Transcript
Transcript: Connecting with Biodiversity in Canada
[00:00:00 Multiple shots of trees in a Canadian forest on an early autumn day. Gentle music plays, birds are chirping in the background.]
[00:00:17 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger is seen walking through the forest and pointing out characteristics of various tree species.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: My name is Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger. I am a classical botanist and medical biochemist. I have put a lifetime into saving and collecting the rare and endangered plants of Canada. My Arboretum sits in one square mile of forest, south of the city of Ottawa.
[00:00:44 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Biodiversity is important. It is the web in the tapestry of all life today.
[00:00:54 Text on screen: Connecting with Biodiversity in Canada.]
[00:01:00 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger continues her walk in the forest.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Let us begin with this video of connecting with nature by understanding what biodiversity really is.
[00:01:14 A series of shots showing: seedlings pushing up through the ground; an embryo developing in an egg; mushrooms growing on a mossy log; an aerial view of a forest.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Biodiversity is the mathematical template of all living creatures, both plant and animal. This template for birth and death is the commonage of life. It is found in our solar system as a unique trait of bounty. It is the green mantle of nature.
[00:01:39 A series of shots showing: an adult's, and a child's hands touch the bark of a tree; a view looking skyward up through the trees; an aerial view of a circular garden with a maple leaf at its centre; people enjoying a public park on an autumn day; people making use of green space in a large public park.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Today, we, the public, are beginning to understand that nature is not just a commodity. It is the tapestry woven out of all of our lives. In this, the human family must look to the leadership of the public service to initiate a new reverence for nature and the environment by understanding its importance as a signpost, pointing us all to a better world.
[00:02:13 Text on screen: What keeps you hopeful when change feels slow?]
[00:02:18 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: I am hopeful that we, the public, can fix the environment. I was told that this would be the case when I was a 12-year-old orphan in Ireland.
I was made a Brehon Ward with all the instruction that comes with this, all in Irish. This was collected wisdom from the old civilization of the Celts.
[00:02:39 A series of images of Dr. Beresford-Kroeger's books appear full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: My books and films have gone all over the world. A few months ago, I was celebrated in Beijing, China.
00:02:39 The opening title images of Dr. Beresford-Kroeger's documentary appears full screen; Dr. Beresford-Kroeger is shown stretching her arms wide across the cross section of the trunk of a very large felled tree.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: My documentary, Call of the Forest, with its tree guide for North America, has gone viral.
[00:02:55 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: I am delighted by the voices of children making a difference, simply everywhere. I believe that the hard-working Canadian civil servants can make a big dent in nature by listening to the public at large. Oh, yes, I am hopeful.
[00:03:15 Text on screen: What advice would you give public servants working for ecological healing?]
[00:03:20 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: I would like to see exceptional public servants receive a Prime Minister gold medal for outstanding work in the field of biodiversity. The flow dynamics of such a medal would wind its way down into the schools. At graduation, I would like to see the best of the best get a full scholarship to study biodiversity in any of the Canadian universities. Then industry would have to come up to the plate for more prudent behaviour and damage control. This chain reaction has to include consultation with the Aboriginal people, of course.
[00:04:01 A series of shots showing: wildflowers flutter in the breeze; an evergreen forest at sunset; an aerial view of a lake surrounded by forest; a flock of birds taking flight from a lake.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Environmental healing in Canada has to include a revision of the policies to protect the workhorse of the Boreal Forest System with grants of money and protective care of the North. This area oxygenates the world at large.
[00:04:19 Text on screen: How can public service apply ecological intelligence?]
[00:04:25 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Reduce the censorship on public servants who realize that they are dealing with a problem in nature. Clarity is important, twinned with open discussion. Protecting nature is difficult. Understanding is important. Very few people can look out a window anywhere and identify, or name, a tree, plant, or even a weed.
[00:04:48 A series of images on a split screen: a tree; a garden plant; a hand pulling out a dandelion.]
[00:04:52 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: This knowledge was not considered to be important in the past. Now, it is vital knowledge if we are to fix weather patterns, stop galloping fires, maintain aquifers, reduce atmospheric temperatures, and promote iron chelation to harmonize the oceans for fish and mammal populations.
[00:05:01 A series of shots showing: trees being bent by the wind; a wildfire; muddy waves washing up on a shoreline; a forest of dead trees; an aerial view of an ocean shoreline; a school of fish; a bear and her cub eating fish on a river shore.]
[00:05:21 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: All the universities in Canada should have an audit service for those need to understand the great carbon cycle, which is the basis for the ecology of biodiversity. Civil servants should attend these classes.
[00:05:40 Text on screen: What would the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity plan look like in Canada?]
[00:05:44 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Canada is a unique, sovereign country. Its placement on the North American continent is unlike any country on Earth. The answers to problems in biodiversity hold a similar status.
[00:05:58 A series of shots showing: a tropical rainforest and seashore; a toucan; a mountainous, snowy slope with trees.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: What works for the tropics and the Southern regions of the globe do not answer the pertinent problems that abound in this Northern territory.
[00:06:09 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: The Canadian Public Service must therefore come up with its own answer to protect this immense country.
[00:06:16 A series of shots of mist in the trees along a seashore.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Sanctuaries of the seas around the coastline would be a start. The forests must be protected, especially the older mother trees, for their supply of seeds. This will increase the labile molecular release from trees, which activates clouds for rainfall.
[00:06:36 An aerial view of a northern wilderness with mountains, forests, and rivers.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Northern forests create potable water. Northern forests can go south, but Southern forests cannot go north because of solar changes, for instance. This is important for climate stability.
[00:06:41 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
[00:06:50 Text on screen: What are three key lessons you'd share with public servants today?]
[00:06:56 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: The most important reaction on this planet is the photosynthetic reaction.
[00:06:59 A series of shots showing: a time lapse of a seedling pushing up through the ground and growing into a plant; a toucan; a close-up of a leaf's surface; a seedling enclosed by a semi-circular clockwise moving arrow connecting the symbols H2O, CO2, O2, and C6H12O6.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: It is the keystone of the plant world. The reaction is carbon dioxide with moisture and sunshine at the surface of the leaf. This produces oxygen which flows into the atmosphere. When carbon is peeled off carbon dioxide, it is immediately joined back into another molecule called sugar.
[00:07:25 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Plant biodiversity in all its forms uses this essential reaction to oxygenate our atmosphere.
[00:07:33 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger demonstrates aspects of the leaves of a particular tree in the forest.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: By design, all trees, all forests, and all of biodiversity in the plant kingdom are molecular machines. They scrub carbon dioxide as their daily workload, maintaining a menu for all life.
[00:07:51 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: This business comes for free from each genome that is unique. The Civil Service can make a huge difference in protecting biodiversity. They are the model citizens of this country, making policies that count to protect our ways of life.
They must be given the space to succeed. By example, the rest of the country will follow willingly. This is because example is the best teacher for success.
And let me give you something from the old world that I was asked as a child to do for the new world. It is a mantle thinking called a "seanfhocail". It means ancient words from ancient wisdom.
[00:08:40 A series of shots showing: Dr. Beresford-Kroeger walks back along a path to her home in the woods; she points out traits of several other species of trees; she walks around the outside of her home.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: <Gaelic language> May the spirits be with you, and may you have life and great life, and rise within that.
[00:08:57 Dr. Beresford-Kroeger appears full screen.]
Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger: This is considered to be a mantle protection for all those who take care of the environment, all of them, and it stays with you for a lifetime. Thank you very much.
[00:09:08 Text on screen: With special thanks to: Call of the Forest- The Forgotten Wisdom of the Trees, a film by Jeff McKay, Produced by Treespeak Films Inc. Please visit calloftheforest.ca.]
[00:09:17 The Government of Canada logo appears on screen.]
