This article explores the growing movement to protect quiet spaces amidst increasing noise pollution. It features an interview with Gordon Hempton, founder of Quiet Parks International, and highlights the organization's efforts to designate and preserve areas of exceptional quiet around the world.
I've spent the past week in one of the least quiet places on Earth: a windowless room in a hospital's intensive care unit. Among many noises, I've been listening to droning machines, incessant beeping when an IV bag runs dry and a “ding” from a monitor when my dad’s heart beats out of rhythm. Loyal Wilders may have noticed they didn’t get an email at 11 a.m. last Thursday.
That's because last week my dad suffered the type of heart attack that one in three people die from and had open-heart surgery. Hence my new perch in a hospital. Coincidentally, last week's newsletter was supposed to be about the quietest places in nature around Southern California. After one of the most stressful weeks of my life, I am longing for that kind of peace. And given the stress we've recently faced with deadly wildfires and political upheaval, I'm guessing you'd like some quiet, too. But, that can be hard to find in L.A. I really love this city, but 'quiet' is not one of the first words I'd use to describe it. We have tremendous noise pollution from our highways, freeways, ports and airports (and entirely too much honking). That's one reason I slip away to nature as often as possible. But even our natural areas are under threat of noise pollution. I recently spoke with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, who co-founded Quiet Parks International in 2018, after his favorite quiet place grew really, really loud. Hempton was part of an effort to protect an area of Hoh Rain Forest at Olympic National Park that was believed to possibly be the quietest place in the United States. He advocated for the area to become the world's first quiet park, but the idea never garnered enough political will from federal agencies to make it so. A few years later, the U.S. Navy operating out of Whidbey Island designated the Olympic peninsula, including where Hoh Rain Forest is, as an “electronic warfare exercise range.' This meant aircraft, including the aptly named Boeing EA-18G Growler, would start regularly flying over the area. Hempton felt he'd failed. So, he paid what he calls 'the quiet' a visit in the area he'd dubbed 'one square inch of silence' in Hoh Rain Forest in 2018 and asked it for help. 'The quiet laughed at me,' Hempton said. It was there he realized he'd been focused too narrowly on one place and needed to broaden the scope of his mission. Within a year, Quiet Parks International had formed and designated its first quiet park in the northeast corner of Ecuador. (You can now take trips there, which provides money to the Cofan nation to continue to protect their Indigenous homeland). The organization has five types of awards: wilderness quiet park, urban quiet park, quiet trails, quiet conservation area and quiet marine park. It has also created a process that anyone can follow to nominate a place they'd like to be considered. You might be wondering: How do Hempton and his colleagues measure 'quiet'? For one, they're not looking for absolute silence. Nature can be loud. Think of how rowdy our feral parrots or migrating geese can be. Rather, the Quiet Parks audio team is looking for places without human-caused noise pollution. Specifically, when assessing a place that's been nominated to be a quiet wilderness park, they are discerning whether it has a 'noise-free interval,' one single occurrence of a 15-minute period of which no human-caused noise pollution occurs. They also look during a specific time, from two hours before sunrise until one hour after sunrise. 'That is the magic window, that three-hour period, that in most places in the world sound propagates the farthest,' Hempton said. 'That's your most likely time that you will hear noise pollution.' When assessing an urban quiet park, where it wouldn't be reasonable to expect to find 15 minutes without noise pollution, the group instead tries to determine whether nature 'clearly dominates,' Hempton said. “What does that mean? It means if you rub your fingers on a leaf in front of you, you will hear its sound, and if you pick a different leaf from a different plant with a different texture, you will hear a different sound,' he said. 'When a song bird sings, and if you are listening close enough, you will be able to hear its voice.' Nature lovers have already started nominating places in California for various 'quiet' distinctions. Last August, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was designated as a quiet conservation area, becoming the only place in California to have received an award from Quiet Parks International. Sadly, Anza-Borrego was already too polluted with human-made noise to earn the more prestigious 'wilderness quiet park' distinction, but leaders of the Anza-Borrego Foundation say they will continue to work to preserve this desert beauty's tranquil soundscape. (I'm rooting for you guys!) There are 13 more natural places in Southern California that have been nominated to be designated by the group with a quiet award.
Noise Pollution Quiet Parks Gordon Hempton Acoustic Ecology Conservation Nature Sounds
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