Refugia, Refugios, for All Creatures

  

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, 

and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, 

though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, 

the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

Psalm 46:1-4 - King James Version 

A dozen years ago I was so spiritually and psychologically exhausted after nearly 30 years of pastoral ministry that I needed some time away. I spent a couple of months on a remote farm at the end of a dirt road in the wilds north of Kingston. Ruth continued to work but would come up for three days every weekend. We both loved the solitude and remember this time fondly. We remain friends with the owners from whom we rented the old farmhouse who still live just down the road. 

Our son Isaac had walked the Camino pilgrimage route in France and Spain several years earlier and he told us about the refugios, the pilgrimage hostels in which he stayed with others making the 800-kilometre spiritual trek. I decided that this dead-end farm was actually a new beginning, a safe place, my refugio, and I wrote about it. 

So, I was intrigued by a CBC piece back in July about the work scientists are engaged in to document more than 12,000 species worldwide that are experiencing range shift — everything from fish to bees to caribou to grasses to berries to trees.

One of them, Gretta Peci  is a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania and lead author on a recent study of range shift in the journal Science.  She says ""We're literally living through a redistribution of life on Earth, Even though this is my bread and butter that I work on, it really does blow my mind ... the extent of this phenomena." 

Ultimately, these species are seeking what scientists call climate change "refugia" — areas where they can survive at a time of environmental instability. 

What really caught my attention was the use of the term "refugia" to describe the geographical and climate areas where species and ecosystems can bide time while they adapt to change. Another way researchers describe this phenomena is "slow lanes" for survival, but refugia resonated with me. 

I'd never really considered that the refuge of Psalm 46 refers more broadly  to Creation, even though we usually assume this assurance is for humans. It's not just humans -- Groundlings -- who need places of refuge, and while refugia is used as a scientific term there is also a spiritual element to this, at least for me. All God's creatures are meant to have places of safety, not only in terms of protected areas such as parks and reserves, but as places where they can thrive as the climate crisis changes everything. 

Canada's boreal peatlands are one of the areas scientists are looking to preserve as the climate changes. (Submitted/ Michel Rapinski)