How Will I Teach My Children To Save The World When I Can’t Even Save My Own Back Yard?
Every day, my kids and I talk about the environment, about sharing our world with other people and creatures and about respecting our common areas. We recycle, pick up trash and every spring we plant a garden. In the summer, we listen and look for frogs, ducks and owls down along Watkiss Way, across from the Victoria General Hospital, where one of five CRD protected wetlands and a forest of 5000 trees stand.
Or, at least, we did.
Today, all we hear the chainsaws and my kids are upset over the falling trees. Never one to shelter them from reality, my heart breaks as I tell them a man named Vandekerkhove bought the land and he has the right to do what he wants with it. And there isn’t a thing Daddy can do about it.
One of the sad realities of parenting is having to introduce your children to a less than perfect world. You always hope for better, and indeed there is a great deal of beauty and courage.
I was hoping the Saanich Council would rise to the challenge and show some courage to preserve this small forest and wetland. Instead they’ve stalled every effort even though Victoria General, View Royal, the CRD were all on side to do something meaningful – to create a natural heritage. The Council never even bothered to meet with groups of people who were flying the flag of turning the forest into a park
Then Mr. Vandekerkhove bought the land about a year ago for 1.2 million. He wanted to put in a sewage treatment plant. Not my first choice, but it would have preserved the larger part of the forest. Saanich Council never bothered to come out to have a look.
Now Mr. Vandekerkhove has decided to cut down 5000 trees and turn the whole area into a hay field.
“What can I do?” he’s been quoted as saying. “I’m a farmer.”
Hay? Really? I’d give the man more credence if he was actually a farmer. He made his fortune with gas stations. Most of the people I talk to think he’s in a snit because he didn’t get his way with the sewage plant. He’s not even willing to talk about it.
One day soon, all around the world, busy chainsaws cutting swaths through forests will meet the outer perimeter of other busy chainsaw’s work. On that day, we’ll look around in collective shock and realize all the trees are gone.
And in my back yard? I’m no biologist, but even I can see the trees and the wetlands on Watkiss Way are largely within the same watershed. Tree roots hold soil in place. No trees mean plenty of erosion. Erosion means clogged wetlands. A clogged wetland means dead frogs, dead ducks and dead owls.
Kids, I’m so sorry Daddy failed you.
Mathieu Powell.
Writing Impacts.
http://www.writingimpacts.com/
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