Video: Music in Nature: A Journey towards Sustainability @ Westben. Made in partnership with Kawarthas Northumberland and their travel sustainably initiative.

Current Initiatives

Biodiverse habitat cultivation

• 2 native plant gardens (part of the Selfish Giant’s musical project, planted with the Westben choirs)

• Hula Hoop Gardens (info on what we planted coming soon)

• Miyawaki forest, planted 211 trees and shrubs (info on what we planted coming soon)

• 45 trees planted around the grounds

• 36 birdhouses built and installed by volunteers

• Partnership with farmer to cut select fields in mid-July to protect grassland bird nesting

• Monitoring at-risk birds (e.g. Eastern Meadowlarks, Bobolinks, and more)

• Monitor for invasive species

• The Westben pond is home to many amphibians, and the birds love it there, too!

Organizational

• Increased our sustainability score from Greenstep from 54% in 2021 to 63% in 2022 to 76% in 2024 (this is a free resource for any organization to use)

• Sustainability & Environmental Care Action plan created (short, medium, and long-term goals)

• An ongoing sustainability team (join us!)

• Ongoing staff learning through internal meetings, webinars, meetings with partners, etc.

• Onsite suggestion box for community feedback (or email ben@westben.ca for your sustainability ideas/connections)

• Integrating holistic conceptions of sustainability into core strategy and operations (ongoing)

• Implementing detailed suggestions from 2 property reports from the Nature Conservancy of Canada (Farms at Work report and Property Report)

• Accessibility venue guide (created in partnership with Xenia Concerts)

• In 2022, Westben undertook an extensive in-depth EDIA (equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility) organizational review with CPAMO (Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario), refocusing the strategy, policies and enhancing partnerships

Westben Sustainability Map

Get involved

Join our Sustainability Team

If you’re interested in coming together in a fun, impactful, co-educational way around sustainability, we heartily invite you to join our sustainability team! Please submit your interest here, and we will get in touch with you.

There are two options to volunteer on the sustainability team.

1. Hands-in-the-dirt (we will keep you in touch about any on-the-grounds events)

2. Meet n’ dream (meet with us over Zoom to imagine and work together on the big picture)

Donate/Sponsor

• We have a growing wishlist of items that will help make Westben more sustainable. Please email ben@westben.ca if you’d like to know more and are interested in supporting our dream! Thank you.

Community Connections

Walking trails!

Luckily, the Mary West Nature Reserve, stewarded by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, is just across the road from Westben. There are a few gorgeous multi-seasonal loops to explore. Download a trail map here.

“Located in Trent Hills, the Mary West Nature Reserve contributes to the ecological integrity of the Trout Creek and Trent River watersheds by conserving and enhancing wetland and forest communities. The 38-hectare property is home to many species at risk, including butternut, wood thrush and snapping turtle. Donated to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) by the estate of Mary West in 1991, the property protects an intact natural woodland in perpetuity. The reserve provides carbon storage, flood mitigation and clean drinking water to the local community.

NCC is restoring old farm fields here into a “seed orchard” of dense native wildflower plantings and grassy meadows. This will result in the reserve becoming a source of native seed for local tallgrass prairie and oak savannah restoration projects across Northumberland County.” - Nature Conservancy of Canada Website

Please visit the Mary West Nature Reserve webpage for points of interest, species to look out for and important visitor information.

Other local organizations we are inspired by

Resources for Festivals

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (summary)

Native Land Digital (map of Indigenous lands, languages and treaties), find more about Westben’s land acknowledgement and resources here

Indigenous Climate Action (from their website: “Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is an Indigenous-led organization guided by a diverse group of Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors and land defenders from communities and regions across the country. We believe that Indigenous Peoples’ rights and knowledge systems are critical to developing solutions to the climate crisis and achieving climate justice.”

Donut Economics (this has been very influential for us!)

SCALE (a network of artists, cultural practitioners, and arts organizations committed to addressing the climate emergency and environmental injustice)

Artists and Climate Change (resource list of organizations “dedicated to exploring the intersection of arts & climate change.”)

Gabriela Lena Frank Academy Eco-citizenship model

Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology

Our evolving story of ‘eco-cultural regeneration’

Seeds seeds 🌱

A major consideration of creating the Westben Barn came from the idea of removing barriers from the musical experience. Imagine experiencing music with a literal open-door kind of feeling—a personal/intimate/connected-to-nature experience of music? From this, we continue to be fascinated with how music gathers people together in joy!

Respecting the house band 🎶

However, COVID-19, and various global environmental challenges challenged us to find ways to reconnect and reexamine our relationship with music and nature. Without the ability to put on live concerts, we had to really rethink our role of caring for the environment. While we have greatly admired our unique house band of birds, bees, frogs, and insects…, were we paying the house band their dues!? How might we listen to the places we live? Can we listen across generations to note how soundscapes change? What might we do to leave a wonderful world?

Sustainability team

In response, we formed a sustainability team. Slowly, we’ve come to identify short (1-2 years), medium (3-5 years), and long-term (10+ years) goals to try to realize our goals of becoming responsible stewards for the environment, contribute to our community’s sustainable and thriving future, and to explore how nature can become a more integrated and intentional part of the experiences.

What can the arts do?

For us, we believe the arts/culture can play a huge role in developing healthy, caring and vibrant relationships with our surroundings. The arts (in partnership with many ways of knowing/being) can help us to cultivate empathy, profound relational sensory experiences, local enactions of big dreams, powerful intergenerational learning, and community spirit.

Why share this?

We have a lot of work to do to become more attuned to place and people’s needs, but we hope this page opens up conversations, collaborations and inspiration. This has also become a hub to shout out and credit where some of this work is coming from. If you have any questions or comments or would like to partner, I (Ben Finley) would love to hear your respectful feedback (ben@westben.ca).

Visualizing our approach

Below is a co-created mindmap of our current eco-cultural regeneration approach, representing five deeply interwoven areas: Organizational, Biodiversity, Resource circularity, Community connections, and Artistic experiences.

Enjoy this campfire concert of former Alderville First Nation Chief Dave Mowatt with Clayton Yates, sharing music and stories of local Treaties in this area and Alderville First Nation history