Some years ago, (25 in fact) my young daughter bought a blue box home from school. My first thought was 'Huh?', and my second was "What else can I use this for?"

Making the change to reduce, reuse and recycle was slow and old habits were hard to break. Now we check codes before we dispose of containers. We are constantly being educated as to how to care for our environment and reminders are everywhere.

Our grocery store offers us the choice of traditionally grown produce or organic. Yes, organic is more costly, but for good reason. These crops are not sprayed with herbicides or pesticides, or any other kind of chemical treatment including fertilizer. This means there will be a greater loss by cultivating naturally and that's what brings the price up. When you think of the chemicals you digest it's worth it. Another way of being responsible to our environment is the 100 Mile Diet and the Seasonal Diet. Try to eat foods grown within our own geographic area and buy the produce that is in season here rather than trucking it in from commercial farms from the south.

While you're in the grocery store notice that some shoppers still use plastic shopping bags, more and more are using canvas ones. Did you know that a plastic bag takes 100 years to break down, an organic one made of cornstarch takes 2 weeks, and a canvas tote will last years, and then break down in just 6 months? Plastic bags sometimes find their way into our oceans and into the stomachs of transient Green sea turtles. They think it's a jelly fish, their favourite food. Plastic does not digest, it just compacts on top of the last one, and eventually the turtle starves to death. Same thing with our seagulls and Styrofoam, and there is no one to blame but ourselves so let's clean up our shoreline!

There is another coastal creature that has paid for our carelessness, and that is the Blue Heron. For decades PCB's and DDT caused the egg shells to soften causing a high rate of mortality. In years gone by the pulp mills were responsible for the greatest part of that pollution. Government legislature has banned the use of these substances although minimal residue still remains in the water. This situation has turned itself around by better management of how pollutants there are processed. With coastal clean up and new restraints these mills have reduced pollutant discharges from 2.2 tonnes per day to less than 0.4. They have made a huge step towards saving the environment and I am impressed!

I didn't intend to get political but it's hard to avoid it when we are talking global responsibility. If you haven't seen Al Gore's documentary 'The Inconvenient Truth" it's a must see and available in the video shops here.

Gabriola Land, Trails and Trust Board are a non profit society working diligently to protect our island. Their mandate is to preserve and protect the natural environment, and to increase access to more parks, trails, beaches and historical sites. They are active year round in many programs dedicated to educate the island, and even hold a Broom pulling event on Earth Day in April.

One of the delicate historic sites they protect are the petroglyphs on the crown land behind the Gabriola United Church. Other locations of more petroglyphs are at Lackhaven, Lock Bay, Weldwood sites and Degnen Bay. All told there are 50 of these pictures from the past. Sometimes I visit these large smooth stones and try to imagine what some of those fantastic creatures represent. These images were carved thousands of years ago by the people of native Cowichan tribes. They were a gentle people, living off the sustainable land. It was a renewable resource.

They fished our waters, farmed our soil, and hunted in our woods. Or is it us on their water, on their island, and do we care for it as well?

Tread softly on it, and take care with the footprint you leave behind. Peace.