May 1959 — VOL. 40, No. 4 —
Conserving and Using
Our Open Spaces
Download
PDF version
Everyone has a life interest in
conservation. For some, the stake is financial: farmers, commercial
fishermen and trappers depend upon conservation of their resources
for their livelihood. For others, the reward is health and
recreation. Both sorts of people are concerned about preservation
of our open spaces, our parks, our woodlands, our mountains
and our streams.
Preservation of these is preservation of the basic resources
of the earth which men and animals must have in order to live.
Our physical environment governs our lives to an extent that
demands thinking about.
It is time to think more earnestly than we have in the past.
The tendency of our machine civilization is to wipe out every
trace of what once was primitive wilderness. Joseph Wood Krutch,
well known writer about nature, says in his book The Great
Chain of Life: "If the earth is still livable and in many
places still beautiful, that is chiefly because man's power
to lay it waste has been limited. Up until now nature has
been too large, too abundant and too resistant to be conquered."
And there is more truth than poetry in the remark by Havelock
Ellis: "The sun, moon and stars would have disappeared long
ago if they had happened to be within reach of predatory human
hands."
Though the history of exploiting natural resources on this
Western Hemisphere has been relatively short, it contains
many chapters of reckless waste and appalling destruction.
Entire species of animals have been exterminated, or reduced
to so small remnants that their survival is doubtful. Forests
have been despoiled by uncontrolled cutting and by fire. Grasslands
have been made desolate by over—grazing. Topsoil has
been washed away.
Even in Audubon's time, in 1850, few birds or mammals were
in danger of extinction and our land was still fertile. Then
came what has been called the "terrible sixty years". Land
was torn up by the plough without regard for its stability
under cropping. Buffalo were exploited for their hides and
tongues. Eggs of wild birds became objects of commerce, and
bright—plumed birds were shot for the millinery trade.
Fish were destroyed by removal of shade trees and the pollution
of their waters by silt and refuse.
During recent years there has been a slight stirring toward
good sense, but we are still full of inner contradictions.
We set aside wild areas and then "improve" them out of all
wildness. We spend in a profligate way to advance our comfort
and convenience far more than people in other countries could
ever afford, but we destroy in the process the very basis
of comfort and life.
Point of no return
The wonders of the natural world, once destroyed, can never
be replaced. It is our job as conservation—minded people
looking to the future to maintain some sort of balance between
nature and the appurtenances of our industrial age.
Conservation is the planned management and wise use of nature's
resources. It aims, in co—operation with science and
nature, to increase their quality, quantity and availability
through the years. Conservation is not merely a subject for
a school curriculum or for attention of game wardens and departments
of the government: it is a way of life for all people.
Of course, the wise use of our limited resources means restraint
of the few persons who through ignorance, folly, or greed
try to satisfy their desires at the expense of all the others.
The protection of the basis of physical life should not require
enforcement, but when enforcement is necessary we should have
no compunction about applying it.
Ontario found this out at the turn of the century. As W.
J. K. Harkness termed it in an article in the Canadian
Geographical Journal, "some nick—of—time legislation"
had been passed in 1821 to protect fish and wildlife, but
it was not until 1890 that a Royal Corn mission was appointed
to make a comprehensive survey.
Atlantic salmon once abounded in Lake Ontario and its rivers,
the Don, the Humber and the Credit after 1897 the salmon was
not seen. The passenger pigeons, once counted in the millions,
and the wild turkeys, were already on their way out, and could
not recover even under complete protection. The last passenger
pigeon died in 1914.
It is to our credit that during the past thirty year we
have become increasingly aware of the threat to our welfare.
Governments, industry and people have gained knowledge about
the need for conservation Associations on all levels - county,
community, province and dominion - are dedicated to the protection
and improvement of forest and soil; of water, animals birds
and fish; of natural areas ranging in extent from watersheds
to roadside parks.
The least we can do is to become informed about the problems
and needs. We may go further by associating ourselves with
organizations dedicated to one or other of the conservation
efforts.
We need open spaces
What humans need for survival in a world containing powerful
enemies, physical and mental, cannot be summed up in the food,
shelter and clothing formula. They need to be linked together
in society and to b able to break apart as individuals.
Open spaces provide fresh air and health, but the also provide
the restful inspiration that nature give to most of us. When
we are in her domain nature ha a way of soothing our fretfulness
and easing our worries
Hours in the woods or parks may write no exciting saga.
They may be eventless. There is nothing to write home about
except how the sunlight is green filtered and cool with the
breath of falling water how the trail follows the stream up
and up, over fallen logs, with the summons of the hidden waterfall
luring you on. Or you may tell how, when you were thirsty
you drank from cupped hands at a spring border by trillium;
and about the black bear that cam begging as you ate your
lunch at the broad rock table near the falls, and the chipmunks
that gambolled in the pine needles at your feet. And yet such
a letter home conveys the sense of a chain of life continuous
and rich with the ages.
If we confine ourselves to our buildings - our homes, theatres,
shops and offices - we are losing more than we know. The late
Professor E. J. Urwich head of the Department of Political
Economy at the University of Toronto for ten years, wrote
a book which he called The Values of Life. He said
in it: "We are losing the capacity for wonder, the power to
see and feel the miracles of life and beauty around us, without
which our souls are half—empty and real fulness of life
is denied us."
Our oldest resource
Canada's oldest natural resource is her wilderness. Some
of it is being preserved; much more should be set aside before
it becomes over—run.
Visitors to older countries notice that they have a greater
respect for natural features than we have hitherto shown.
Perhaps it is because wilderness places abroad are wisely
protected by folk tales and beliefs. In Ireland, for example,
people do not meddle with the "fairy rings" or "lone trees"
that dot the landscape any more than they would break down
the bounds of a fairy fort. Consequently, there is a haven
on every good man's land for small wild creatures and gay
wild flowers.
Perhaps it is not modern to believe in fairies and leprechauns,
but if they and the little light elves that inhabit the grassy
verges of fields and the marshy banks of streams persuade
us by promise or threat to preserve their homes they are doing
us and our children's children a good turn.
On a larger scale, we need the spirit of conservation in
our forests and parks. This may mean that we cannot gratify
all demands for their use. Many of the things we go to the
open spaces to enjoy are endangered because the facilities
we demand for our comfort are crowding out the scenery.
In too many instances a big job of landscape destruction
is undertaken to make the place more accessible, or to change
its character. Take the pond that Thoreau made famous through
his book Walden, or Life in the Woods. The four
families which once owned the surrounding property gave it
to Massachusetts to preserve for posterity. Today, instead
of the peaceful pool about which Thoreau wrote, there is a
bathing beach, and across the road there are trailer camps
and hot dog stands. It takes an effort of the imagination
to picture the tranquil solitude of Walden.
Even in national parks, the pressures are great for roads
and tourist developments. To the south of us, Yellowstone
Park is an example. The original stipulation that the area
should be kept in its "natural condition" has not prevented
the construction of more and more roads, the building of more
lodges, the provision of more parking space. Says a writer
in Vital Issues: "There are places in Yellowstone that
look as if they were trying to compete with an amusement park.
By contrast, Canada Tear Book says of Algonquin Park,
one of Ontario's provincial parks: "the present administrative
policy is to encourage the establishment of commercial recreation
facilities on the park fringes and to return the park itself
to its natural condition."
Choosing a vacation spot
The more complicated our lives become, and the more elaborate
the machinery of living is made, the more necessary it is
to create the temporary retreat from reality which we call
play. Recreation is a major need for old as well as young.
As the German philosopher Nietzsche wrote: "In every man there
is a child who wants to play."
Part of the standard of living of North America is the wilds
of Canada. Gregory Clark went so far as to say in his booklet
With Rod and Reel In Canada: "Canada is fortunate in
having considerable areas unfit for anything forever save
recreation."
There is no ready—made vacation pattern into which
people of all sizes and shapes must fit. Some may like the
thrill of digging in the ages—old badlands of the Red
Deer River Valley, where dinosaurs disported themselves in
the shallow sea of the Mesozoic Age. Others prefer the Annapolis
Valley, where Champlain raised his habitation and founded
the Order of the Good Time only 350 years ago.
Snowy slopes, mineral springs, trout—filled streams,
woods and hills peopled with game animals, mountain trails,
sun—swept beaches: all these are to be found in Canada.
There is little difference, really, between the recreation
needs of the businessman who gets away from his office to
fish a Quebec stream and the housewife who, in sentimental
mood, sits in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria when the moon is
on the wane and sees a ghostly company of Druids walking in
solemn procession beneath the giant oaks. Both accumulate
cherished memories of pleasant surroundings, the mental tonic
of peaceful hours. For the time being they have escaped into
another room of life.
Learning about nature
Out of a vacation spent in one of Canada's parks or open
spaces one may carry away, besides pleasant memories, an intellectual
increment. He may have absorbed some knowledge of the ways
of squirrels or men.
One does not need to study, but merely to take in. Even
the greatest biologists stammer in the presence of nature.
They do not know all the properties of living matter nor all
of its astonishing possibilities. To lesser people it is enough
to see the beauty in the simplicity of natural things; to
note how the myriad colours of moss on a rock show to their
best advantage after a rainfall; to detect the grace of movement
in a bounding deer; to envy, perhaps, the charming poise of
a listening bird.
Some knowledge of the natural world should be part of every
child's education: not the knowledge that is gained from textbooks
or through class—room microscopes or by dissection of
dead beasts, but knowledge of acquaintance. By giving children
the opportunity to absorb nature we acquaint them with the
sense that life exists even in the lowliest form of animal
and the smallest sort of plant.
Living in the open spaces will acquaint us, and our children,
with the biological problems of human survival in a world
where Nature will always have the last word. It will encourage
us to overcome unwarranted fears, because we fear mostly what
we do not know. It will give us the broad view that develops
mental fitness and emotional stability.
What sort of open spaces?
The open spaces we need range from tracts that are thousands
of square miles in area to little roadside picnic places with
room for a couple of tables. The desirable feature is to have
enough of them, preserved from invasion by predators of every
sort, and located so that some of them are within reach of
every Canadian.
Canada's national parks are areas of natural beauty and
special interest that have been, in the words of a government
handbook: "dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit,
education and enjoyment." They are to be conserved "unimpaired
for the enjoyment of future generations."
It was the discovery of mineral hot springs on Sulphur Mountain,
near Banff, that led to the establishment of Canada's first
national park. From this small area of ten square miles, set
apart in 1885, the parks system has been extended until it
embraces thirty separate areas totalling more than 29,000
squares miles. The latest addition is a wilderness area of
156 square miles on Bonavista Bay in Newfoundland, called
Terra Nova Park.
Every park has its special features, from fishing to romance.
Park hatcheries provided 756,000 grayling and 14,000 pounds
of trout for park waters in the most recent year reported.
For the romantic interest we may go to Prince Edward Island,
where Green Gables, the farm house immortalized by Lucy Maud
Montgomery in Anne of Green Gables is preserved amid
beautiful surroundings: the Lake of Shining Waters, the Haunted
Wood and Lovers' Lane.
Provincial parks, set aside and maintained by the provincial
governments, total 59,516 square miles, and provincial forest
reserves add up to 210,240 square miles. One of the best known
is Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, only 175 miles from
Toronto. In its 2,740 square miles there are countless wild
birds and animals of many species living undisturbed by man,
and anglers haunt its well—stocked lakes and streams.
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists has operated a summer
camp at Algonquin for more than twenty years, giving guidance
to persons interested in studying, photographing or just enjoying
the life that abounds in open spaces and woodland.
Not everyone has an automobile or the time and money required
to reach these national and provincial parks, so it is necessary
to have municipal parks.
Much of the difference between towns in their general goodness
of life for good people depends upon their energetic provision
of open spaces.
Absurd it may be, but every new generation seems to come
face to face with the problem of open spaces and parks as
if it were something new; but we know of town planning with
an eye to beauty and space in the Old World from very early
times. Today, many communities are growing up without direction,
one "development" jostling another without regard for anything
beyond using the land for houses and apartments.
What, specifically, should be sought? Ideally, every family
should have access to a park big enough for all day excursions;
a wooded area; a protected place where wild flowers grow;
a clear stream and a pool. These are to be our contact with
nature, and are quite apart from school and other athletic
grounds, tot lots and swimming places.
Some device of law should be found whereby these areas shall
be kept for the people for all time. As things are now, by—laws
of a few years ago can be removed from the books to allow
use of park land for electric substations, filteration plants,
parking lots or other accessories of our mechanization. Our
plans need to be realistic and practical, yet we must make
them with vision, knowledge and imagination if we are not
to barter future health and happiness for an easy solution
of some present problem.
As an example of planning of this sort, consider the programme
of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Hamilton, Ontario. It includes
science, recreation and education. It has a dozen areas, each
with its own planned purpose: a picnic place, an autumn garden,
a spring garden, a children's garden, a nature trail and wild—flower
sanctuary, a sunken garden, a marsh waterfowl sanctuary, an
arboretum, and a rock garden.
Why bother?
Why should we go to the expense and trouble of preserving
open spaces and providing parks? Because life depends upon
it.
The scampering of a squirrel, the ploughing of a worm, the
flight of a bird, the honey—gathering of a bee—
all these play their part in regulating the natural machinery
of fertility and growth.
The protection of trees on our watersheds is essential to
the collection, storage and distribution of water, without
which we could not live.
We admire the wild flower for its beauty, painted by myriad
artists, each with his own special skill, but the plant has
a usefulness far more substantial than its aesthetic appeal.
"When," said C. F. Kettering, Vice—President of General
Motors, "a man comes to me and says, 'All of the major problems
of science have been solved' - I like to ask him the simple
question, 'Why is grass green?' "
The green leaf is the fundamental link between life on earth
and the energy of the sun. By means of their green stuff -
chlorophyll - plants are able to manufacture their own food
from raw materials they gather from the air and soil. Animals
lack this ability and could not exist without the food—producing
plants.
Everything that has life, from the bird song that wakes
us at dawn to the philosophy that stirs our minds as we linger
by moonlight on a beach or a hilltop, is built of the product
of green plants.
How close is the affinity between human beings and the trees,
grass, shrubs, and flowers we wish to preserve in our open
spaces? It is closer than most people realize. We may, as
Donald Culross Peattie put it in his book Flowering Earth,
lay our hand upon the smooth flank of a beech and say: "We
be of one blood, brother, thou and I." Because the one significant
difference in the two structural formulas is this: the hub
of every haemoglobin molecule in man is one atom of iron,
while in chlorophyll, the green stuff of the plant leaves,
it is one atom of magnesium.
In earth's long history one species after another of animal
and plant has disappeared, and one culture after another has
passed to oblivion, because of its inability to adjust to
environmental change.
Today it is necessary for mankind to regulate his use of
resources and to manage earth's remaining capital more creatively
if he is to survive.
We can adapt ourselves understandingly if we go into our
open places, to learn by personal experience in field and
forest, on mountains and beside the streams, that mankind
is dependent upon the living resources of the earth and must
do his part to conserve them.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
[ Return to RBC Letter
home page ]
|
