LA, Belfast… Rainbow Lake? Why a remote town in Alberta joined cities in a Plant-Based Agreement Achi-News

In a remote part of northern Alberta, a town of about 500 people has become an early adopter of a new initiative that seeks to reimagine the global food system in response to climate change and concerns about food sustainability.

Rainbow Lake might seem an unlikely candidate to support the Plant-Based Agreement. Its economy is centered on the oil and gas sector.

But the town also faces challenges that threaten its sustainability. Its remote location can make groceries expensive and difficult to transport into town.

“I think they are showing incredible leadership,” Anita Krajnc, global coordinator of the Plant-Based Agreement, told Global News recently. “I was very impressed and we are very excited.

“(Rainbow Lake) is a town that’s trying to do things differently, so they’re also trying to limit their use of fossil fuels and go zero emissions.”

Rainbow Lake is the first town in Canada to officially endorse the Plant-Based Agreement, which aims to put food systems front and center in the fight against climate change.

The town of Alberta is the 27th municipality worldwide to approve the agreement. The latest city to do so was Belfast in Northern Ireland on April 8. Among other cities across the planet that have approved the initiative are Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Los Angeles.

Mark Kastiro, Rainbow Lake’s interim chief administrative officer, said the town council passed the resolution formally endorsing the agreement, and submitting it to its overall climate action plan, on February 1. The town also has an ambitious plan in the works in the hope of having the community powered by geothermal energy by the end of the decade.

“Things are changing,” Kastiro said. “We want to be part of that change … relevant and sustainable.”

‘Trying to promote a safe and just food system’

The idea to create a Plant Based Agreement was inspired by the work of the organizers responsible for the Fossil Fuel Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

Krancj, who has been an environmentalist for years, said the idea came together in 2021.

“Fossil fuels have been the main focus of environmental groups, but at the last COP (United Nations Climate Change Conference) in the United Arab Emirates, food, finally … (is) on the global agenda,” he said.

“(That) is very significant. Food is 30 years behind fossil fuels. People are only now becoming more aware.”

At COP28, which took place in December 2023, those involved in the Plant-Based Agreement released the organization’s “Safe and Fair” report, which it says “tells the story of the interconnected relationship of we share it with the biosphere while urgently advocating for an integrated plan. , a systems thinking approach,” and looks at plant-based practices being implemented by “leaders in the fight against climate change.”

The aims of the Plant-Based Agreement are set out specifically on its website.

“The agreement would put food systems at the heart of the fight against the climate crisis, with the aim of halting the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture, to promote a shift to healthier and sustainable diets based on plants and to reverse the damage done to planetary functions, ecosystem services and biodiversity,” a post on the agreement’s website reads.

“The goal of the Plant-Based Agreement is to shift the food system to be plant-based so that we can live within our planetary boundaries and reforest the Earth,” Krajnc said. “The planetary boundaries include climate, but also fresh water use, biodiversity, land use.

“We are trying to promote a safe and just food system.”

Although people adopt plant-based diets for a variety of reasons, there has been increasing evidence of the environmental benefits of more people moving to a plant-based diet.

For example, in 2019, a report prepared by dozens of scientists for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that if land is used more effectively, it can store more of the carbon emitted by humans .

The document says that agriculture and forestry account for around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, noting the methane gas produced by livestock and also highlighting the deforestation required to expand grazing land.

In 2018, a report was published in the scientific journal Nature calling on western countries to significantly reduce their consumption of red meat in an effort to combat climate change.

“The food system is a major driver of climate change, changes in land use, depletion of freshwater resources, and pollution of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through excessive nitrogen and phosphorus inputs,” the study reads.

The study recommended that countries rely more heavily on plant-based food and protein sources such as beans.

A study published in 2018 in the journal Science They found that the production of feed for livestock, along with transport, processing and packaging, has a significant impact on the environment. He said that even the “lowest impact animal products” outweighed the effects of vegetable substitutes.

Krajnc noted that any time a municipality decides to officially endorse the Plant-Based Agreement, the organization works with those cities or towns to examine which of the initiative’s 40 recommendations it believes the he could look at their implementation. He said that the way that develops into concrete actions will be different in each case.

‘We have to think a little outside the box and try to have continuity’

Only two months have passed since the Town of Rainbow Lake officially approved the Plant Based Agreement but ideas on how to turn that approval into concrete action are already being discussed.

Kastiro said that although decisions still need to be finalized on how to implement the payments of the agreement in Rainbow Lake, he believes that an education campaign will be part of that.

“At the end of the day, it’s up to individuals who make up their own minds,” he said. “(We’ll want to) give our residents as much information (as we can) about what we’re trying to do.”

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Kastiro suggested that he believes the town’s support for the agreement goes beyond just trying to play its part in the fight against climate change, but also looks at where the town needs to go. tackling other issues that threaten its sustainability.

“We are trying to find other ways so that we can at least deliver goods that are cheap and affordable to our residents,” he said.

“We are looking at ways of trying to bring in greenhouses so we can start growing our own food.”

Kastiro said food availability issues became apparent to him shortly after he first moved to the community when someone advised he should buy himself a freezer.

He said the town no longer has a proper grocery store, saying the business is struggling to survive for a number of reasons.

“They couldn’t carry on,” he said, explaining that people can buy pre-packaged food at local convenience stores but most residents rely on shopping trips to the town of High Level (located about 140 kilometers east of Rainbow Lake) for groceries, or to stock up on supplies when traveling to larger centers.

“It’s just the loneliness of where we are.”

Kastiro acknowledged that fossil fuels have played and continue to play an important role in the town’s economy, but he also explained that taking steps to address food sustainability has become an important goal for the community. He points out that that is not only because of the environment, but also because of the need to make life more sustainable and attractive in the town.

“As we are a resource town, most of our population is a shadow population that comes in and uses our infrastructure – and we appreciate them coming out here and help us keep going,” he said. “But, with the federal government and the provincial government, they consider that only the population that stays in the town for us is funded. So we have to think of ideas … do our part and try to attract people to these parts.

“We understand that we are a small community of resources and those resources are … important. This is what the town did. But moving forward, when these resources are gone and depleted, we would also like to have the town. So we have to think a bit outside the box and try to have continuity.”

He said the town believes the benefits of embracing geothermal energy and measures to support food sustainability will be attractive to potential residents, especially those who are environmentally conscious. He added that those two goals intertwine with other initiatives — such as receiving funding for high-speed internet — to help ensure that the town remains a viable community for many generations to come.

“If you want to move to a rural community that can offer you an alternative to urban living … move out here. We have cheap land … and you can work from home,” Kastiro said.

Climate scientists have warned of the potential for global warming to increase the length and intensity of wildfire seasons. Last year, Canada grappled with a record wildfire season that resulted in the burning of approximately 18.5 million hectares of Canadian land. Rainbow Lake was one of many communities affected by the fires, with residents forced to leave town for almost a month last spring due to the threat posed by wildfires.

When asked if the town’s fireworks evacuations last year played any part in the council’s approval of the Plant-Based Agreement, Kastiro said he believed the decision was motivated by the broader goal of looking at ways to strengthen the town’s climate action plan.

“The fire is something we’ve been planning (for),” he said, before explaining a number of fire mitigation efforts the town has undertaken over the past few years. “It was going to happen. … (it was) more time.”

Krajnc said that while he obviously couldn’t speak to how or whether the evacuation of the Rainbow Lake wildfires will affect policy or not, he believes such experiences could be a factor in some communities.

“When it hits home like that, I think people become more aware and realize it’s a climate crisis and want to change policy.”

Krajnc said she doesn’t want climate change to be “an issue of division, or ideology or identity.”

“We all want to save a home.”