhood development contributes or constrains citywide and regional connectivity,” Carney said.
To perform its evaluation, the city examined the permeability of landscapes for wildlife movement, the size of habitat areas and their adjacent land uses, and how integral the space was to the functioning of the overall ecological network.
Despite the citywide view, Carney said that both small and large parks play a role in connectivity. The larger parks serve as “biodiversity reservoirs,” while smaller parks—whether natural or manicured—provide habitat for smaller species, serve as stepping stone habitats, and allow people to connect with nature in their everyday lives.
At this smaller scale, cities can turn to development policies to preserve and enhance connectivity. For example, through its Greenway Amenity Zoning, Langley Township ensures every community includes green corridors and buffers to support biodiversity and Red Deer creates Ecological Profiles for new subdivisions to ensure natural features are protected.
Riparian areas (habitat along waterways) are particularly rich areas for biodiversity and can help create important habitat connections. They are also important for climate change mitigation as flood protection from increased extreme weather damage.
Surrey’s Nicomekl River Park project will restore and enhance unique riverfront ecological zones into a 3km linear park, aiming to combine nature with art, heritage, recreation, and social space. The city has released a heritage plan and public art strategy, along with a management plan that highlights opportunities for recognition of Indigenous history, practices, and plants through programming, signage, and naming.
Led by Waterfront Toronto, Toronto is also undertaking a massive restoration project in naturalizing the mouth of the Don River, which flows into Lake Ontario. The project, which also includes creating biodiverse “park streets” as part of new neighbourhood development in the area, will create flood protection and restore lost landscapes.
At a smaller-scale, Vancouver is moving ahead with daylighting a creek through Tatlow and Volunteer Parks, restoring a waterway into English Bay. The creek is one of many that have been buried throughout Vancouver’s development—something many cities did as part of urbanization.
The project acts on priorities in Vancouver’s new parks master plan, VanPlay, for restoring wild spaces and increasing connectivity. Restoring the creek to aboveground will create new aquatic habitat, manage stormwater, improve water quality, and create habitat for birds and pollinators.
The often large swathes of mowed grass in hydro corridors that cut for kilometres through cities are also increasingly being seen as areas ripe for habitat connections.
Take The Meadoway, a project of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority in partnership with the City of Toronto, Hydro One, and philanthropic funder The W. Garfield Weston Foundation.
Already partly constructed, the plan will naturalize a 16km hydro corridor across Scarborough connecting two large natural areas on either side: Rouge National Urban Park and the Lower Don Ravine. When finished, The Meadoway will feature hundreds of acres of meadow habitat with restored wetland areas, a connected trail, and social gathering spaces. An online visualization toolkit showcases the potential of the project, which is expected to be completed by 2024.
Montreal has also announced plans for a biodiversity corridor in a Saint-Laurent borough hydro corridor. “Climate change issues are requiring us to act quickly with innovative solutions,” said the borough’s mayor, Alan DeSousa, calling the project a “laboratory” from which others can learn. Ultimately constructed on 450 hectares of land, the project will include native habitat, trails, and green roofs installed on neighbouring buildings.
Here’s what other Canadian cities are doing to create and enhance large nature parks and increase habitat connectivity:
With climate change and biodiversity loss increasing stress on ecosystems, engaging residents in urban conservation is more important now than ever.
The question becomes how to reach people in their busy lives, respect traditional knowledge, and bring more people into the conversation about conservation.
In order to reach people, we need to articulate biodiversity in a way that is meaningful for them, said Jennifer Pierce, a biodiversity researcher at the University of British Columbia.
She recommended starting from questions such as “how does biodiversity relate to their lives. To what they value?” This may mean dropping the solely environmentally focused arguments and connecting biodiversity to other top-of-mind issues for people.
As we noted in our story on neighbourhood-scale urban biodiversity projects, one of the benefits of local initiatives is how they can make biodiversity tangible and relevant. Recent research has also shown how people’s exposure to local nature can positively impact their involvement in wider environmental issues.
By leveraging people’s attachment to their own home or neighbourhood—and by showing them how native plant gardens and rain gardens could, for example, save them money like Guelph’s rebate program does—more people can be brought into the conversation.
Another way to reach people is by working with youth. Schools are a great cross-section of society, Ryerson University Associate Professor Nina-Marie Lister said. Students can bring back messages of the importance of biodiversity to their parents, the same way that they did with recycling in the 1980s. “It was kids that pressured their parents to recycle,” Lister said. “They led by example.”
Joce Two Crows Tremblay is an Earth Worker with the Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle in Toronto who works directly with street-involved youth and urban Indigenous populations planting and tending Indigenous species in local parks and public spaces.
These gardens are an important way of connecting with the land, traditions and ceremony—ties which have been severed through the colonization process.
“For the 50% of Indigenous populations that are now living in urban settings, parks are often our only place to connect with the land,” explained Tremblay. “A lot of healing happens by just getting your hand in the ground.”
Tremblay’s work extends to compiling research and educating about less-invasive management practices with a keen awareness of how colonial thinking is often re-enacted in how we manage species and landscapes.
Introducing new ways of thinking needs constant effort, and reinforcement of intentions through all layers of staff, as Tremblay learned when one of their Three Sisters gardens was accidentally mowed down. It is as important for the staff cutting the grass as it is for management to understand efforts to increase biodiversity and reconciliation work in parks.
How little we embed Indigenous knowledge and land management practices into our biodiversity work “is an enormous gap, and it’s also an irresponsible gap,” Lister argued.
She pointed out that while city staff have good intentions with biodiversity strategies and are aware of the need for more Indigenous involvement, they also recognize that many Indigenous organizations and communities are often stretched to capacity.
“It’s long been recognized that patterns of colonization and colonial history are repeated and entrenched through the way we build our landscape,” Lister said. “And we know that there needs to be, in Lorraine Johnson’s words, an unsettling of the garden.”
While not looking specifically at city parks, the importance of Indigenous land stewardship practices was highlighted by a 2019 University of British Columbia study which found biodiversity was highest on Indigenous-managed lands—finding a 40% greater number of unique species.
Getting to a place of collective care can be challenging. Some people may “love a place to death” while others may be ignorant of sensitive ecosystems, dumping trash or allowing their dog to run around.
However, as research by Mount Royal University’s Don Carruthers Den Hoed has found, how a place is framed—the name we give it and the narrative we embed in it—can impact people’s understanding of its importance. Humans are constantly looking for cues that suggest how we should act or what a place is for.
Carruthers Den Hoed pointed to one study where by telling people they were going to a park, people perceived it as a restorative place before they even got there. Even by naming something a “park” or a “sensitive landscape” we frame it in such a way that it affects how people relate to it.
Another research study set up by Carruthers Den Hoed included a “blind taste test” of nature. He brought participants to the same place through different ways: one group saw a park sign, one saw no sign, and another connected with Indigenous elders who talked about the place’s spiritual significance.
Carruthers Den Hoed found that people’s perception of the space—the importance and the level of care needed—was affected by the narrative of the place they were presented with, whether through signage or story. As a result, he noted it’s important to think about what the amenities, signage, and management of a park says about its significance and purpose.
Here are some of the creative practices that cities and communities are using to involve people in the preservation and enhancement of urban biodiversity.
LEVERAGE THE POWER OF ART.
DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE QUIRKY.
TURN NATURE INTO A LEARNING LABORATORY.
DEMYSTIFY WILDLIFE.
MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE.
Take a walk in a park. It’s something many of us intuitively do when we’re feeling anxious, which, as COVID-19 courses through our lives, is a growing collective emotional state. Nature is even something doctors have begun prescribing. But are all parks created equal in their benefits to our psychological well-being?
Pioneering research from the 1990s showed how exposure to nature—even getting a glimpse of it out of a window—could reduce stress, improve concentration, and help us heal faster. However, this research often painted nature with a broad brush: green space was green space whether it was a wild space or a treed lawn.
Recent research has been going deeper by exploring people’s response to different natural environments. Studies have looked at the length of time spent in biodiverse areas (the longer time the greater the positive effect), the types of vegetation present (bright flowers were stimulating, green plantings were soothing), and whether the presence of park furniture like benches reduced the well-being impacts of natural areas (it didn’t).
Overall, the research has found that people report a greater sense of well-being in areas that they perceive to be more biodiverse—a finding that has deep implications for how we plan and engage people in urban biodiversity.
The importance of access to nature and biodiversity for our mental health becomes even more urgent in light of COVID-19. As the pandemic increased stress and severed personal support networks for many, half of Canadians reported worsening mental health and the Canadian Mental Health Association warned of a potential “echo pandemic” of mental illness.
People were left trying to balance government direction to “stay home” with a desire to get some fresh air and clear their heads. A global survey of 2,000 people found mental and physical health were key drivers of public space use during the pandemic. The same survey found that people took refuge in places close to home, highlighting the pressing need to ensure natural areas are equitably distributed throughout our cities.
The benefits of biodiversity are often couched in environmental impacts and ecosystem services—the work that natural areas do to help clean the air, provide food, mitigate flooding, control extreme temperatures, and more. Viewing nature as green infrastructure is critical, but it misses how these same spaces are also psychological infrastructure.
“The intersection of the richness of life on earth with human well-being is now well established in science and is fast becoming an imperative in design and planning practice,” said Nina-Marie Lister, Associate Professor and Director of the Ecological Design Lab at Ryerson University, who added that the area is a “new frontier.”
“Never before have our parks and public green spaces been more important to city dwellers, especially in terms of the mental health and wellness benefits of urban nature,” she said. “From birdsong to sunshine, wildflowers and shady walks, we now know that the ability to safely access the outdoors is a critical necessity—and a vital prescription for wellness.”
“The sooner we recognize that we take psychological solace being in nature, the better we are able to protect nature for our own well-being,” she added.
Don Carruthers Den Hoed, a researcher at Mount Royal University who also manages the Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership, has conducted his own studies on the connection between biodiversity and well-being. He argued that the well-being narrative can be a “doorway” through which to get more people involved in conversations about parks and biodiversity, noting the Canadian Index of Well-being as a model for how to talk about the multiple benefits of parks.
Understanding how parks contribute to Index areas like leisure and environment are a “no-brainer,” Carruthers Den Hoed said. But what about democratic engagement and community vitality? Through the Index, cities can make the case that volunteer stewardship programs aren’t just about natural restoration work, he said, but also about strengthening community vitality and well-being.
The impacts of well-being and biodiversity often depend as much on people’s perceptions as on actual levels of biodiversity present in a natural area.
For example, one 2012 study found people reported high levels of well-being in areas they perceived to be more natural, even if their perception did not align with actual levels of biodiversity.
This leads to an opportunity, the researchers pointed out. Closing the gap between perception and reality through natural education and stewardship initiatives could “unlock win-win scenarios” that “can maximize both biodiversity conservation and human well-being.”
In other words, the more we improve the biodiversity of our city and provide people ways to learn and steward these areas, the more people are able to appreciate natural spaces and the better they will feel as a result.
Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote of this reciprocal relationship between land stewardship and human well-being in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, which weaves together Indigenous knowledge and natural science.
“Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise,” she wrote. “It is relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land. Therefore, reconnecting people and the landscape is as essential as reestablishing proper hydrology or cleaning up contaminants. It is medicine for the earth.”
Lister views the public health and well-being impacts of biodiversity as a “missed opportunity” in Canada. “For a country rich in biodiversity, we are behind on protection strategies that can improve human well-being. I think it’s an urgent necessity to put biodiversity and health together in our public policies.”
Carruthers Den Hoed pointed out that park managers often speak about the spiritual benefits of nature and yet “that’s not mentioned in any management plans. It’s one of the really important values people come to nature for and yet it’s just kind of shuffled to the side of the table.”
Our review of Canadian biodiversity strategies found that while they mention the human well-being benefits of biodiversity, they do so often only in general terms rather than in policy or recommended actions.
However, that doesn’t mean cities aren’t thinking about the connection between biodiversity and public health. Recognizing the scientific link between mental health and biodiversity, Vanessa Carney, Calgary’s Landscape Analysis Supervisor, said that one of the goals of the city’s work mapping ecological networks “is to help find ways to expand Calgarians’ access to park spaces to include more easily accessible nature experiences.”
The well-being benefits of experiencing biodiversity and nature raise important questions about equitable access to these spaces—especially given rising mental health pressures due to COVID-19.
As health researcher Nadha Hassen found, racial and socioeconomic inequities in access to quality green spaces can be a determinant of mental health outcomes. “In urban settings, neighbourhoods with low-income, newcomer, and racialized populations tend to have lower access to available, good quality green spaces compared to other groups that are higher income or white,” she wrote.
Equity is a “massive piece of work,” Carruthers Den Hoed noted. Indeed, equity is a missing lens from many biodiversity strategies. He argued that equity should not just be about access (do people have nearby nature to enjoy?), but about inclusion (how involved are people in shaping those natural spaces?).
“Where’s the equity focusing on the decision-making, the employment, the economic benefits of the things that are happening in that park?” Carruthers Den Hoed said. “That’s where I think the most interesting work will go.”
This case study is part of the 2021 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
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Climate change is all encompassing. It impacts how we grow food, how we get around, and how we build our homes. Our city parks are no different.
As we outline elsewhere in this report, there are many ways parks help mitigate and adapt to climate change. For example, park vegetation can help pull carbon from the air, reduce temperatures during heat waves, and soak up excess rainfall to avoid floods during extreme weather events.
But climate change also places stress on our green spaces, increasing the chances they will be damaged during a storm and altering the growing climate of plants. Indeed, 84% of cities said that protecting against climate change and extreme weather damage was a challenge.
Ensuring parks can provide important climate resilience benefits means making changes to how we plan, design, and maintain green spaces so they adapt and thrive in a changing climate. These changes ripple across everything from how we plan park systems to the aesthetics of park landscapes to the equipment used to cut the grass.
More and more Canadian cities are planning for climate change adaptation—whether through new climate action plans, climate actions embedded in park system master plans, or both. This year, 72% of cities reported having a climate action plan in place, an increase from last year due both to the inclusion of new cities in the 2021 report and a slew of new climate action plans approved in 2020.
Some of this planning work is in its early stages. For example, while almost all Canadian park system master plans reference climate change, many of the recommendations are for further work to create guidelines that can better integrate climate resiliency standards into park planning.
This doesn’t mean that cities aren’t building climate-resilient parks, but that they may be one-off projects—like a rain garden installed in a park to help reduce flood risk—rather than formalized changes to how all parks are designed and redeveloped.
That is beginning to change, however.
Consider Mississauga’s new Climate Change Action Plan, which calls for integrating climate change considerations into park development standards. The city’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that the city was already doing this work on a park-by-park basis, but “some things that were championed by an individual [city staff person] may lose momentum and attention if that individual leaves or takes a different role.” Standardizing climate resilient planning in parks will help institutionalize practices and ensure continuity.
Holistic plans that formalize practices across an entire city can also help cement a new way of doing things and build partnerships between different city departments like parks, transportation, and water.
Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy, for example, coordinates green infrastructure improvements—like rain gardens, bioswales, and retention areas—across streets, parks, and developments to meet a goal of capturing 90% of rainfall. In reporting on why the strategy was so important, park staff noted that “without comprehensive policy, green infrastructure projects have mainly been staff-led pilot initiatives…rather than an integral part of city capital programs.”
Similarly, Kitchener approved a citywide policy that directs all private and public development to mitigate stormwater runoff by capturing the first 12.5 mm of rainfall where it falls, rather than allowing it to run into underground pipes. This attention to managing rainfall is shown in innovative practices at the recently completed RBJ Schlegel Park, which manages all rainfall onsite and reuses water from the splash pad for park irrigation.
Lastly, in Brampton, the recently approved Eco Park Strategy helps guide the development of a resilient, connected park system, grounded in values such as naturalization, ecological integrity, and recognizing social and cultural value. The city is developing an EcoPark toolkit that will provide guidelines for both city park development and community members, such as adopt-a-park groups, on how to implement the strategy’s goals in specific projects. The city is already putting the plan into practice, using an Eco Park lens to re-naturalize the concrete banks of the Jefferson, Jordan & Jayfield channel.
Depending on where you are and the time of year, climate change in Canada is bringing warmer, wetter, and drier conditions. This impacts the types of plants and trees best suited for parks, necessitating a shift to more climate-resilient species and opening the door in some cities for species that wouldn’t have grown there otherwise.
Edmonton’s climate adaptation plan, for example, notes that by 2050, the city’s growing season length could increase by 22 days, which will shift what plantings grow best. While Regina park staff indicated that a changing climate has created an opportunity to plant new tree species.
These shifts will alter the landscape of our parks in different ways. For example, displays of native wildflowers instead of annuals in park gardens. But it also means changes to one of the most ubiquitous landscapes found in parks: the lawn.
Manicured lawns aren’t going away—they’re key for sports and lounging around—but cities are moving towards naturalizing some of these spaces, shifting them to so-called “low mow meadows.”
Moving away from a grass monoculture can boost biodiversity and increase the climate benefits of parks. For example, studies have shown a diversity of plants helps keep spaces cooler than a grass lawn. And as Edmonton city staff noted, “increased naturalization results in less need for mowing,” which reduces emissions from trimming equipment. To increase this practice, Edmonton city staff said they have adjusted the city’s landscape standards to focus on naturalization opportunities “in unprogrammed, low use spaces or spaces where there is environmental benefit to naturalize” Similarly, in Brampton, the city’s 2019 Landscape Development Guidelines promote climate-resilient plantings and include planting density requirements for parks.
Shifting to more naturalized landscapes requires engaging the public, addressing expectations about aesthetics and concerns about wildlife.
“We’ve created an expectation that there will be tight mown grass and formalized flower gardens,” Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said. The Park Board, however, is transitioning more spaces to low-mow meadows. A recently approved pilot will see 37 hectares in 18 city parks converted to more naturally managed landscapes.
“It is difficult to manage change for people who are used to a different aesthetic,” Townsend said. “For some, it’s unkempt and messy in comparison, but that’s what naturally managed areas look like.”
Simple signs may help. Townsend said the Park Board will create pathways through some of the meadows, placing signage that welcomes people to use them. Similarly, in Toronto’s Meadoway—a project that is naturalizing a 16km hydro corridor—the Toronto Region Conservation Authority installed signs to educate people about the new meadows and why they may look different than other park landscapes.
Managing expectations also extends to parks that are continually damaged in increasingly strong storms, such as Vancouver’s beloved Stanley Park seawall.
“The first reaction is to just fix what has been quote unquote broken,” Townsend said, adding that “the public expectation is pretty much [that] you’ll find a way to keep those cedars growing, or find a way to keep the ponds full and keep repairing that wall.”
It’s a challenge to think long-term as opposed to “putting a patch on what has been damaged,” he said. He argued, however, that it’s important to strike a balance between forward-thinking actions to create more climate-resilient parks and appreciating public expectations for well-loved park spaces.
The question becomes whether the city fortifies itself against sea level rise or accepts that some parks will flood at times and design them to accommodate, Townsend said.One way Vancouver is tackling this is by inviting the public into a conversation about the impacts of sea level rise through a program called Sea2City that brings attention to how waterfront parks may be impacted. The program includes elements like installing signs calling attention to future high water marks in waterfront parks, and a “Conversations in Canoes” video series with a range of experts.
Despite the major challenge climate change poses, it’s not all about city-led actions. As we pointed out in last year’s Canadian City Parks Report, local actions in small spaces can have far-reaching impacts.
As Nature Canada’s Policy Manager Michael Polanyi argued, neighbourhood-based projects can be “proof of concept,” using success stories to pave the way for larger projects and policy change across the city.
“Initiatives to plant trees in parks or start community gardens or distribute rain barrels in a neighbourhood or try and restore a small wetland—I think those are important in terms of engaging people, in terms of raising awareness, in terms of showing support and energy behind local initiatives which get politicians excited and on board,” he said.
Neighbourhood-level projects also highlight changes needed to reduce barriers that exist in a city in promoting more resilient practices. “When residents try to do something at the local level, you [notice] barriers—whether it’s lack of funding or a ridiculous permit system you have to go through or a by-law that’s in the way.” Polanyi said.
Polanyi also pointed out that “cities are often the modelers of wider change.” For example, local advocates were critical to the enactment of pesticide bans, which started at the municipal level and then moved up to provincial laws.
“Often working at the neighbourhood level, getting something happening at the city level, is the way that change happens,” he said.
As Canadians spent more time outdoors during the pandemic, the benefits of parks were clear. They helped us de-stress, stay active, and connect safely with others. But parks are critical for tackling another looming urban crisis: climate change.
Parks provide a number of climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits, such as cleaning the air, protecting against flooding, and regulating local temperatures. As climate change brings heavier storms and hotter weather, parks become even more important.
However, urban green spaces–and thus their benefits–are not equally distributed.
If you live in a neighbourhood with plentiful parks and trees then you also likely live in a neighbourhood that is whiter and higher income. Multiple studies show that lower income, racialized communities have fewer green spaces, making these communities more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Sherry Yano, formerly of the David Suzuki Foundation, argued that these communities are also often located closer to more polluted and disaster prone areas. This reality, described as environmental racism, is documented in recent Canadian research:
In response to inequities like these, Canadian advocates have called for centring justice in climate action. These calls follow a long history of the environmental justice movement, which works to redress environmental harms and ensure both negative and positive environmental impacts are equitably distributed.
This movement also includes city parks. We spoke with experts about what taking a justice approach looks like at the scale of the urban park, allowing more people to share in the climate resilience benefits of green space.
While a new federal bill seeks to address environmental racism in Canada, a 2020 study found that “environmental justice indicators are not yet routinely incorporated into policy decision-making at the local, provincial or federal level.” The gap goes deeper: “Even in cases where consideration of equity dimensions is encouraged in planning, guidance on how to measure and monitor those dimensions can be limited.”
This finding reflects our review of Canadian climate change and park system plans. While plans mention equity as a general principle, few carry this forward into policy and even fewer specifically acknowledge racial inequities.
Some cities, however, have begun to step forward:
By taking an equity-based approach to park development, and particularly focusing on communities that may be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, these plans, if implemented, work towards cities that allow more residents to share in the climate resilience benefits of green spaces.
When we talk about green space inequities, we often point out which neighbourhoods have fewer parks. But, as Setha Low has written, distributional justice is only one aspect of environmental justice in parks. We must also examine whether decision-making processes are fair (procedural justice) and whether people are treated respectfully (interactional justice).
This means asking questions such as:
These questions of process, power, and respect can have a profound impact on a city’s ability to address inequities.
As Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said, “it helps to have a master plan policy that recognizes inequity,” like Vancouver’s Initiative Zones, but it “doesn’t immediately change where the loud voices come from.”
In our survey, just 34% of Canadians said they felt they had the ability to influence what went on in their parks.
Reforming how and who we engage is no small matter. The distributional inequities we see today are the result of decision-making power imbalances, Sherry Yano argued, privileging some voices over others. “If you keep reinforcing the same systems, you are reinforcing the way we got to these problems.”
We can start by providing opportunities for a range of people in affected communities to be meaningfully involved in influencing outcomes, rather than positioning engagement solely as a way to seek feedback.
Canadian placemaker Jay Pitter has said that “if the community engagement process hasn’t served the larger purpose of building bridges across difference and fostering new relationships, then it hasn’t served the community.” She suggested smaller gatherings and walking workshops as ways to create opportunities for dialogue.
Larissa Crawford, Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led Indigenous and Black-owned social enterprise advancing climate justice, advocated for engaging with diverse youth and giving them decision-making power. “These young minds are required to think of sustainability in a way that older generations and even my generation didn’t have to,” she said.
Diversity is not just about race and identity, Crawford added, but about bringing in diverse experiences. This means not prioritizing people based on academic or professional credentials, but widening our scope to value the contributions of people with different lived experiences, including Indigenous land stewardship practices.
“When we only value one way of knowing, and one kind of experience in these environmental spaces, then we’re having conversations with ourselves,” she said.
Parks provide social infrastructure and can strengthen support networks during times of need. We’ve seen this play out with COVID-19, where 71% of Canadians in our survey said parks were critical to their sense of social connection during the pandemic.
Experts say these social connections are also critical when it comes to climate change.
Florence Lecour-Cyr is the Agente de programmation, planification et recherche at CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. She argued that the connections people create in parks can act as social support networks, especially for people who are more vulnerable, such as older adults or people with less mobility.
As one study pointed out, the social connections afforded by parks “may be a lifeline [for isolated individuals] in extreme temperatures.” Having a neighbour check in during a heat wave or having a place to stay when the power goes out can, in some circumstances, be the difference between life and death.
It’s important, especially in relation to climate change, for cities to measure social connections, argued Anne Pelletier, Service environnement urbain et saines habitudes de vie, Direction régionale de santé publique du CIUSSS du Centre-Sud de Montréal. But she acknowledged that it’s “not a phenomenon that is easy to capture.” Some initiatives have sprung up, such as the U.S.-based Reimagining the Civic Commons project’s measurement framework, and the Toronto Foundation’s Social Capital Study.
Complex challenges like climate change defy the compartmentalized ways in which we often approach problems and in which cities divide up work.
“There’s such a focus on siloes of learning. The mechanics, or the policy, or the science” Sheila Boudreau a landscape architect and Founder of SpruceLab said. “I think cities need to break out of siloed departments,” creating cross-disciplinary working groups.
If we don’t think holistically and broadly about climate change, Boudreau added, then “we’re going to fail in our efforts.” A narrow environmental focus in a project may foster short-term gains, but it may not work long-term or address the social needs of a community.
For example, Boudreau spoke about how confronting discrimination is critical in promoting access to the climate change benefits of parks. If someone feels unwelcome accessing a newly created green space–for example because of a fear of discrimination based on race or because they are an unhoused park user–then they aren’t able to reap its benefits of air quality and cooler temperatures.
The potential for green gentrification is another example of why thinking across disciplines is necessary when pursuing green space projects. Green gentrification occurs when investments in green spaces in lower income neighborhoods result in property value increases, which can displace the residents the investments were meant to benefit.
While new green spaces bring climate-resilience and social benefits, they can also spark concern. For example, a green laneway built in Montreal’s Saint-Henri neighborhood to help mitigate heat caused concern among activists that rising rents could push out local residents. Similar conversations have played out in Vancouver related to a proposed downtown waterfront park nearby the lower-income Downtown Eastside.
Florence Lecour-Cyr said that for green space investments to curb the gentrification process they must coincide with social and housing policies that target affordability. Anne Pelletier argued that involving local communities in the planning and animation of parks will make it possible to create spaces that foster a sense of belonging–a point also made by the National Recreation and Parks Association in their briefing on equitable park development.
Indigenous ways of knowing and approaches to land stewardship have important lessons for thinking about climate change, but are not often reflected in city policies.
Participants at Toronto’s Indigenous Climate Action Summit argued for a more holistic approach that recognizes spiritual and justice concerns. “If the city does not account for and address colonization in its policies it will keep repeating the same problematic behaviours,” the session notes stated. For example, rather than simply quantitative indicators (e.g., counting species), participants suggested measuring success against wider questions, such as whether we are being good ancestors.
“When we aren’t acknowledging how significant a role Indigenous peoples need to play in [conversations about climate change], we cannot produce the most effective and the most reliable outcomes,” said Larissa Crawford.
She pointed towards successful co-management regimes at the national park level between Parks Canada and Indigenous Nations. “Those are some of the most innovative park management regimes I’ve encountered and that are being recognized, especially for their ability to assess environmental health in a completely new way.”
The importance of Indigenous land stewardship practices was highlighted by a 2019 University of British Columbia study which found biodiversity was highest on Indigenous-managed lands—finding a 40% greater number of unique species.
Crawford argued this process must start by acknowledging the harm that’s been caused, and the history of Indigenous land dispossession behind the establishment of parks–a history that is often hidden from view.
Only once we’ve taken the time to acknowledge that harm, can “we seek to establish concrete and meaningful relationships with those original caregivers,” Crawford said.
“Not only are we going to be working towards the spirit of restorative relationships,” she said. “But we’re also going to tap into the plethora of expertise that Indigenous peoples have, especially with regards to the land and its sustainability, and the ecosystem and our roles as humans in that ecosystem.”
A retaining wall is a piece of infrastructure, but what about a waterfront park?
In recognition of the climate resilience benefits of green spaces, such as flood protection, many Canadian cities are moving more towards nature-based solutions that view parks as key pieces of green infrastructure.
According to researchers, nature-based solutions are “actions which are inspired by, supported by, or copied from nature” and include “enhancing, restoring, creating, and designing new ecological networks characterized by multi-functionality and connectivity.”
In other words, instead of pipes or concrete walls, we can build parks that mimic or enhance natural processes, like how a pond protects against flooding by holding water. These spaces then provide both climate resilience benefits and create space for recreation and natural habitat–something a pipe can’t do.
In order to position urban natural spaces as infrastructure, some Canadian researchers argue we must first understand the value these natural spaces provide to a functioning, resilient city in the face of climate change. This includes putting a financial value on the services a green space provides, such as the amount of carbon it absorbs or how it helps manage stormwater.
Not doing so risks reducing economic incentives for green space preservation or enhancement and undervaluing these spaces relative to other land uses, like roads, the authors of a Montreal-based study argue. To “curb this problem,” they say, we can “demonstrate the real economic contribution of natural capital to the wellbeing of communities and to consider the cost of erosion of these amenities.”
Some Canadian cities are hoping to do just that. New climate change plans in Calgary, Guelph, and Edmonton call for natural asset valuation studies. And the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to “helping municipalities count nature,” has launched a new project with 22 Canadian municipalities, including Charlottetown, Kelowna, Surrey, Langley Township, Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Halifax.
The project includes working with cities to undertake an inventory of natural assets, which includes their location and condition. Doing so can help cities better plan for climate resilience by protecting and enhancing natural assets, such as woodlands, creeks, and other green spaces. As MNAI states: “natural assets can provide the same level of service as many engineered assets, and often at a much lower cost to the balance sheet and to the environment.”
This has caught the attention of advocates, such as Nature Canada Policy Manager Michael Polanyi. He sees this work as a way to better incorporate considerations for the services natural spaces provide into planning.
Making it clear “how reliant we are on the hidden services that are provided by nature does seem to be an impetus for changing approaches to decision-making,” Polanyi said. “Councillors and decision-makers are so focused on the economic side of things. Unless that’s made visible, it’s hard to make the case for investing in protection.”
Some independent studies have worked to make some of these hidden services visible–at least in financial terms. A 2014 TD Economics report on the value of urban forests in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver, found financial savings in air quality, stormwater management, energy (heating and cooling costs), and carbon sequestration. This ranged from $2 in benefits for everyone $1 spent on trees in Montreal up to $13 in benefits in Halifax. A similar report focused on Toronto, found trees provide $80 million in benefits per year to Torontonians, which works out to about $125 per resident.
Cities are now working towards this type of evaluation themselves, expanding the calculations beyond trees to take into account the full spectrum of green spaces.
Mississauga’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that a 2016 Insurance Bureau of Canada study looking at climatic events was a “catalyst” for the city’s climate change work. “It really painted a clearer picture of what’s going to happen if we don’t start being more intentional and considering these things more holistically.”
That study found the cost of one extreme ice storm event could cause up to $38 million in damages in Mississauga.
Mississauga then commissioned a climate risk assessment of three parks. While the process is usually used to evaluate hard infrastructure, such as bridges, Barry said the city wanted to include natural infrastructure to better understand the risk to the city’s green spaces. The study found the highest threats were from flooding, ice storms, heat, and wind–the last of which Barry said can do an enormous amount of damage to tree canopies.
However, assigning value to natural spaces such as stormwater facilities, parks, and even sports fields, can be a fraught process.
“It’s very difficult to think about natural assets strictly from a financial lens because…it doesn’t account for all the other benefits and services that asset provides,” Barry said. “If you’re saying I spent $400 on this tree, so therefore the replacement value of this tree is $400, that’s a real simplification and that’s kind of problematic.”
For example, Barry said the city’s not sure how cultural value will be included, but hopes it will be a consideration when the city gets to the valuation stage.
The challenge of putting a financial value on green spaces is one that other cities are struggling with as well.
How do we put a value on the social impact of parks and the connections with our neighbours? What about the aesthetic appreciation of sun filtering through leaves? Or the relaxation we feel walking in an urban forest? Should those even be considered in financial terms at all or does reducing parks to economic terms risk flattening the more intangible, yet critically important, benefits of parks?
Indeed, the challenges of using financial terminology to describe nature’s value is addressed in Saskatoon’s new Green Strategy, which was released in 2020 alongside the city’s Natural Capital Asset Valuation study. The latter received funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program.
Saskatoon’s study detailed ecosystem services for valuation such as carbon sequestration, pollination, air quality and climate control, forage production, and mental and physical health. The study also included vulnerability assessments to key ecosystems, such as wetlands, grasslands, and forests.
While the valuation study also highlighted the cultural, heritage, and aesthetic importance of parks, it concluded that more work was required to acknowledge these values and that it was difficult to “express this value in financial terms.” One key learning was the importance of involving stakeholders who hold different views on the services ecosystems provide, such as cultural services, to inform the approach to the study.
City staff pointed out there is a “need to view nature and cultural spaces beyond their capital function,” adding that “many Indigenous worldviews see the land as sacred, and believe humans should not apply economic terminology to it. We shouldn’t lose sight of the intrinsic value of nature when applying an asset management approach.”
As climate change brings more droughts, floods, and other extreme weather, cities across Canada are embarking on a new phase of planning parks as networks of green infrastructure. This means engineering green spaces to enhance natural processes, such as designing parks as sponges to soak up excess rainwater and reduce flood risk.
These parks do triple duty by buffering the impacts of extreme weather, boosting biodiversity by increasing natural habitat, and providing places for people to gather and recreate. Canadians are supportive of these initiatives, with 92% of the nearly 3,500 Canadians we surveyed in April 2021 saying this type of climate-resilient infrastructure should be embedded into parks.
Whether converting streets to cool green oases, designing parks that celebrate water, or re-naturalizing the mouths of entire rivers, these eight Canadian projects point a way forward to more climate resilient cities.
Following two devastating floods in the Pointe-Gatineau and Lac-Beauchamp districts in 2017 and 2019, heavily impacted properties were ceded to the city and residents relocated. A master plan process* to revitalize the vacant lots was initiated in 2020 and led by the Conseil Régional de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable de l’Outaouais* with a working group, of which Park People was also a part.
Through this master plan, the city hoped, with community input, to redesign areas along the Ottawa river for better flood protection and community connection. Rather than proposing broad changes, the resulting plan lays out a toolbox approach at the lot level with a set of actions that can be implemented depending on a particular local context by either the city or community groups. This toolbox includes 25 typologies within five categories:
“One primary goal of the project was to elevate and inspire momentum so people take action,” said Manon Otto, from Mandaworks studio, the urban designer on the project. “We needed to harvest their energy and their interest for the project by providing a toolbox that is totally democratic.”
For more in depth analysis of this project, read Park People’s case study made possible by the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation.
Down on the shores of Toronto’s Lake Ontario, a massive park and new neighbourhood is taking shape.
Led by Waterfront Toronto in coordination with the City of Toronto, the Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection project will create new parks and natural habitat. It will also provide flood protection by re-naturalizing the mouth of the Don River and carving out a new island neighbourhood.
Waterfront Toronto Parks and Public Realm Project Director Shannon Baker said that the project is designed to withstand a regional flood, but also fluctuating lake levels. Michael van Valkenburgh Associates, the landscape architects, studied river mouths and wetlands along Lake Ontario to inform the design approach.
The goal is not to block water or prevent it from rising and ebbing, but “to accept it and just be resilient to it in the same way that a natural system would be,” Baker said. For example, vegetation was carefully selected for species that “can bend and flex and allow water to move through.”
Designing a new river mouth means taking into account the interconnectedness of different ecosystems. Waterfront Toronto Project Manager Pina Mallozzi said that they had to pay special attention to plantings in the wetland areas. Since the riverfront wetlands will need to deal with sediment and other detritus that float down the river, the plants had to be carefully chosen to ensure they can survive under those conditions.
“It’s a heavily engineered project but at the end of the day it will feel like a very big green natural park space and that will be the success of the project,” Mallozzi said.
The Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program is a “collaborative model for sustainable urban renewal and climate action that focuses on the neighbourhood scale,” Brampton city staff said. SNAP “focuses on empowering communities by engaging them on neighbourhood-based solutions and placemaking.”
The program works through partnerships, including the City of Brampton, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Credit Valley Conservation, the Region of Peel, and community-based organizations and businesses. Through these partnerships, SNAP takes into account both community needs and city resilience priorities to create a customized action plan that identifies projects, such as retrofits to existing spaces.
One such project, Upper Nine Pond, was identified through the County Court SNAP process and opened in 2020. The goal was to meet both resilience and community public space needs by redesigning the stormwater pond to enhance water quality and create “an attractive public space that includes a trail, seating, and natural features,” staff said.
Completed in 2020, this 17-hectare park manages 100% of stormwater onsite, including the ability to hold more water than from a 200 year flood. The park’s green infrastructure elements, including 9,000 square metres of rain gardens, were paid for through a $750,000 grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Climate Innovation Program funded by the Federal Government.
City staff noted the park also contains Ontario’s first double-use water system in the park’s splash pad, which will collect and treat water onsite and re-use it for irrigation–reducing the amount of water needed in the park.
Opened in 2019, the 3.5-hectare Saigon Park includes a major stormwater management facility through a central pond designed to provide water control for nearby neighbourhoods from a 100 year storm event. The pond and its naturalized plantings also improves aquatic habitat and water quality.
The park also contains a one-kilometre walking loop with fitness stations and uses public art to highlight the environment through a piece entitled “A Year in Weather” by artist Ferruccio Sardella.
According to the city’s public art collection website, “this work is a celebration of the storm-water management project at Saigon Park and represents the balance between weather, natural systems, and built environment.”
Winner of the 2021 Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Jury’s Award of Excellence for Large-Scale Public Landscapes, Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park transforms land that was once a gravel quarry along the Bow River into a 40-hectare park and stormwater treatment facility that addresses runoff from over 1,700 hectares of the surrounding area.
Dale Hodges Park traces “the journey of stormwater through a series of curated experiences, collaboratively designed with The City’s Parks, Water Resources and Public Art departments, emphasizing the flow of water through the landscape,” the CSLA website states, calling it “a new type of high-performance public space.”
Montreal is transforming McGill Avenue in the heart of downtown from a paved street to a naturalized landscape through a design chosen through an open competition. The winning design best met the city’s objectives of expanding green space, reducing the urban heat island effect from paved surfaces, and increasing resilience and biodiversity through a rich and diverse plant selection.
The winning concept aims to reinvent the Avenue as a series of small, natural, and comfortable “living rooms,” linked by a long border bench and a furrow of water. The new space will offer users of the city centre a daily immersion in nature, in contrast with the built density of the surrounding downtown.
Increasing green space and tree canopy in a dense urban environment by redesigning a street to be more park-like will help the city adapt to climate change impacts, said Noémie Bélanger, planning advisor for the Sainte-Catherine and McGill College projects. But transforming a street into a more green environment is also challenging given the need to take into account a series of underground utilities that can limit the planting opportunities at the surface.
Successfully establishing a young forest in the middle of a city centre so that it becomes a functional support for biodiversity requires the involvement of experts capable of planning the growth of plant layers and their maintenance, which the city has also recognized as an opportunity to involve local community members and academic researchers. According to Bélanger, although planning practices have evolved towards more ecological approaches and cities are increasingly integrating these criteria in their design requirements, there are still opportunities for cities to develop tools to monitor and evaluate climate change challenges within city parks.
The St. George Rainway shows the potential of stream “daylighting,” whereby formerly buried streams are resurrected, but also the importance of community advocacy in raising new ideas. What began as a community vision more than a decade ago to restore a lost waterway in Vancouver’s Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood is now moving forward through a city public consultation process.
“St George Street was once home to the Statlew, also known as St George Creek,” the city’s project website states. “In the early 1900s, this historic creek was buried underground to make way for roads and houses. The St George Rainway aims to reimagine this historic waterway through implementing green rainwater infrastructure features that capture and clean rainwater from local streets and sidewalks.”
“The Rainway has potential to not only provide essential rainwater management services, but also create a unique blue-green corridor that provides enhanced public space, street improvements, and more greenery and biodiversity to the neighbourhood,” the city states.
The project follows other Vancouver stream daylighting projects such as through Tatlow and Volunteer Parks, which we covered in the 2020 Canadian City Parks Report.
This case study is part of the 2022 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
There’s something about the feeling of grass between toes. Or the sound of birds chirping. Or the smell of Earth after it rains. These sensory experiences cause us, often unconsciously, to stop for a moment to feel, to listen, to breathe deeply.
During the pandemic many city dwellers were drawn to parks and natural spaces. In our survey of over 3,000 residents of Canadian cities, 54% said they sought out naturalized parks most often—a jump from 34% in last year’s survey, highlighting the rising importance of contact with urban nature.
Even small spaces count: 71% of respondents said small naturalized spaces within a 10-minute walk of home, like a native plant garden or meadow, helped foster connection to nature. Just half of respondents said the same for traveling to larger natural spaces.
Overall, 87% of respondents reported strong nature connectedness—a finding that was fairly stable across race and income. However, nature connectedness levels grew with age, starting with 83% for 18 to 29 year olds and rising to 94% for those 65 and older.
How aware are we of our body and the Earth as we move through it? Do we know the tree species in our park? When was the last time we gave back to the places that give us so much?
These questions highlight the difference between spending time outdoors—a worthwhile and beneficial pursuit in itself—and feeling connected to our place in the natural world. To feel nature is a part of us, not apart from us is a trait that researchers term “nature connectedness.” As one report put it:
Nature connectedness refers to the degree to which individuals include nature as part of their identity through a sense of oneness between themselves and the natural world.
Another defined it as “an appreciation and value for all life that transcends any objective use of nature for humanity’s purposes.”
While this seems philosophical, nature connectedness has material impacts on the way we live our lives, how we feel, and our impact on the Earth—all of critical importance in an age of rising mental health challenges and climate change impacts.
Nature connectedness has been linked to in-the-moment hedonic well-being (feeling good), but also strongly associated with eudaemonic well-being (functioning well), which contributes to personal growth and long-term well-being.
People who report stronger nature connectedness are more likely to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviours. When we tune ourselves into the natural world, we feel more positive emotions, like vitality. We also ruminate less and act kinder and more generous to those around us—a finding that study attributed to nature’s ability to stimulate feelings of awe that allow us to engage in “unselfing,” or the practice of stepping outside of ourselves.
As an Associate Professor in the Trent University Department of Psychology who has led Canadian studies on nature connectedness, Dr. Lisa Nisbet thinks a lot about what it means to feel connected to nature.
We carry nature connectedness “around with us” like a “personality trait that’s fairly stable,” Dr. Nisbet said, distinguishing it from simply time spent outdoors. You can walk through a park every day to work, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you feel connected to that environment.
Nature connectedness can predict behaviour. Multiple studies have shown that people who report greater nature connectedness also spend more time outdoors and are willing to travel farther for nature experiences. In her own pandemic-focused research, Dr. Nisbet found that university students who reported high nature connectedness “were actually using nature more as a coping method than people that were disconnected from nature.”
For Dr. Nisbet, a huge opportunity lies in city parks and nature education. Many people just see a “green blur,” she said. “Oh, it’s a tree. But is it a red oak? Do we know anything about it and how it contributes to reducing climate change and improving soil quality and the kinds of critters that like to live in it? I think that richer understanding helps people develop a sense of connection.”
While this connection can be forged at any age, Dr. Nisbet stressed the importance of nature education for children. “If you learn about those things early and you learn about the plants and animals in your ecosystems, then you’re just going to be more aware of what’s out there and I think you have more empathy,” she said.
Well before researchers thought up the term “nature connectedness,” this worldview existed, and endures today, as the foundation of how many Indigenous Peoples view their relationship with the Earth as caretakers that practice “reverence, humility and reciprocity.”
Carolynne Crawley—a storyteller, forest therapy guide, and educator who runs Msit No’kmaq—shared that many people often overlook the importance of cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the Earth and other beings. “Oftentimes a relationship with the Earth isn’t prioritized as one would prioritize a relationship with a human loved one,” she pointed out.
A focus on reciprocity and viewing the Earth and other beings as kin is a common perspective of Indigenous Peoples. “The Elders in my life have shared with me that all life is sacred,” Crawley said.
And as people we have an individual and collective responsibility to be in a good relationship with the Earth, just as well as being in a good relationship with ourselves and each other.
Too often the Earth is seen as a commodity to extract from, Crawley said. “I always invite people to think about our relationships with people. If you’re always giving, giving, giving, and someone’s taking, taking, taking without respect and gratitude, then there’s an imbalance there.” Addressing this can include picking up trash along a trail and being aware of our impact on other beings.
Practicing reciprocity can also extend to being more mindful of our language, which Crawley explores in her workshops. “I hear words that reference the Earth and the beings in a way that lacks respect and gratitude and love for those particular beings. And so in my workshops and webinars, we reflect and deconstruct those words.”
Take the word ‘dirt’. While many of us use this to describe Earth, Crawley asks whether it conveys respect for the soil and all it offers. While it may seem small, language can shape our ways of relating to things—it also signals value to those around us, including young children, she said.
Crawley recommended using all our senses and approaching the world with the curiosity of a child. “Hiking is a great activity,” she said. “But oftentimes it’s about getting from point A to point B,” whereas children will meander and explore.
Indeed, a study by Dr. Nisbet highlights the benefits of practicing mindfulness techniques in nature that focus your attention on sensory experiences. In our survey, 81% of respondents said hearing sounds from birds and rustling trees was important to feel connected to nature.
Much of Crawley’s work is guiding people to “return home to the relationship with the Earth” and creating space for people to slow down and notice the world around them. “I believe that relationship, that memory, is in our DNA,” she said. “There’s something called blood memory that I’ve heard Indigenous Elders speak about.”
“Throughout history people have been violently severed from that relationship at different times,” she said. “And yet we still see Indigenous Peoples in that relationship all around the Earth today.”
Crawley stressed that recognizing and honouring the role of Indigenous Peoples as the “inherent caretakers of these lands” should be at the basis of nature education and stewardship programs, adding that it’s paramount to build relationships with Indigenous Peoples and organizations doing this work already.
Cultivating greater nature connectedness can feel challenging in the day to day of urban living. As we’ve written before, there are multiple inequities in the access and enjoyment of urban green spaces, with ramifications for climate justice, equitable park development, and public health.
Being able to spend time in nature can be a privileged activity, Zamani Ra, Founder and Executive Director of the environmental non-profit CEED Canada, pointed out.
Ra stressed that it’s critical to take an anti-oppressive approach, accounting for the specific needs of a neighbourhood or individual, especially when working in racialized and lower-income communities. For people without backyards or the ability to travel outside the city, making time to access green spaces can be challenging, resulting in trade-offs in time spent with family, working or sleeping.
Ra said she found the concept of time poverty helpful in understanding whether people feel they have the time in their lives to do what they need to do, but also what they want to do.
For Ra, making the conscious decision to spend more time in nature for her own well-being, including going for long walks in a nearby ravine, meant working less, which meant less income. “It cost me something,” she said, noting she was living below the poverty line at the time. “I had to decide that the risk I was taking was actually going to be okay for the time being.”
But we don’t have to look far to find nature. In fact, we’re a walking, breathing, beating connection ourselves.
“Nature is a part of everything I do,” Ra said, adding that she brings an African-centred worldview into her work:
Whether I’m inside or outside of my apartment, it doesn’t matter” because we are nature ourselves…You are Earth, you are wind, water, and fire.
“Sometimes I find that people feel bad because they don’t have the ability to access these certain spaces,” Ra said, like large parks outside the city. In those instances, she reminds people that nature is all around and within us.
“I want to empower people with what we already have,” she said, even finding moments to connect with nature in our own homes by noticing the sun on your face or a breeze through a window. Starting small is a great place for people, Ra said. “And then because you’re aware of it now, you more than likely want to do more.”
Residents of Canadian cities are choosing to spend more of their time in nature. In our survey of over 3,000 people, 54% said they visited natural or “wild” parks most often—an increase from 34% last year. Cities are responding to this increased interest as well, with nearly 60% reporting that they already have or plan to expand nature stewardship opportunities due to high demand.
It’s clear that we’re drawn to nature as a way to feel good in mind, body, and soul, particularly during the challenging two years of a pandemic.
While spending time in nature may conjure images of wilderness trails, it doesn’t have to mean traveling to a large park. As we note in our other story on nature connection, feeling more connected to nature can mean different things to different people. It may mean sharing stories on a walk through a park with friends. Or paying more attention to the nature in and around our homes. Or it may be volunteering to plant trees or tend a garden in our own neighbourhood.
The examples below show how leaders from across the country have developed programs that help people connect with nature in different, but equally meaningful, ways.
When Tammy Harkey noticed other women in her community struggling with their mental health early in the pandemic, she decided to do something about it. Councillor Harkey is a proud member of the Musqueam Indian Band, grandmother and mother, and currently serves as the President of the Native Education College. An avid walker herself, Harkey organized the Musqueam Road Warriors, an Indigenous women’s walking group in Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Park.
The park holds special significance to the Musqueam Nation as part of their unceded traditional territories and a place once close to their village, she said, adding that as Indigenous Peoples, these are the places they should be turning to for personal wellness.
Feeling a connection to nature means feeling a connection to the land, but also to stories shared about the park and the plants and medicines found within it. “Now there’s an entire group that are sharing the stories and memories from their families,” Harkey said. “Really powerful stories. Things I’ve never heard.”
“The Aunts in our walking group really became the teachers,” she said, highlighting the importance of intergenerational learning. In the busyness of their lives before the pandemic, they had perhaps forgotten to take the time to listen to “the things they had to teach us and the messages and stories they had to convey,” Harkey said. But in the quiet of the forest, with the cedars around them, they could be more easily present.
The group is still going strong with about 60 women and girls of all ages who come out for walks in the park. Harkey said it was important the group centered women.
When you can stabilize women—the matriarchs in their families and communities—the whole family gets healthier and happier. And that’s a clear pattern we saw emerge from our group.
Many city residents sought out nature during the pandemic as a way to cope with anxiety, but for people with disabilities it isn’t always easy or possible to visit green spaces.
“Covid has been an explosion of stressors for people with significant levels of physical disability,” Kari Krogh, EcoWisdom Forest Preserve Co-Founder, said. “Going outside, even getting on public transit, and having a vulnerable body—having people cough on you—to get to a park,” was challenging. Not to mention the potential accessibility issues once you get there, she added.
That’s why she and Paul Gauthier, Executive Director of the Individualized Funding Resource Centre, started a group offering online accessible nature wellness programming.
People of all abilities are welcome and can join from a bed, window, or nearby park.
People with disabilities have much to gain from nature connection, and to contribute, but they need options for how and when to access public parks.
Kari Krogh, EcoWisdom Forest Preserve
The program comes from a place of passion for her and Gauthier and stems from their personal lived experience, Krogh said, adding that she acquired a severe disability and lived three years between four walls. “I was in constant severe pain and basically I was immobilized,” she said. “I would have loved a program like the one we’re offering.”
They designed their program to be as flexible as possible, using nature videos and prompts informed by forest medicine and neuroscience. Facilitators lead people in mindfulness-based nature exercises, inviting people to touch, smell, and visualize.
“So much has been out of our control with Covid.” Krogh said. “It allows people with disabilities to come together as peers to support one another.”
This comes across through the words of program participants. One remarked that their pain subsided and they “became relaxed, cheerful, hopeful.” Another said they were “learning to use nature as a free resource to build [their] resilience.”
Initially started with seed funding from Park People’s TD Park People grant program, Gauthier and Krogh obtained funding from the federal government’s Healthy Communities Initiative to expand their work by creating an accessible program to train others to lead nature wellness activities.
As well as being an organizer, Gauthier has himself been able to take away some of the positive benefits of nature connection. His own stress levels have been quite high during the pandemic in his work supporting people with disabilities, he said.
“Being able to stop, to be able to focus on myself and step away from the normal life troubles that I was facing—it’s allowed me to really look at healing for myself,” he said. “And to recognize that by doing that, I can do more for others down the road.”
Riffing off the idea of emotional intelligence, City of Saanich Parks Manager Eva Riccius said her team coined the term natural intelligence when tasked with devising a program to promote nature connection in Saanich. Whether you’re new to getting out in nature or a seasoned hiker, “there’s a place for everyone along the scale,” she said.
The program was designed to encourage people to connect with nature in ways that were accessible to them, whether that was identifying birds in their own yard or getting involved in nature restoration opportunities.
Recognizing the “zoom fatigue” many were experiencing, Saanich staff marketed the campaign as reducing screen time and promoting green time. They partnered with the local news station and newspaper to share stories, organized local hikes, ran a forest bathing session, and promoted various park experiences through a hub on their website.
The result was a dramatic increase in park use, beyond what they had already seen due to the pandemic. Riccius’s team used Google data to see how many people were using parks relative to a 2019 baseline. They found a 100% increase during the campaign—over and above the pandemic-induced bump in park use seen in neighbouring municipalities in Metro Vancouver.
The program provides suggestions for how people can practice reciprocity by thinking about ways to give back to nature, such as volunteering for stewardship activities. On this last point, Riccius said they’ve had so much interest they’ve had to pause their volunteer intake.
The program has spurred more ideas about long-term changes to the city’s parks as well, many of which Riccius said are currently grass, trees, and a playground. The city is looking to strategically naturalize parts of these parks through plantings and restoration projects, which can help reduce water use as well as provide habitat—something other cities like Vancouver, Kitchener, Mississauga, and Edmonton are also doing.
Public areas like parks, ravines, and other greenspaces have become crucial during a growing period of isolation, inequality, and climate anxiety. They provide a space for healing, connection, and growth, in addition to a place to play, rest, and get fresh air. Parks offer a chance to reclaim space, foster a sense of community, and inspire local leadership for many groups, particularly those that are historically underrepresented in decision-making processes.
Community members are converting their local parks into vibrant hubs of connection, joy, and action; that spirit is celebrated in this report. It draws attention to the value of community-driven transformation and grassroots leadership in our common green areas.
Through an evaluation of the Sparking Change Toronto program Park People aimed to understand the impact of the program in four key areas outlined in Park People’s Theory of Change:
Discover the impact of the Sparking Change program in Toronto.