Letter to Editor | Renew our Land Bank

||| FROM ED SUIJ |||

Just cutting carbon emissions will not prevent climate breakdown.

“Humanity risks catastrophic global heating if it focuses only on decarbonisation at the expense of restoring the natural world,” Colombia’s environment minister has said in the lead-up to the world’s key nature summit later this year.

Susana Muhamad, who will be president of the UN biodiversity Cop16 summit in Cali in October, said that a singular focus on cutting carbon emissions while failing to restore and protect natural ecosystems would be “dangerous for humanity” and risk societal collapse.

The Land Bank is the perfect instrument to protect and preserve in perpetuity the most important elements of the diverse ecosystems that make up the San Juan Islands. These include shorelines, mountaintops, remnants of old growth forest, wetlands and farmland. 

By securing farmland not only can we store carbon through regenerative practices and the use of biochar, but we can build up fertility over time. By providing young farmers access to land we can increase the supply of locally produced organic, healthy food. We need the shoreline, the vistas and the mountain tops to keep us in awe of the natural world.

That is where we can heal ourselves, be inspired and find spiritual renewal. Any self-respecting community will try to preserve as many of these places as possible for future generations. Open space does not need county services. It is development that raises our taxes.

How can you protect if you can not connect! The land bank IS this connection.

Let’s vote to renew our Land Bank, it is the Island Way.