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Silence. Confinement served to quell noise in cities and teach us to appreciate the benefits of daily life below 55 decibels. In Lleida, without going any further, the acoustic pressure decreased up to eight times and the sound perception increased by 14%. In Barcelona, the noise levels were reduced more than 9 decibels, without the noise of the traffic or the incessant hammering of the works. The roar of the urban monster gave way to sudden stillness.
"People fear silence as they fear darkness," says Gordon Hempton, an "acoustic ecologist" by profession. "At bottom, it is a fear of the unknown, because in the cities we have become used to living among noises without being aware of how it affects our health . The experience of confinement has served to rediscover the value of silence. Many people have returned to listen to the birds singing, or the sound of their own footsteps walking down the street. "
Gordon Hempton went around the world, stopping at Doñana, in search of natural silence . Some time later, he traveled the United States from coast to coast, recording the succession of indigenous sounds. In the Olympic Mountains, a stone's throw from Seattle, he created the symbolic "Inch of Silence", something like an oasis of sanity in a crashing world. His latest project is called Quiet Parks International , with the goal of creating a global network of "parks of silence".
The journey started on Earth Day 2018 with the creation of the first quiet park in a natural area, the Zabalo river in Ecuador, in the middle of the Amazon and with the blessing of the Cofán indigenous community. The qualitative leap has now been made, on Earth Day 2020, with the recognition of the first urban "park of silence" in Yangmingshan, on the outskirts of Taipeh and with the support of the Government of Taiwan.
"The world is facing a pandemic and we need more than ever to listen to Mother Nature for our physical and mental health," said Laila Fan, head of the Taiwan Soundscapes Association. "With its lush forests, clear waters, and the natural sound of birds and insects on its trails, Yangmingshan is a paradise that can help cleanse our bodies, clear our minds, and reclaim our spirit."
Parks in Europe
In Europe, the lead is Sweden, with five parks in Stockholm awaiting certification of "silence". There lives Ulf Bohman, executive director of Quiet Parks International, who sums up the requirements in such a way: " In an urban park, complete natural silence is impossible, but there can be specific places where natural sounds are in the foreground and the sound of the city passes into the background, or points where one can feel total immersion in nature, with no human structures in sight. "
"Everyone should have access to places dedicated to outer silence and inner stillness ," says Bohman. "In some cities, that feeling has been impressive during confinement and can have a long-term impact. The need for silence is part of the great change that is taking place around the world to promote greener cities, with more bike lanes , more electric cars and other adjustments that have to serve to slow down our pace of life. "
'Quiet' movement
In the midst of a pandemic, the European Environment Agency (EEA) published a devastating report that concludes that 113 million people suffer from the effects of noise pollution on our continent. Spain is one of the noisiest countries and exceeds the European average, with 24.8% of the population exposed to the sound of road traffic. It is estimated that excess noise causes 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 cases of ischemic heart disease (narrowing of the arteries of the heart), in addition to alterations in the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, severe sleep disorders, episodes of anxiety and stress, and cognitive deficiencies in children.
"Far from fighting noise, our goal is to discover and promote the benefits of silence," says Gordon Hempton, the father of the initiative, who predicts the spread of the quiet movement in the world, following in the footsteps of slow movement . "Noise is indeed a plague in the modern world, but we cannot spend our energies describing what we do not want. It is simpler and more fun to save what we love."
Gordon Hempton aspires to initially create a network of 50 urban parks of silence. Cities like New York, London or Portland are on the radar of the acoustic ecologist, who would like to see some Spanish city picking up the baton. Doñana, meanwhile, is on the list of 262 potential sites among natural parks around the world "because of its" bioacoustic diversity, although land use changes would be necessary for it to achieve certification. "
Teach children
Beyond the parks, Hempton wants to extend the seal of "silence" to communities, neighborhoods, hotels, and even marine sanctuaries. In recent months, his efforts have also been transferred to the world of education, with the Quiet Youth program: "It is not so much about teaching children the value of silence, but about reclaiming the need for full sensory awareness."
Hempton himself, who until then was a plant pathologist, had an epiphany at the age of 27 that led him to change his profession: "I had been driving all night, I lay down in a cornfield to sleep and I was awakened by thunder in the middle of a powerful storm. At that moment I asked myself: "How could I take so long to learn to listen?"
Some time later, he almost lost his hearing and was almost totally silent: "My world was falling apart, I thought I was going crazy. I realized what it is to give up the world of sounds. Recovering my hearing gave a new meaning to my work". And from that experience a documentary was born, Vanishing Dawn , devoted to her favorite sound: "Nothing can be compared to the joy of birds at dawn, it is like an invitation to life. A place where you don't hear the birds singing in the morning it's a place with no future. "
Carlos de Hita, a lifetime recording "the sounds of nature", considers Hempton's initiative as "totally necessary". "I think that during the confinement, many people have discovered silence and liked it ," says De Hita, who offers to illustrate the immersion "in silence and tranquility" of recent months with the original recordings during his confinement in the Valsaín forest.
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