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#4 Being in Nature via the Internet! |
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*Nature Network
Despite continued ecological damage caused by people, the riches of nature still abound. Nature Network is a project designed to bridge the gap between people and nature by setting up cameras and mics in rich natural environments that transmit live images and sound to people around the world. Dr. Spong envisioned this magnificent dream more than 20 years ago, before the internet had reached public domain.
Dr. Spong's dream took a giant step forward in 2000 with the implementation of OrcaLive, a live relay project via the internet. The much-talked-about website had over 50 million accesses from more than 70 countries during its second five-month long season of live webcasts in 2001. Although Nature Network has only just begun, it is replete with hints for future symbiosis between nature and technology. I discussed this subject with the advocate of this concept, Dr. Paul Spong.
Interview conducted at Dr. Spong's home in Hanson Island, Canada
Further explanation of the Nature Network concept can be found at
http://www.orca-live.net/ |
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# The Nature Network Vision |
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Nature Network is still in its infant stage, what is your future vision of Nature Network? |
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The critical issue is bandwidth. In coming years there will be increased bandwidth everywhere. With fiber optic networks, everyone will have high speed access. Then we can produce more immediate and deeper experiences for people.
When I go to CP and watch a live webcast on a high resolution screen, I almost feel I am there underwater. The image is so clear and the color so perfect. Of course I am happy just to see something live, but when I see something that is much closer to the real experience, it touches me even more.
  
This year, as I looked at the small window on the OrcaLive site, I wondered how long it would be before we can get a full-screen image that is perfectly in focus. How long do you think? Maybe two years? How long before we can get a full-screen image on a wall in a house? Then you can create an environment in your living space which will virtually take you somewhere. You can be in nature in your home.
  
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And we'd be able to switch "channels," for instance, from OrcaLive to Sea Turtle Live*? |
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Maybe you can have a hundred choices!
While it may still be too costly for the individual, museums, school libraries, and other institutions can conceivably make an investment in this kind of technology for displays.
In five or ten years, we will see technology spreading to institutions that would create an environment you can walk into and become transported to someplace "live" in nature.
  
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It might be better to go somewhere to experience Nature Network than to in the home, at an aquarium for instance. |
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It makes complete sense to me. An aquarium is a very artificial, re-creation of the natural world. |
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If aquariums incorporated Nature Network, visitors would pay to enjoy nature live on a large screen, so they could stop capturing wild animals. |
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I think so, but the problem with most aquariums is that they want everything. They want to have captive marine mammals like dolphins and seals, AND the live relay.
They are quite interested in developing the live connection, but they are still stuck in the past idea that they need to take animals out of the wild and put them artificial enclosures. They think that people need to see the real animals in order to pay money to come in. I want them to make a shift.
I believe it is possible. For example the experience of the Monterey Aquarium* is just fantastic. They have a huge kelp forest tank that is really so beautiful. They invested in the research and development of technology that would enable them actually to create a natural space. It is a natural ecosystem.
I think this kind of development by the aquarium industry would be very successful, but so far very few institutions are trying.
*Monterey Aquarium
http://www.mbayaq.org/^ Back to mid-page
Note: Dr. Spong is conducting a movement to reunite Corky, an orca taken from Johnstone Strait living in captivity at an aquarium, with his family.
Free Corky Campaign:
http://www.orcalab.org/corky-a16/ |
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# Being with Nature via the Internet |
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Many people perceive technology and nature as incompatible, but your objective is to use technology to bring people closer to nature. The internet has been instrumental in facilitating this, hasn't it.
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The internet is great. In some ways it is complicated, in other ways, very simple. The growth of the internet is almost like that of nature. If a life form in nature has an opportunity, it uses it. It occupies some space in the gaia system. The internet is technology of course, but it is growing like an organism.
I think Nature Network should undergo natural growth. Like the internet, if the idea is good, many different people will somehow connect to it. We can already see the development of other sites, such as Sea Turtle Live*. I can see signs that other sites like this were developed naturally.
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# The Future with Nature Network |
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How do you think the future would differ, with or without Nature Network?
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Actually you might say we have two futures: one with nature, one without nature. This is a most important question.
If you think about last two to three hundred years, even five hundred years (which is a relatively short time), there has been tremendous change in the natural world everywhere on our planet that has been directly caused by people. Much of the original forest is gone. It is hard to conceive of the change in the ocean--so vast in depth, so immense in space--but it is happening. Oceans are losing their life, fisheries of the world are in huge trouble everywhere. How could anyone conceive of the planet's climate changing so drastically? It is happening.
If you look ahead the same time period, say two to three hundred or five hundred years, what can you imagine? A world without nature? Maybe a world in which the diversity of the nature has been reduced so drastically that we have lost what we have now. Humans have to realize that they depend on nature.
  
That is one very possible scenario of future. Look at the behavior of politicians now, President Bush for example has no idea that the planet is important. In Kyoto there was a great struggle to achieve some tiny level of control over planetary change, and he rejects it. First of all he doesn't believe it is happening, and second of all, if it is happening, he doesn't believe it is important.
Use everything now. We don't need to think about the future, we are here now, and we are only interested in ourselves now. Children can take care of themselves later. That is the philosophy -- it is terrible.
To get on to a more positive path...
 I think many people are already doing this. This is why eco-tourism is the fastest growing component in the tourism industry. Many people are seeking nature, many people are understanding how helpful the experience of nature is to their own personal health and growth.
That is very important, and I think this understanding is spreading. I think that Nature Network can help promote the understanding that there is real need for each person to connect to the natural world and help spread this connection. I think this will help to preserve nature.
The changes happening now in nature and the climate are real! But if we do not destroy every corner of the natural world, I believe in the resilience of nature enough to know that it will live on in all its beauty.
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Compared to ten years ago, people seem to be more aware. I am hopeful.
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Me too. I don't believe that we are just going to experience doom. I believe we will experience a dawn.
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I see Nature Network as a small window through which a touch of the rhythm of nature filters into the lives of those of us living in urban environments. That small window will ultimately become a large window, and as the project develops allowing us to sense nature throughout the world, there might be a radical change in people.
A significant aspect of Nature Network is that it is "live." Seeing and hearing images and sounds of nature far away in real time is an experience that only the internet can offer.I believe that through this, even without a complete physical experience, the connection between the "life" known as oneself and the "life" faraway is a palpable reality. And when we feel that connection, even if the screen is small and the quality poor, we are moved.
Dr. Spong sees Nature Network playing another important role. Ironically, as people seek nature and flock to it, nature is being destroyed. In summer, Johnstone Strait is frequented by whale-watching boats packed with tourists. Dr. Spong is concerned about the effects the yearly amplification of boat noise might have on the orca, who sense the world via sound. Nature Network lets people sense nature without interfering with it. In other words, Dr. Spong sees Nature Network functioning like a cushion in the conflicting relationship between people and nature.
Accesses to the OrcaLive website grew to almost 50 million from close to 70 countries during its five-month long season of live webcasts in 2001. I plan to keep an eye on its growth.
The following two Nature Network projects are presently underway.
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OrcaLive
http://www.orca-live.net/
Live webcasts from Dr.Spong's research lab in Johnstone Strait, Canada.
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Image: Click orca images for enlargements.
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Sound: Use the "console" below to hear orca voices.
Sound provided by the Sound Bum* project.
Recorded by: Haruo Okada (Pioneer)
Secondary use--including reproduction, appropriation, or sales--of sound, imagery, etc. appearing on this website is strictly prohibited without prior permission from the copyright holder.
*Sound Bum
http://www.soundbum.org (in Japanese)
Initiated in 1999, Sound Bum is a project based on the concept of journeying to hear sound. Sound trips conducted to date include the Fiji Islands, Alaska, Malaysia, Portugal, Taiwan, and Russia, in both natural and urban environments. The project's many participants experience a new form of travel through sound. |
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 About Dr. Paul Spong
Born in New Zealand in 1939.
Following postgraduate work on the function of the brain at UCLA, he began researching orca at Vancouver Aquarium.
Sensing the need to study orca not in captivity, but living unbound in their natural habitat, he established OrcaLab in 1970 on (then) uninhabited Hanson Island near Vancouver Island, Canada.
He has since spent more than 30 years researching the ecology of wild orca.
Orca Lab website: http://www.orcalab.org
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Interview/photographs: Soichi Ueda, Think the Earth Project
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