Nature has no building codes

I was watching two televised events last night - actually, since I didn't have access to TV, I was watching two live streams on their respective sites - a Donald Trump event in Iowa and a Republican Presidential debate.  In both events, healthcare was discussed, our veterans' rights to healthcare was discussed, and there was mention of accessibility - and I took a little journey...

I got thinking about accessibility to nature, and recalled a video I'd seen a while back - "Nature is the Best Medicine".   (Actually this is not something only to parody - Richard Louv, for instance, has coined a term "nature-deficit disorder" that is afflicting many children.)  This then led to recalling a quote I'd once heard - "Nature does not have building codes."  I thought about the work I'd done trying to develop accessibility solutions for mobile phones, and people I have met on my travels - handicapped people dealing with and many times thriving with challenges; the amazing perseverance and fortitude many of these people have in their journeys to enjoy life, live productive lives and share their stories with others. I remembered a sign I saw in an airport in India - "People with other abilities board first".  I thought of something I had once read in a book by Edward Said, about otherness and the way society creates a disenfranchised group of others who do not conform to the social norms, institutions or the ways certain activities are brought into the realm of mass inclusion, and exclusion.

I wondered: "Is it wrong that nature does not make it easy, or at times even possible for those with handicaps to enjoy its spaces?"  "No," I thought, "it can't be wrong - but it can be addressed."

And yes, it is being addressed.  There are many groups that are taking it upon themselves to open up nature to people with disabilities. For instance, in Canada, Power to Be is a group that is seeking to "inspire youth and families in need of support to discover their limitless abilities through nature-based programs".

As I explored their site, I found another site, issuu, which offers free to read publications.  One collection is of various annual reports relating to children and nature.  But within this site, within many other technologies, activities, studies and institutions is a way to locate things - around where you are, in places you are interested in, in places you might be thinking to travel to.

This is what I want to explore with waketrail.org - a way to locate things that relate to caring for and celebrating nature.  Where can a person who is wheelchair-bound find trails to traverse, or maybe even groups of people who are organized to help such traverses?  Where can a person who is blind find the best experiences in nature as defined by other people who have the exact same challenge?  Where can a person who is interested in working on "something" find people in their area who have a simialr interest and are trying to find others to talk through possibilities?

Starting for scratch, sort of

I had a really nice call today with a friend of mine, Ram Kashyap.  I was sitting in Nova Scotia, he was sitting in India, the call was a bit spotty at times but we managed.  We talked about nature - the time we have spent out in nature, the things we have experienced within nature, the ways we have moved through nature - all aspects of the ways we celebrate nature.   And we got talking about how we might work to create a way of sharing those celebrations, and so begins yet another level of the journey...  I've invited him to write in this blog and I look forward to reading about his own journey!

I've also invited another friend, Henri Koivuneva, who has been a great help and inspiration in creating the first nascent elements of waketrail.org.  Henri is a true wizard and it's always fun to feel the speed with which he creates things.  I look forward to reading of his journey also!

So you could say that we're starting from scratch, sort of - working with some existing tools and workable elements to begin designing and creating something that will, ultimately, hopefully, allow people around the world to care for and celebrate nature, discover others doing similar things and discover places where nature is being cared for and celebrated.  Onwards :)

Value, mindfulness and care

I was sitting by the front window enjoying the sounds of the snow squall outside, especially since I was warming to a wood fire and felt like I could relax within my protected view of that potentially brutal reality.  I even had an internet connection, and happened upon an article about "the value of art".  It was describing a unique vending machine where an art student was selling various pieces of ceramic art.

“In this work, the audience participation is crucial as they are put through a decision-making process in contemplating the value they attribute to craft in relation to the price they select."  In other words, the audience is somewhat forced to pause and think about how much they value that piece of ceramic behind the glass wall. At the same time, Hans poses another question to us: “Can we be purely economical about craft?”

As I sat looking out at the raging storm, I thought of how we approach natural experiences, and the prices we pay to get close to nature.  Guided tours, gas to drive, equipment and even relationships and mindset to make the experience tolerable towards "thriving".

If we were to think of "nature" as an immediate, integral, consistent and evolving aspect of our lives, we might look at ways to become more thriving with and within it. 

I began thinking of repurposing a list of ways to thrive:

• Take smart, common-sense risks and step out of your comfort zone - find new ways to approach and become immersed within nature.
• Begin to better prioritize your relationships, both with yourself and others - rethink the relationship taken up with nature.
• Change your environment to a more productive and encouraging one - explore new avenues for experiencing nature.
• Begin to work on understanding your emotions, emotional triggers and limiting beliefs - become more self-reflective when "out in nature".
• Model the excellence you want and expect in your life - discover how you reach mindfulness when "out in nature".
• Improve your fuel plan to support your physical body’s ability to thrive - find new ways to nourish yourself when hiking, paddling, walking or touring in any natural space.
• Try something new and embrace an element of play in your day - surprise yourself by peeking around a corner you never would have imagined yourself peeking around...

My vision is that within waketrail.org there will be something like a channel titled "mindfulness" where people can share such experiences and experimental explorations and discover others who are having similar explorations, or who have taken part in a similar exploration in a location where you are planning to go to, are journeying out into, have recently visited, etc.  We might then be able to get a better perspective on how we invest our time, energy, money and thought and emotional processes in our encounters with nature, and find ways in which we can further our own explorations, possibly towards participating in projects that help to care for and celebrate nature.

Work and nature

I am house sitting a place on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.  The windows look out over an expanse of water whose distances hint at an area that is being called The 100 Wild Islands.  I paddled out yesterday to catch a glimpse of the farthest reaches of these islands - mysterious and beautiful.  I feel fortunate to be able to spend these next few months in such an environment even as I maintain contact with people around the world to further plans for the waketrail project.

Within everyday work, to acknowledge that empathy carries over into many realms of life, including the natural environment, allows us space for reflection. As I take on the ongoing challenges of developing a platform to bring together many disparate elements of environmental awareness, I will take up this challenge - to try constantly to reimagine myself within new spaces of interaction, with people, with nature.

A recent article asked how the new economy - with new ways of organizing and working together, an energizing sense of possibility, and a seemingly insatiable thirst for problem solving - will engage and support the least visible among us?  I have throught to expand that to ask how will a tendency towards some sort of new economy engage and support to the subtlest of natural elements around and within us, to create a more caring economy? The Values Revolution might bring greater insights into this by taking into account some level of exploration into questions such as how does a greater awareness of nature align with a greater awareness of "the least visible among us".

Or, how is it possible to bring such an awareness within movements such as http://www.goodworkcode.org/the-code/

Story One - The bird that flew away

Sometimes life presents us with moments that lead us to question the logic of how we are perceiving the world.  Sometimes, in order to attempt articulation, we make might bring these moments into fictional presentations - toyings with what we might think of as alternatives to how we originally sensed that moment.

There was one moment in my life after which I had to stand - I was standing and figured I might as well continue - and try to fathom the reality that had just been presented to me.  Nothing too earth-shaking, but there it was - a moment of being presented a new perspective on a world I had thought was one way, but was suddenly recognizing as another.

Nothing escapes us, whether we acknowledge it or not, true or not, and really, we can translate and triangulate as much as we want, believe that theories are actualities, truths are fictions or fictions truths, maybe wander off on our own walkabouts of conjectures, maybe feel that there is an amazing beauty to it all.  So here's a story.

A guy goes to a conference that has a theme of some sort of betterment of mankind.  The guy has an interesting idea - or at least interesting in his own humble opinion, belief, I mean, that's the reason he went to the conference, with belief and hope of gaining more knowledge, perspective and depth of understanding that might fill in around some of his interesting idea and provide some sense of order and sense of purpose within that whole landscape of mankind betterment.  He was there to listen.  He was there to learn.  He was there to ask questions. 

There was one particular question he asked a man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind.  The question was:  "Would I be able to get funding from your organization for a project that explored how little funding it might actually take to solve a potentially global problem at a very local level?"

There was a bit more to it, maybe, but that's about the essence of it, the simplified rendition; pretty much, essentially, it was a question about whether a large non-profit organization whose specific focus was on the betterment of mankind could or would fund a project whose main focus was to see how little it would take to use local insights, an understanding of on-the-ground realities and a quite large network of good people interested in working on good locally relevant activities to figure out how cheaply they could all work together to do something as inexpensively as possible in a way that would allow the problem-solving activity to become self-sustaining and even viably self-replicating across many countries around the world.

The answer that the man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind was, "no".  He said that they wouldn't be able to fund that sort of project.  Straight-out, unhesitatingly he simply said no.  Because, he said, they mostly worked on projects that worked within machinery that was created for large-scale projects, that had huge funding structures, large metrics for success and the bigger the project the better because they could show big numbers and big numbers are what, this man said, needed to be produced.  It was big numbers that caught the eyes of those who would be working with the next funding round, and the next, and the...  Their non-profit wasn't cheap to keep on perpetuating itself, this man said.  It's a very competitive world, this man said.

So the guy with what he believed to be an interesting idea stood there and thought alongside this man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind.  Anyone standing close-by and happening to look at the two men at that moment might have caught the two of them seeming to nod to each other with an acknowledgement of something left there to float between them, to hover. 

Then, if anyone were there looking, a funny thing might have been seen.  That thing between those two guys suddenly took on a life of its own and became a bird that flew away off into some distance of escape, around the mass of so many people who, it might be supposed, had so many interesting ideas for some sort of betterment of mankind.   The bird finally found an open doorway and, whoosh, it was gone.

The end

Note 7 Finding nature

http://findingnature.org.uk/

 Nature always has a story to tell, the key is tuning the senses in to it. Every walk is nature’s story and each step is another word in the story of the day – a 10,000 word story.

A further benefit of finding nature locally is that it can be accessed in small pockets of time, thereby accumulating 10,000 steps throughout the day.

Learnings week one

It's been over a week since I took the dive into trying to develop a way to consolidate all global people, projects and activities that care for and celebrate nature.  Actually, it wasn't like I was just starting out - for years I have been pondering this as I have worked on various technology projects in countries like South Africa, India and China, and working with developers to create solutions for education, accessibility and environmental awareness.  It's been a long road to this first week, and this first week has taught me that there are really so many good people around who are sincerely interested in doing good things.  It hasn't been a true to form calendar week of seven days, but more like a mental week, of working through days of activities and insights, communicating through various channels and streams of conversations, and then, on the Sunday of the flow, resting into some reflection and gearing up for the next week.

Although I have managed various technology projects, this week has taught me that I still have a long way to go to get in synch with the realities of a truly global software project that is open-ended at best.  I'm going to look into a project management training, course or insights, possibly a book, something that will allow me more insight into the nuts and bolts of facilitating a software project, possibly to get in tune with evolving a project along the lines of the outline below, extracted from one online course description.

Business reasons?  Presently there is no business.  What I want to do is to create a space for sharing.  Where's the business in trying to develop a way to bring people together for the greater benefit of our global environment?  Maybe others can find good business in this - collaborating on maker projects that repurpose materials, discover ways to bring green technologies into everyday activities, figure out how to get people to "find nature", which might allow more people a space of reflecting on their place on this earth and how their actions inter-relate with everything else around them...

Conducting a Project Kick-Off Meeting

The business reasons for the project

• Where the project fits in the business
• How this fit influences your chances of success

The project customers

• Identifying stakeholders and their needs
• Developing strategies to manage involvement

The project objectives

• What success looks like
• Making the team's success visible
• Managing the project to build customer confidence

Balancing Development Needs with Organizational Expectations

Selecting software development life cycle models

• Comparing SDLC models
• How to identify the right model
• Analyzing strengths and weaknesses of Traditional vs. Iterative vs. Agile (e.g., XP, Scrum)

Designing a road map for your project

• Mapping your PM process to your project's SDLC
• Optimizing time, cost, function and quality

Translating Stakeholder Needs into Actions

Structuring content for your software project plan

• Providing initial top-down estimates
• Identifying tasks and phases using a WBS
• Calculating realistic bottom-up estimates
• Sequencing tasks into a network diagram
• Constructing Gantt charts to assess resource needs

Getting the right resources

• Identifying resource needs using your plan
• Delegating work effectively

Reality check for your project plan

• Testing the plan before you begin
• Assessing the project using risk management
• Involving the team in planning
• Building confidence for your plan
• Selling the plan to relevant stakeholders

Running the Project: Day-to-Day Decisions for Success

Focusing on the project management process

• Putting theory into practice
• Early warning signs
• Building team commitment
• Day-to-day tracking and management
• Measuring progress with milestones
• Defect detection and prevention

Characterizing the software development process

• Analyzing how the SDLC drives deliverables
• Pressures to expect at each stage
• The major stages and how they relate
• Determining the working practices in traditional, iterative and Agile developments that offer the greatest impact

Building successful teams

• Getting technical teams to work collaboratively
• Engaging the team in the planning process
• Empowering team members
• Managing the stages of team development appropriately

Driving the Implementation: Recognizing and Overcoming Challenges

Tracking and control

• Measuring software progress
• Linking progress to success

Implementing change control

• Principles of change control
• The value of configuration management

Controlling risk

• Analyzing project risk
• Changing the risk profile
• Planning for contingency

Closing the Project: Learning from Experience

• Sharpening your project management skills
• Influencing the continuous improvement process of your organization

A 2016 calendar

I have made a 2016 calendar with some of my favorite photos from the last few years wandering, paddling, hiking and just meandering within nature.  You can download it, make a copy of it, use it, share it!

At the bottom is a little reminder to check out The Waketrail  Project :)

I'm envisioning someday to have a completely open calendar where anyone in the world could put in information by date, with specifics about location and some background information, links etc.  This is all part of The Waketrail Project.

Enjoy the calendar!

Graphic design help needed

Is there someone with graphic design expertise who would like to volunteer a few hours to help me design a first UI design visualization fir a non-profit technology project?

I'm working on an environmental networking project - waketrail.org.  The vision is to bring together people, activities and organizations from around the world who are focusing on caring for and celebrating nature.  I am putting updates on my blog - www.onjourneying.blogspot.com and have a gofundme campaign - www.gofundme.com/waketrail - hopefully there will be money to fund some of the backend development and more UI design work in the future.

I also want to design and create a bumper sticker for awareness-building and as something to give to people who donate.

Please let me know if you can help in some way. Very much appreciated!

Note 6 Where do helium balloons go?

A petition in Queensland, Australia started by Tangalooma EcoMarines

Most balloons are made of Mylar (a plastic) or latex (synthetic or natural rubber). Balloon-makers like to recommend latex balloons as an eco-friendly solution, and say these balloons “degrade as quickly as an oak leaf.” What they don’t mention is that the study they’re quoting is non peer-reviewed, has never been replicated, and was actually written for and by the National Association of Balloon Artists, in the USA. The study also doesn’t mention that oak leaves degrade slowly. Latex may take 6 months or more to degrade – even more slowly in water! That’s a lot of time to drift around and pose hazards to our precious marine life.

Balloon debris also contributes to unsightly trash on our beaches and river edges. In the months after the flooding event of 2011, for example, hundreds of balloons (whole or in fragments) and plastic balloon tie-strings, were found washed up on the western side of Moreton Island, part of the trash from the South-East Queensland catchments.

150 dollars

My gofundme project is up to 150 dollars in donations!  What should I do with all that money?

At a technology level, one of the first necessities is to get the  UI design concept drawn out, and to begin developing an architectural design for tying various backend dynamics to that UI with an "overall user experience" - how the elements of technology that create the stuff that works behind the scenes translates into the way that someone going to the website or mobile app or online tool will eventually experience all of that backend elements running in the best way possible along the lines of my vision of how waketrail.org will work.

At another level, there is a need for much broader awareness, both short term and long term.  PR and communications, marketing and outreach, project management, backlogs and agile sprints coinciding with timeboxes, timeframes and schedules - all of these need to be coordinated and presented in clear ways.  Also the main vision and a clear view of where any donations are going.

One nuts and bolts way to spread the word is through a bumper sticker...  Also, this would be one small way to thank people who donate to the project - because I've gotten a few questions from people about what little token of gratitude might be something to receive when they donate, and there have been some suggestions of incentives and there have actually been a few very specifically suggesting bumper stickers.  To tell the truth, I had not been thinking about bumper stickers.  I have been focusing on getting the concept into a first tangible visualization, so that there can be more clarity to where the project os aiming.

But I'll throw it out for some thoughts - if I'm figuring why not do something like a bumper sticker, would this be a valid use of donation money?  It makes sense, it's something fun, it's a way to give some thanks, and it would allow the project, and the site, to gain exposure in the long run.  Within the idea that everything abot The Waketrail Project needs to be done within the scope of available resources, and building awareness by using something like a bumper sticker might build awareness, should resources be allocated to this?  I'll work to develop the UI visualization and the website and in the meantime explore other awareness-building activities.  If anyone is willing to donate 120 dollars specifically to this I would appreciate it.

And of course, if there is anyone who would like to volunteer time, feel free to get in touch! Graphic design, coding the backend, designing and creating frontend features, interactive dynamics, a look and feel that aligns with some design principles that have yet to be created...   This is a software project, and I'm ending towards agile project management, an overall view of everything from basic design principles to architecture design to brand concepting and defining a framework for communications, outreach, gathering information about groups and projects in various countries or figuring out a way to crowdsource this, getting people working together within a community effort to discover and share everything possible, which would then lead to data input and other administrative activites; and then alongside this there is always the day to day realities of activities such as putting bumper stickers into envelopes and putting addressses and stamps onto the envelopes...

You can always write to me at gregory.smiley@gmail.com - I'd love to hear from you!

So here's putting it in perspective of awareness building as an investment into the ong term viability of the project.  One online bumper sticker site has an offer for 200 custom bumper stickers for 120 US dollars.  Not bad: each bumper sticker would cost about 60 cents.  If I were to say that every person who donates 20 dollars or more would receive a bumper sticker, there would be money left over.  The gofundme process takes about a 10% commission on each donation, so from 20 dollars, take away 2 dollars commission and about a dollar for the bumper sticker and shipping (which I guess needs to include an envelope), so that will leave about 17 US dollars for each 20 dollar donation.

The image above is where I see the bumper sticker beginning - a raven flying towards some mysterious space of potential.  So far it has evolved to this stage:

I'd like to see the raven flying above an ocean, which would allow some sense of a wake behind something moving across water, the idea of something going somewhere and leaving that wake, but also include some sense of the wake of waking up, an awakening sense of purpose.  I've sent these thoughts to one friend and asked for a sort of rough sketch of an idea of how he envisions all of this coming together with a bumper sticker space of visual playground...  Maybe others reading this might have some ideas?  Is this a bumper sticker you would feel good about having on your car?  Why or why not?  What could make it more dynamic, more lively, more fun, more purposefully engaging?

Ok; so if I end up doing this bumper sticker order, that would leave me with 30 US dollars.  With 30 US dollars I can maybe, hopefully, get someone to begin the UI design concept, which would set the stage for providing greater clarity into how I envision waketrail.org to look, which might allow greater clarity in to how I see it being used and how it might eventually become a space for sharing many things - again, aligning with the overall vision.

Sightings and a vision of consolidated awareness

beer can on the beach

It has always amazed me that I can be way out in the middle of a huge space of wilderness, sometimes days beyond any access to other people, and I can be walking along within this middle of endlessness and suddenly happen upon... garbage.

How the heck does a beer can get out into the middle of the Tongass Forest wilderness area along a beach that took me ten days of paddling and five hours of hiking to get to?

The anthropology of waste might have some insights into this phenomenon of mysterious can sightings and address some issues of how we might become more critically aware of our own ways of existing within spaces of waste - and then again, it can serve to open up a whole can of worms of potentials of thought.  That beer can is like the tip of an iceberg of a much larger issue - of how we discard so many things, and taken to an even broader level,  how we are even living within a phenomenon of discarding, to some extent, almost everything around us.


A friend who recently arrived in the US from India looked around at people o the street and remarked, "If these people were to discard everything that had been created with child labor, they would be walking around naked."
I heard a friend recently say, "We're living in a time of throw away goods, throw away children and even throw away countries."

One little can.  Landfills. Unfulfilled - or even unformed - dreams of children. Child labor.  Wasteful actions.  The effects of wasteful actions.  How do we effect some sense of perspective.

One friend has a blog of "sightings" - reports of unusual creatures being washed up on beaches, appearing in surface waters or being found or caught far from their historical ranges. My vision of waketrail is to create a global space for sightings - not only of creatures, but also of projects, and possibly of garbage sightings or projects for cleaning up garbage, or sightings of water or electricity waste or food waste.  Each of these has a specific location.  Why not begin to build a consolidated awareness of these?

Note 5 The mission of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network

NSEN

"To raise the profile of environmental education in Nova Scotia through increasing

understanding, capacity, and communication amongst environmental organizations and their

partners in order to maintain ecological integrity and sustainable communities."

The waketrail vision

All in process, all moving ahead, all with so many potentials to ultimately have a space for bringing together so many disparate activities, dovetailing initiatives letting people discover each other to find ways to work together to care for and celebrate nature...

Here's how I see it working when it gets to a point of working well:

There will be is a view - a user interface, a website page - that allows anyone anywhere in the world to post information about any activity that relates to caring for and celebrating nature.  They would put in the location, the name of the activity, a "theme", a link, a few keywords and maybe some personal information.  There will be a very simple and easy to use template for inputting information.

What others will see will be a view that allows them the ability to find information about any activity that relates to caring for and celebrating nature. They will put in the location they want to explore, the name of the activity, a "theme" and maybe a few keywords, and will be taken to that location to see the activities that fit within that space of interest.

Everyone will have their name associated with anything that place into the system - so people can also search for individual names.

Some people might be doing things in various locations - for instance, if you take a hike, you pass through many locations along the way - a mountaintop, a valley, alongside a lake, along a shoreline.  These would all be locations - right down to a particular outcropping of rock along a shoreline.

There are technologies already quite solidly in process for effecting this sort of view, user interface and website page.  I am looking to develop these within a technology backend that will allow for some very dynamic interactions of information - also a solid technology, wondrously glitchy and with some great people taking on a huge to-do list.

Stay tuned!

Note 4 Beach gatherings

Beach gatherings

Note 3 Unusual beach sightings

Unusual beach sightings

Note 2 Paddling Nova Scotia

Paddling Nova Scotia

Note 1 Everest Base Camp

Base camp stories

Why I think we need a consolidated view of people, places and activities that celebrate nature

The challenge is that around the world there are so many really great projects going on, and so many really great people doing truly inspiring work that focuses on nature - but even with the magical internet with its algorithms of discoverability, these people and activities still remain separate, and separated, and it is still difficult if not impossible to locate things right around in your own area never mind on the other side of the world.

So my thought is that the way to face this challenge is to work on a way to remove the separation...  My thought is that the way to remove this separation is to create a systematized way to catalog, archive and consolidate every single activity that is focused on celebrating nature...

A daunting task, for sure, at one level of thinking...  At another level - maybe somewhat unrealistic, overly optimmistic, not really so logical - is the belief that it can be done through a concerted effort to raise awareness of this being something that is happening in earnest.

Onwards :)

the bumpersticker

It might and will most likely evolve...  :)

Waking up

"You never get lost, although sometimes you might take a bit longer to find your way."

I have; I think, always found my way towards. within and alongside natural spaces.  Sometimes it may have taken a bit longer; sometimes it may have taken a bit longer to get back to what some might term civilization, or the other-than-nature, or the world that is not such a completeness of nature, or however it might be termed.  But do we ever get there, and is there ever anything like a return from. Or is it there within.

As I imagine is the want of any creature on this planet, we move in and out of experiences that surprise us, that sometimes make no sense, sometimes confuse us, sometimes cause us to wonder, to feel excited, to feel frightful.  We flow from experience to experience like birds upon updrafts that communicate with subtle shifts of wings.

I'm waking up this blog because I realize that over these past years, I have been existing within a bit of an analog world.  I have maintained a handwritten journal since I was 14, still listen to cassette tapes, compose most of my writing on paper, enjoy placing the metallic sharpness of a knife upon the wondrous solidity of wood, lament the loss of 35mm film camera technology, wish I could own a vinyl record machine and prefer talking face to face with people over texting or posting on all of the myriad social media opportunities.  Yet I find myself moving "towards that space" and actually, I have this geek-streak of reveling in technology and the wonders it can effect.  I have the great fortune of having worked with so many wizards and nerds - kudos to all bof you, you know who you are.

I'm waking up this blog because I see a way to intertwine potentials.  Onwards.

Barents Protected Area Network

The Barents Protected Area Network has four main elements:

• GIS analysis of the protected area network, including classification of the protected areas
• Regional evaluation of protected area systems within the CBD PoWPA framework
• Regional pilot projects on threatened high conservation value areas in northwest Russia
• Communication and awareness raising

The Barents Euro-Arctic Region is a transboundary area located in northern Europe, mostly north of the Arctic Circle. It consists of 13 administrative regions in the northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Northwest Russia, covering a total area of 1,8 million km² of which 75% is in Russia. The Barents Region forms a uniform natural area connecting northern parts of Europe and Russia.

Barents region is situated in the northern parts of Europe. The map is produced in the BPAN project.

The beginning of The WakeTrail Project!

For as long as I can remember, I have gravitated towards and enjoyed being within nature.  

I now want to give something back - I want to help build a global space for sharing, celebrating, protecting and discovering our own personal place within nature - a space that will bring information, insights, people, initiatives, and organizations together in a very easy and interactive way.

There are a lot of moving pieces and I'll be the last one to say that technology development is cheap, but for over a decade I've been envisioning something like this and I just feel that the time is right...

Waking trails

During the years I've spent paddling, I have always reveled in the way a kayak has become such an immediate part of my "self"- the body and mind, thought processes and feelings I call "me".  Attached as I am within its shell, I find myself extending out beyond my physical boundaries of body, and even of thought and emotion, into new boundaries, of paddle blade, of bow, of rudder, of sprayskirt and their own senses, of motion, of solidity, of tenuous change.

And every single time I'm out there on the water, I awaken into a new sense of being, because the water itself also extends me within its own reaches.

My journey has taken me through many bodies of water, many seas, many sea conditions, and each own has created its rhythm of being that I have been an intimate part of.  The wake I leave is the awakening I feel, each and every time, forming my being, which is never gone but which is constantly transforming within the environment of the natural world where I place myself.  Are others placing themselves within similar transformations.

Awareness.  Nature.   What brings us to this crossroad?  And if the crossroads are water-formed, with the wakes of each of our journeys, how do we find ourselves acknowledging and celebrating and building upon these?