cktimes.ca Archives for Ecowrappin'
Ecowrappin'
FROM ACTION TO REACTION
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
As the Festive Season (dare I say Christmas!) approaches once again, I get to reflect on the passing of another year, each one passing more quickly than the last. One of the things that struck me during a moment of passive thought was how the Christmas period has evolved from anticipated and automatic actions in light of long-established traditions, to agonizing over how such action might now offend some ėnewî Canadian. Only a very few decades ago Christmas in Canada was practiced on the Christian principles of fellowship, tolerance and reason---enjoying with family, friends and neighbours the true spirit of the Christmas season and the traditions that came with it; all merged from and by peoples from various parts of the northern hemisphere into the great county we knew as Canada. Church pageants and school concerts were planned and presented all across the country. Santa Claus parades occurred in even the smallest towns and villages and thankfully these continue to occur to this day to the delight of young and old alike. The birth of Jesus, and all manner of display and pageantry in magi celebration graced front lawns, town squares and church parking lots. All of this was expected without any thoughts of offence or malice. It was, as mentioned earlier, "automatic".But now we live in a country in which something called "multiculturalism" has been manifested and promoted since the Trudeau era. As a not overly well-concealed means of buying votes from an urban electorate, multiculturalism has served to encourage a great influx of peoples from all parts of the world, many who have contributed greatly to this nation. It has also given some a new found freedom to speak out, sometimes act out, against the established culture and traditions of their new home. These malcontents want to re-establish the culture and traditions they left behind, and those that built the great country these "new Canadians" now call home can be damned. So now those automatic plans and actions that once were part of every Christmas season are now tempered with reactions to how they might be perceived or potentially offend.
A parallel can be seen in the conservation movement. Again, a very few decades ago, conservation was very much action-oriented. Habitat and wildlife initiatives were very much hands-on affairs, oriented specifically to on-the-ground action towards species/wildlife population welfare. The majority of allocated resources, whether human of financial, where expended directly in the field in tangible, visible, results-oriented fashions. The basic principals of conservation, related values, and the benefits to soil, water and wildlife resources were understood. These had come from the observations and reasonable logic of many conservation pioneers, notably the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold and Jack Miner. There was no need for extensive research and science. If you left it, they would stay; if you built it, they would come.
Conservation in action---hands on, on-the-ground effort---is virtually a thing of the past. Environment and Resource Ministries and Conservation Authorities have been mandated into policing and regulatory roles. They now manage people, not wildlife and wild places---reaction as opposed to action. Wild places, especially crown lands, have been restricted as to traditional access and uses, hence ėmanagementî is now in the hands of urban politicos rather than rural know how. Other resource and environment agencies that take---through conservation licences, permits and taxes---now seem to easily ėloseî these funds on an annual basis with nothing of measurable significance to show in terms of habitat acreage or soil, water or wildlife benefits.
Another form of conservation in action, one that transforms from the intangible to the tangible, is when landowners can be encouraged to take a leadership role with some of their own resources when given technical direction and financial assistance from individuals, groups or organizations experienced in conservation action. This is commonly known as extension. Extension is a great action from reaction that can lead to even more action tool, but only when applied directly to the rural landscape in a fashion that will meet landowner needs. During my latter years with Ducks Unlimited Canada I participated in ėtown hallî meetings with local landowners. In addition, I conducted one-on-one interviews with farming community leaders/landowners. In every session these rural inhabitants made it clear that if they were to participate in a conservation initiative they wanted on-site involvement and direction from resource agency personnel. As one potential client put it, ėwe want someone to hold our hand through the entire process.î The second, equally if not more important, aspect of extension was meaningful financial assistance. If you were not prepared to come to the farm with real dollars that would be applied directly to habitat project implementation ---well, forget it. LANDOWNER NEEDS, NOT HOW DELIVERY OF THE EXTENSION PROGRAM BEST SUITED THE STRUCTURE, CONVENIENCE AND RESOUCES OF THE DELIVERY AGENT, WAS THE LOUD AND CLEAR MESSAGE! Extension is not an arms length, office-bound thing. It is an active, physical, guiding presence at the field level. It really is the interplay of reaction and action. I think the county-based Stewardship Councils have this figured out and seem to practice it with some logical diligence.
Much in vogue these days in the realm of conservation is scientific research. But how much of this do you really need? How often do you need to scientifically quantify something in order to possibly find or explain a measure of value or benefit? How frequently do the same or similar studies, in different locales but involving similar habitats or landscapes, and often the same species, need to be replicated? How much human expertise and hard-found money is being spent on all of this and to what tangible value or benefit? And how do these expenditures, if indeed the results can be measured, compare to the expenditure of similar levels of expertise and money directly on the actual places and things that are supposed to benefit? I think I know. But whether I know or not, I like to ask the questions.
I was born on the Bruce Peninsula on July 20, 1951 and raised on a farm just south of the village of Lionís Head, which is located about halfway up the peninsula on the Georgian Bay shoreline. I graduated from Georgian College of Applied Arts and Technology in Barrie in 1973 as a Resources Engineering Technologist. I was hired by Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) in April of 1975 as the first DUC employee in Ontario. Throughout almost 29 years I was involved with the implementation of more than 500 wetland projects and project complexes in southwestern and south central Ontario. Some of these habitat projects included important waterfowl and migratory bird habitat along the eastern shoreline of Lake St. Clair. Just three weeks short of completing 29 years with DUC, I accepted an early retirement opportunity effective March 31, 2004.
