A candlelight vigil in Ottawa's Beaver Pond forest on Jan. 1 marked the start of the United Nations International Year of the Forest -- and the last time people may be able to gather in its lush greenery before it's clear-cut.
Cutting down trees to make way for residential subdivisions is nothing new in Canadian cities. Private developers clear land to build homes, sometimes over residents' objections. Most cities have processes by which citizens can voice their concerns, but these often find in favour of landowners despite local, provincial, national and international statements made about protecting the natural environment.
In the case of the Beaver Pond forest, located just 20 minutes west of Parliament Hill, cutting down trees seems at odds with the UN theme of "Celebrating Forests for People." Residents use this forest for walking, mountain biking and cross-country skiing. It's an accessible part of the South March Highlands, a 1,100 hectare wilderness area.
The forest is ecologically significant. The South March Highlands contain Ottawa's only old-growth forest and is home to 10 distinct habitats. At least 679 species live there, including 440 native plant species, 164 types of birds, and 75 mammal, fish, amphibian and reptile species. At least 20 species, including American ginseng, butternut tree, Blanding's turtle and western chorus frog, are on federal or provincial lists of species at risk. But Ontario's 2007 Endangered Species Act won't protect the habitats of endangered until 2013, and developers can apply for permission to remove individuals of endangered species like butternut trees. Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources has classified the South March Highlands as a candidate Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI) for its life sciences value and wetlands, but this hasn't stopped development in parts of the Highlands.
A senior elder in the Algonquin First Nations, William Commanda, called the South March Highlands an "ancient and sacred site for the Indigenous people of the Ottawa River Watershed." Archaeologists have found artefacts estimated to be 10,000 years old -- twice the age of the pyramids in Egypt -- as well as ancient stone circles, including one in the Beaver Pond forest.
The City of Ottawa and the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture have ignored these discoveries, citing their acceptance of a 2004 developer-commissioned study that reported no archaeologically significant finds. The federal government has remained silent, and no one is looking at what is still undiscovered but will be lost once the land is bulldozed and blasted.
No one disputes the South March Highlands' ecological, cultural and recreational value. But the city is building an extension to the nearby Terry Fox Drive highway through the Highlands, and private developers are building subdivisions. One of the developers, KNL Developments -- a partnership of builders Urbandale and Richcraft -- owns much of the Beaver Pond forest, which it purchased in 2002, and it plans to clear the trees in the second week of January.
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A group of residents and supporters formed the Coalition to Protect the South March Highlands. Paul Renaud, a coalition spokesperson, says that the South March Highlands situation "is emblematic of the struggle for biodiversity in Canada." He states, "This is a national issue. We're talking about an area for which there is a land claim, from an aboriginal perspective; it's also a statement about biodiversity... that is literally in the backyard of Parliament."
The coalition has tried to get municipal, provincial and federal authorities to take responsibility for that biodiversity and heritage. In July 2010, it prompted a city council motion to halt tree cutting temporarily in the Beaver Pond forest. Last year, it launched a judicial review and then appeal of the Terry Fox Drive extension.
By late 2010, it looked like the City of Ottawa might actually save the Beaver Pond forest. City Council had voted to try to obtain 29 hectares from KNL through a land swap and purchase. But Ottawa's new Council, elected in the fall, voted in December to protect only 2.4 hectares. The City and KNL couldn't agree on the lands' value, and according to the local councillor, Marianne Wilkinson, most of her colleagues were unwilling to incur costs. In an interview, a KNL spokesperson, Mary Jarvis, Urbandale's director of planning, said "we couldn't make it work."
Community representatives contend that the City still needs to address inadequacies in previously taken environmental and archaeological assessments and storm water management plans before it allows tree removal. But so far that hasn't happened.
The situation reveals systemic problems. Development has been piecemeal, so individual development plans and assessments don't take into account the ecological integrity of the whole area. Under its official plan, the City has the responsibility to purchase and protect natural areas, but has no funds in its Environmental Lands Reserve. Still, Renaud says, the city budgets hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure and very little on protecting natural and culturally significant areas. He suggests that "green infrastructure is something the city ought to be formalising."
Renaud also suggests there`s a conflict of interest in the current system of "proponent-driven" environmental assessments in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada where developers fund the assessments. The coalition has also challenged the environmental screening procedures for the Terry Fox Drive, which was planned for 2013 but fast-tracked to 2010 to access federal infrastructure funding.
The coalition is exploring the possibility of having the South March Highlands incorporated into the federal Greenbelt. The National Capital Commission has said that at least one of the three scenarios it will present in early 2011 through its Greenbelt Master Plan review will include the Highlands. A final decision, though, may come too late for the Beaver Pond forest.
In the absence of government action, people are taking matters into their own hands. The coalition has prepared a stewardship plan to maintain the Beaver Pond forest as a natural and ecotourism site, drawing on community expertise and various funding sources. It has also offered to work with the developer to preserve the land and to establish a charitable land trust to which land could be donated.
Similar approaches are being tried elsewhere in Canada. For example, Mary Lake is a tract of Dry Coastal Douglas Fir Ecosystem on Vancouver Island near Victoria. Mary Lake is home to hundreds of species, some rare or endangered. The community has created the Mary Lake Conservancy to raise funds to purchase the land from a private owner. The conservancy holds an option to purchase the property by Feb. 1, 2011.
The Mary Lake Conservancy has established a website where people can donate $10 to symbolically "purchase" a square metre of land. They're using social media to spread the word to potential donors. The conservancy adds that asking for a small amount allows "nearly everyone" to participate.
If communities organise and governments and private owners respond, there's hope that for groups trying to protect Canada's biodiversity and heritage, there will be light at the end of the tunnel. For the Beaver Pond forest, that light may be extinguished unless action is taken quickly.
Denise Deby is an Ottawa-based writer with a focus on social, environmental and international issues. She has worked in international development and is
active in social, environmental and community matters locally and globally.
At some point, anti-sprawl activists have to face the reality that the single driver of urban sprawl is Canada's population growth, 71% of which comes from immigration. Annually, about half a million people settle in Canada--250,000 permanent immigrants and roughly the same number of so-called 'temporary' ones. The Harper government has even continued this immigration volume through the last recession. There is no other purpose for such a large intake of people other than to keep the real estate-financial lobby (banks, Real Estate Investment Trusts, developers and construction companies) in enough warm bodies to keep the real estate bubble constantly inflated. And, contrary to the propaganda of some progressive activists, most new Canadians buy detatched, suburban homes. Entire suburban developments, such as Springdale, or Northeast Calgary, owe their existence to the massive increases in immigration during the Trudeau and Mulroney regimes. All the New Urbanist 'Smart Growth' planning won't halt the relentless conversion of agricultural and natural land into more housing development, or the infilling of inner-city greenspaces for the same. Nor will the need for more landfill space (most non-recyclable garbage is residential construction scrap) and dangerously escalating freshwater use be halted by so-called 'green' development. No ifs, ands, or buts: Canada's largely immigration-fuelled population growth is the problem.
This is a difficult reality for some progressives to admit, since they cling to the myth of 'poor' immigrants needing compassion. This is despite the fact that wealthy Immigrant Investors and Entrepreneurs make up a large part of the annual intake, with the ballance largely middle-class, suburban home-buying auto-drivers. And the supposed labour and actuarial reasons for mass immigration touted by business lobbyists are a myth, as the continued intake during the recession and the roughly 25% elderly, sickly, soon to be pensioned family reunification immigration attest to. Also, 'environmental' groups like the David Suzuki Foundation accept funding from banks, REITs, developers and other business donors, who have lobbied for increases in immigration to sustain profits, something which puts them in a conflict of interest position.
There really is no way around the fact that our current immigration volumes are the single, preventable driver of urban sprawl and a host of other issues. Politically-incorrect though this may be, it's the reality, and pretending to fight urban sprawl without addressing immigration is a pointless struggle.
fencedin,
I appreciate some of the points you make. I have long viewed political correctness as an obstacle to the exploration of options which are more true and useful, as environmentalists, to our real purpose.
However, I feel like your comment comes off as a little condescending, and in part misses with point of this article - which is specifically about the Beaver Pond Forest in a suburb of the city of Ottawa. I am extremely anti-sprawl. But while part of the larger issue of sprawl, this campaign is specifically not anti-development, but pro-conservation. Many people have been working hard to find a solution which would be fair for the developer, in light of the unique local and national bio-significance of the specific peice of land they want to clear cut. This land is scientifically and archaeologically important. The developers would not be facing the same kind of resistence if they chose to develop on another site.
You are addressing the larger, and undoubtedly crucial, issue of sprawl, but to me the beaver pond forest represents something more basic. With world population booming, sprawling cities are not just going to stop expanding anywhere. We can do better development - and I think the immigrants you talk about would be less inclined to buy detached suburban homes if there were good, viable alternatives, or if we didnt present the suburban lifestyle to newcomers as our society's ultimate marker of success. Better urban planning IS part of this solution. We shouldnt target the people who buy these homes more than the reasons they buy them.
Also, understanding the incredible strain that overpopulation puts on the natural environments of the developing world, I'm not sure it follows to condemn immigration. Canada has a lot of natural spaces worthy of protection - but as our communities expand the root cause is catastrauphic global overpopulation, not simply immigration. It is as those people move here and buy into OUR grossly consumptive ethos that the worst abuses of our devlopment are fueled.
What this old growth, deeply historical, extraoridnarily bountiful ecosystem exemplifies however, in the midst of inevitable development, is that we need to be able to agree on what kinds of spaces can never be tossed aside for fleeting corporate profits. And find a way to enforce the conservation of these spaces, even when they have the bad fortune to exist near an urban boundary.
Denise,
Thanks for writing this post and giving those not close to events a synopsis of how it's evolved on the political front. By inclination, I'm almost always on the side of businesses and those who develop and profit from growing communities. My research into the South March file exposed so many areas that brought questionable decisions and the pursuit of unstudied options, I had to part with my usual bias.
I'd be happy to reply individually to people who think this is a case of overzealous tree-huggers impeding normal housing growth. Anyone who's open-minded can contact me at heyglenns@hotmail.com - perhaps they could see this issue differently after connecting with people like you & I. Thanks again.
People aren't moving to Canada to live a low-impact lifestyle, use composting toilets and walk to work--they come here to buy real estate and enjoy a Western, auto-centred lifestyle. As I mentioned, very few immigrants are 'poor'; the bulk of people coming here are buying either middle-class housing, or high-end properties. And moving so many people from the warm 'South' (e.g., South Asia) to furnace-dependant Canada inevitably means a greater increase in fossil fuel use. And there are many areas under threat of land development: wilderness areas, agricultural land, even cemeteries. Chase developers out of one area, and they'll find another. Really, severely reducing our immigration levels is the single greatest thing that could be done to halt urban sprawl and local resource use.
The problem is that the debate has been framed in a manner that leads to accusations of 'racism' over any criticism of Canada's half million annual immigration intake. Rabble/Babble is as guilty of this as the mainstream media. And this is a rather odd position, since our completely unsustainable immigration intake 'targets' were set during the Mulroney administration, after intense business lobbying, and enjoy the full support of the Harper regime. The real estate-financial lobby was clever enough to sell mass immigration as a 'diversity' issue, insulating it from any criticism.
Government political doesn't give a sh@t about trees