Listening ahead to 2009

One Square Inch of Silence has continued to expand and attract wide spread  public support.  What began less than four years ago on Earth Day 2005 by a single person, has now touched the lives of millions, thanks to newspaper, magazine, and television coverage. Media outlets as far away as Italy, Germany, and France have spread the news of One Square Inch and its pioneering role in preserving endangered natural silence.

It is my hope that Olympic National Park will indeed be recognized as the “Listener’s Yosemite”, a place of profound aural solitude.  In 2008, Olympic Park received a new park superintendent, Karen Gustin, and a new General Management Plan that will guide the park’s development for more than a decade. However, its soundscape and the park’s extraordinary natural quiet are scarcely recognized and no natural quiet or soundscape management plans exist. There’s not even a sound level meter on hand; not one dollar in its budget slated to protect this valuable natural resource.  It will be up to public outcry to protect this last great quiet place.

One Square Inch of Silence now has a Board of Directors and is in the process of filing for 501-C3 non-profit, tax-exempt status.  It is the subject of an upcoming book, also called One Square Inch of Silence, due out in March 2009 from Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.  In it, you can visit One Square Inch through text, images, and audio CD and also experience the extraordinary wonder that is the Hoh Rain Forest.  You’ll then travel with me across America on an historic sound safari, as I listen to the land and Americans I meet, in search of vanishing silence and the impact of ever spreading man-made noise.  Finally, my co-author John Grossmann and I meet with government officials in Washington, D.C. to press for a One Square Inch of Silence-spearheaded campaign to preserve natural quiet. In 2009, we hope that Washington Senator Maria Cantwell will introduce legislation into the 111th session of Congress to designate a 20-mile radius no flight zone over One Square Inch, helping to federally sanction the world’s first quiet sanctuary.

Meanwhile, the FAA seems to be routing more and more flights directly over Olympic National Park.  On December 10, 2008, jet noise broke the natural quiet and then continued for more   than 30 minutes—a disappointing “record” in my years of monitoring and also a reminder that unless action is taken soon we will lose this treasure forever.

Please speak out for silence by supporting the One Square Inch Foundation.