Transcriber: Cristiano Garcia Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
(Portuguese): The lovely and hospitable capital of the state of Minas Gerais.
Usually when I'm in front of the crowd, I have a guitar in my hand, because I'm a singer.
But, seven years ago, after travelling
moving across Canada and the US and different places in the world,
I came back to the farm that I grew up in,
in Toronto, just outside of Toronto,
the most densely populated area in all of Canada.
And I came back to the farm my parents still live on,
and I realized how incredible place it was.
I realized how beautiful it was,
comparing it to all these other places that I'd seen.
And in fact I had kind of missed the boat, because in 1990,
UNESCO had recognized the same thing
and they designated the Niagara Escarpment
which is where my family's farm is, a UNESCO world biosphere reserve.
And the Niagara Escarpment starts basically in the Niagara Falls
and it goes for 700 or so kilometers
through Southern Ontario and it's a rock rich corridor
and it's got close to 50% of the province's rare and endangered species
and of course UNESCO recognized it
as an ecologically valuable place in our world.
And seven years ago, it was the same time that I discovered,
as did other people living in this area,
that a large multinational corporation called Lafarge
was applying to blast a giant hole in the center of this plateau,
this area of the Niagara Escarpment, because they wanted to get to the rock
that was close to the surface,
even though what was on top of the rock was all of this incredible biodiversity.
And so, we started a community group and we decided to get organized,
and we decided to protect, learn about this place and protect
what we knew was so valuable to everyone.
And this particular place was called Mount Nemo.
And Nemo is a latin word for "no one".
It means no one, no man.
And it made it fitting in that
it belonged to everyone, this place, Mount Nemo.
So we set out, I'm sure you've heard the film "Finding Nemo".
Well, our job was saving Nemo.
So, we started this group.
Now, Canada is a young, relatively young country,
and for the last few hundred years we've operated with a frontier mentality.
We've thought that it's an endless
bounty of forests, water and resources
and so we've continued at a great pace.
We haven't recognized the finite qualities of our drinking water
and these precious resources, but as we --
I was learning as a young Canadian, we all rely so heavily and
entirely on our land, and on our water, and on our ability to grow food
much like indigenous cultures have known for...
from the beginning, that land creates us,
makes us possible and it also makes our art possible.
So, I realized that as a musician, what I was going to be part of,
and what I was going to contribute in saving Nemo was my art.
I knew that I had been moved by art over the years,
when place had been mentioned in different songs or different stories
or different poems. I remember as a kid, learning the song
"This Land is Your Land", Woody Guthrie's classic,
and I learned the Canadian version,
which I thought was the original version.
And, I remember hearing place names that I knew belonged to me,
that were part of my country and I knew it made me feel special.
And I knew even later, as an adult, when I was in the city of London, England
and I was traveling mostly by myself, in a massive city in the world,
and I was feeling a little lonely.
I went into a bookstore one night, and I happened to see a book of poetry
by a Canadian poet, and novelist, Michael Andachi
and I picked up this book, and I opened up a page
and I saw a poem called "Near Elginburgh".
And I had just moved to this tiny town,
that no one has ever heard of, called Elginburgh.
For that moment I realized that I was not alone, and I was bigger than myself,
and that this place was bigger than itself, it had been made bigger by this art.
So I decided that I would write a song to start, to tell the story
of what was going on on Mount Nemo, about this massive quarry proposal.
And so I wrote a song called "Escarpment Blues".
It talks about the well water and this incredible place that is the birthplace
of so many tributaries, that has endangered species,
that has the oldest trees east of the Rocky Mountains,
these white cedars that cling to the cliff faces there.
And I wrote this song and then I talked to my band,
and we decided to do a tour of the Niagara Escarpement.
We did the "I Love the Escarpment" tour.
So we hiked for about two weeks along this rock ridge corridor,
along the Bruce trail, which is a continuous foot path.
And we played shows at different community halls along the way and we camped.
And we talked to people that lived along the Escarpment about how precious a place it is.
Now, when we would do our walks, and I would be on my parents' farm
walking through the forest, and walking through the fields,
and looking at the ponds and the wetlands;
I remember early on, there were times when I thought,
"Ok, give me a sign. Let me know...", you know, that
I'm speaking to the planet, and it's speaking to me.
And in those spiritual moments, when you are in a beautiful place,
and I was thinking, "I want to see the owl fly out of the tree
and I want the coyote to cross my path".
You know, that didn't happen, but what happened is
the most powerful creature that ended up crossing my path,
figuratively, was one that only came out at night,
that only came out at certain times of the year,
that otherwise was buried down under the leaves in the forest
and under the soil. And it was a salamander.
And in particular, it was the Jefferson salamander,
which in Canada is an endangered species.
And it's considered an indicator species,
because when you find salamanders in the ecosystem,
it means that the rest of the ecosystem is rich, vibrant and healthy,
because they're very sensitive species. They live in the water, they live on the land.
So -- turned out, we called the government to bring biologists,
because we thought we probably had the right type
of landscape, these forests, these upland, deciduous forests
for these salamanders, and sure enough,
they found a viable population of Jefferson salamanders
living in the forest on my family's farm.
My parents have lived on the farm for over 40 years and we had no idea
that there is an endangered species
living in the back forest.
So, it was a wonderful discovery,
because there is legislation and protection for the species
and we have been involved for 7 years
fighting alongside different levels of government,
who have mostly rejected the proposal.
And we have been working to make sure that science comes to the table
and makes the decision to protect Mount Nemo for future generations,
part of the UNESCO world biosphere reserve that you would think
was completely off limits to large industry,
but which industry has lobbied very successfully to at least
have these applications contemplated.
And when you know,
we find this viable population of these little nocturnal, slimy salamanders.
And my friends Kate and Chris are in New York,
and they just so happened coincidentally to be writing a song
for another project called "Salamandre".
So, my point today is that we live in a world where we are so much
made alive and so much supported and really sustained
by the living world, by our soil, by our water, by our forests.
And that the symbiotic relationship and the inspiration that we are given
by this incredible planet, this living world. Therefore, to use our art
and to use our imaginations as a tool
to tell the story and to express what we feel
about these places.
And I have faith from my experiences that when we do express
these things that are dear to us, when songs are written about Mount Nemo
and the Niagara Escarpment and salamanders,
people become more... these things become more beloved to us,
they become more important and we begin to revere them more.
And so, I would like to encourage everyone to use their creative imaginations,
to look at places in the world, look at places in their own lives
that are important to them.
Write a story, write a poem, make a joke, take a picture
and use your art in a symbiotic way
to give back to the land that is giving so much to you.
Thank you.
(Applause)