Forest Defenders: Remembering You’re A Force of Nature
This isn’t a story about me. This is a story about you.
You just don’t know it yet.
This is a story about how people come together to make real change happen.
How we remember we’re made of magic and have the power to influence our reality.
You are a force of nature.
The key — that we have been conditioned to forget— is that we must create the change we want to see in the world.
We live in a society conditioned into passive consumerism. One where our default mode of existence is more often not to act.
We watch youtube videos. We binge Netflix. We endlessly scroll social media.
For most of us, we spend the majority of our attention and energy in consumption mode. Focused on being happy. Occupied. Entertained.
It doesn’t help that we live in a moment of unprecedented social isolation and disconnection. Our ability to engage actively in novel experiences is incredibly diminished.
We tumble even further into states of passivity.
Which is a problem, considering the world needs us to take action now — more than ever before.
Life on Earth is in crisis.
I know that’s depressing to say, but it’s true.
Our climate is changing faster than scientists predicted and the stakes are high. Biodiversity loss. Crop failure. Social and ecological collapse. Mass extinction.
We are running out of time, and our governments have failed to act.
So what are we to do?
This is where my part of the story comes into play. Not because I’m special but because I am one of many who choose to take action.
This is a story about a three-day experiment in taking action.
In putting aside hesitations, criticisms and passivity to create something towards the change I want in the world.
Of course I am not a stranger to this mode of being*. But that’s just my toolbox. You have your own.
Each of us can choose to do more. To take change into our own hands. To find the courage and resolve to speak up and step up, in our own ways.
But for the sake of this story, I’m going to tell you about the way I decided to take action. With the hope it inspires you to take action of your own.
Last Thursday, March 4th, I started seeing posts on my social media accounts about the situation with the old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada (where I live).
TL;DR of the situation
British Columbia is home to the last temperate rainforests in the world and Canada’s largest trees.
The last of thee old-growth “ancient” trees (dating perhaps 1–2,000 years old) are at risk.
The B.C. government commissioned a strategic review and committed to enacting the recommendations.
This hasn’t happened. Old-growth trees are still being logged.
Once they’re logged, they’re gone forever.
There are other trees to log.
This isn’t about transforming the whole logging industry or saving the world from impending climate disaster.
This is about saving the last of our ancient trees.
This is not a something I was unaware of, but I definitely didn’t know how important this moment in time was…
Until I started rabbit holing, following my curiosity into questions like:
- “What is the problem?”
- “What is being done about it?”
- “Why is this important?”
- “Who has the power to make this change happen”
- “What is preventing this change?”
I started to build a mental map of the problem and the players.
I also started applying my unique lens to identify gaps. Picking up on patterns. Places of opportunity, where positive contributions could be made.
By Friday I had spoken with a people ranging from deeply involved in the movement to passively promoting the cause and started to distill a few key insights:
It was hard to know how to contribute meaningfully
You could sign a petition, vote on a poll, donate or contact your gov rep.
A lot of content was divisive
Putting loggers+politicians and conservationists on opposite sides of the problem.
There was no unifying identifier across campaigns
The movement felt fragmented and incoherent at times.
When I come across problems in my life, I try and think about its parallels with nature. How I can learn from nature and replicate natural solutions?
I started to think about mother trees. Also called hub trees.
You see, forests are inherently cooperative and nurturing. They do not operate on a “survival of the fittest” model of the world*, as we still tend to in society.
Tangent: Google infinite game vs finite game / game b for more on this.
Forests are connected and “networked” in a beneficial symbiotic relationship through a mycelial web.
They pass nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, water and even signals to each other.
Forests know they are one; that they are interrelated & interdependent.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we humans remembered we are a part of nature — we are also interrelated and interdependent.
If we put our differences aside and realized there is a path forwards where everyone wins — where forests, loggers, politicians, and everyone involved is better off.
Where we tap our limitless imagination to find new possibilities, together.
Thinking of mother trees — and drawing from my past experiences*– I started envisioning a bridge.
A place where anyone who cared about protecting these ancient trees can come together, connect, help each other shift into new modes of active participation and tip the scales towards real system change.
I posed to myself, what’s a realistic window of time to put aside for making a positive contribution?
If I look back on my life and know I spent a weekend saving irreplaceable ancient trees, that would totally have been worth it.
So that’s what I did.
I write this on Monday morning after having spent two day this weekend producing a:
- decentralized brand
- website hub
- networked ecosystem tool
You can view the result at forestdefenders.ca
Pause
I want to take a moment to acknowledge something important. I decided to drive this experiment on my own, consciously.
This isn’t to say I didn’t have people giving me feedback and contributing some of what they know, but more so I decided to lean into the conditions conducive to momentum.
I could have spent weeks getting in touch with the various groups already active in the space, holding more interviews for insights and looping in fellow creative collaborators.
Instead, I moved fast. Trusted my instincts and experience.
I created a spring board for you to build off of. Remix on top of.
Make your own.
I’m a huge fan of Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Just that basic concept of everything being a living, ever-changing, work in progress.
I trusted once the idea had taken shape and been manifested in its most basic form (the point we’re at now, as I write this), collaboration would emerge.
I was lucky to start with a good seed.
When I’m undertaking a visioning project*, the name at the center of its identity tends to lead the direction of the vision.
Forest Defenders came to mind immediately. Intuitively.
The domain was also available, which helped seal the deal.
From this anchor point, I started to conceptualize into the visuals. The messaging. It’s functional bones. All the ingredients that would bring the vision to life.
Building off incredible work of Extinction Rebellion (with their consent), I started to feel into the flow of what wanted to emerge.
The rest happened like a set of dominos near overnight.
I landed on reverse peace symbol based on the considerations:
- the symbol needed to be easily recognized, reproduced and remixed
- the rune algiz is a strong symbol of protection
- a circle conveys togetherness, connection
- it looked like a tree :)
You can download the full brand guide and assets at forestdefenders.ca/brand.
If anyone has qualms or strong rationale why this is not an appropriate symbol, you can always email forestdefenders.bc@gmail.com. Nothing is ever fixed.
Now we get to the juicy bit…
How does Forest Defenders actually help solve the problem?
Leveraging learnings from past projects, I created an automated Airtable base divided into four data types:
- Defenders (people)
- Groups (organisations, formal and informal)
- Actions (ways to contribute)
- Ideas (points of collaboration)
How it works:
- Anyone can make a submission to any of the four types above
- There is a simple moderation step behind the scenes (a tick) to confirm it’s ready to be on the website. This is a check for spam and hate speech.
I hope in time people will volunteer to help me moderate this. - Vola, live directory on the website!
This data becomes an interconnected ecosystem of what’s going on in this movement. Sortable, filterable, cross-linked.
Making it easier to connect and contribute.
I focused on getting the basics live immediately, but have plans to add features such as “upvoting” in the next few days. To help quality submissions rise to the surface.
Another thing that really excites me is Topia, an always-open social space where people can meet each other.
In this moment of distancing and social isolation, connecting in person is difficult and likely against health guidelines.
Many of us are also zoom fatigued. On top of that, most of the tools we use don’t really feel… human.
That’s why I love Topia. It’s helped me both stay connected with people and spontaneously meet new people — something I’m in short supply of.
You can visit it at topia.io/forest-defenders
My vision is for more conversations to emerge because this space exists. To help us feel more connected to one another, even though we might not be in physical space together.
Disclaimer: I work with the Topia team, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not paid to promote their product… I just really love it. Genuinely. So of course I would want to use it.
Want to underline here, this whole experiment is non-commercial in nature. Forest Defenders is not a business. I am not taking funding. I am not selling anything. I intend to keep it that way.
There’s more I could speak into, but a play-by-play is not the point of this story.
This story is a testament to the things we can do to affect change.
It’s incredible to look back at what I was able to put together in such a short amount of time. My hope is that it becomes fertilizer that helps others sprout into their own forms of activated participatory creation.
That’s how change happens.
I don’t know what Forest Defenders will become, but my highest aspiration for it is to become meaningful catalyst for interconnection.
To see art and conversations emerge in every corner of British Columbia. Even the country.
To make it sooo obvious this is something people care about and is in all our best interests.
To help strengthen the movement’s accessibility and inclusivity.
We must remember that we are a force of nature.
That we make change, when we choose to take action.
This is your story, what are you going to contribute?
Visit forestdefenders.ca and register yourself
Easiest way to connect with me is by emailing forestdefenders.bc@gmail.com
If you do message, please remember, the goal of this experiment wasn’t for everything to be perfect — it was for it to be live.
Reach out if you’re also interested in collaborating; especially for moderation, content creation and marketing.
Next Steps:
- Get upvoting working on submissions
- Distill key statements (as Extinction Rebellion does so well)
- Support existing organisations registering in the ecosystem
- Create a set of clear and compelling social sharing assets
– Patricia
