The reason I am writing to you is to share with you parts of a letter I penned to help protect the land, air, and waters of the local community in which I reside and really, for all communities of Earth. I wrote this because I, like Aldo Leopold whose wise words I quote below, believe that land (and waters) are communities to which we all belong and when I say all, I refer to many, many more populations other than the human populations of our communities. I am referring to all living things and wish to have these other inhabitants of communities acknowledged and protected as such.
To Whom it May Concern,
I request that you take serious pause, and consider the vital importance of respecting the land, air and waters, and flora and fauna for their tremendous life-giving value, for their role in supporting biodiversity, mitigating climate change, managing invasives, for their beauty, and for their myriad unnamed intrinsic values.
To be respected means not to willfully, or by manner of negligence, endanger these interconnected, unimaginably complex entities’ abilities to sustain themselves for their own selves, and/or for the wise, prudent and sustainable use of these entities by those who need living soil, clean air, and healthy water to survive.
As Aldo Leopold, eminent conservationist and father of wildlife ecology, explains:
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (www.scientificamerican.com) (2/18/2014)
To be respected also means recognizing that there must be lands assigned to be preserved in perpetuity via establishment of a land trust and/or a carbon park and it must recognize that to only seek to support critical habitat for species at risk undermines the very nature of biodiversity which is gravely threatened by human activities; habitat destruction being one of the most grievous offences and one which is occurring at an unprecedented rate both locally and globally.
I hereby request that the precautionary principle be invoked to bring development to a halt until a land/water trust is put in place, and wildlife corridors recognized, and/or established.
I know that halting development is not going to happen, but I am still rhetorically requesting the halt to bring to attention that simply producing report after report on natural areas is meaningless unless these reports provide blueprints for real action.
In authoring this request I stand for the rights of air, water, soil, and all the flora and fauna residing in and/or occurring on both publicly owned, and privately-owned lands. The land, air, and waters, flora and fauna here have no unassailable rights assigned to them because they are undervalued, under recognized, voiceless, and/or misunderstood by those in governance, developers, business owners, and/or private citizens. We live in a culture which supports the dominant belief that we have the inalienable right to misuse and abuse these entities to the point of collapse of these systems- ie: catastrophic pollution, species extinction, climate change, and the increasing encroachment of invasives.
I have personally witnessed incredible changes to the habitat available to support biodiversity in my own community since my growing up years when surrounded by pasture lands and living near a lovely pond system meant that birdsong and insect hum were widespread and welcome. It was in the fields, woodlands, and pond sides of my community that I developed my love of nature. In my youth, the nearby pond was a well and thriving wetland. Despite the very best efforts (mine included) to mitigate the damage from nearby development, this pond is suffering the very visible consequences of human folly. This is unfortunately just one of many examples of habitat loss/destruction within my own community.
Humans often fail to predict the impact of our actions; where we do attempt prediction, we often miscalculate as to type and quantum. When we try to predict impacts, we often make judgments about the level of assault that human or ecosystem health can bear, and we often explicitly allow levels that approach the limits of that system. This approach leaves no room for error, even though our past experience demonstrates that we make many such errors, often with catastrophic consequences. A precautionary approach would allow room for human error in failing to predict the type, level and geographic extent of consequences, both to humans and to the rest of the ecosystem.” http://www.cela.ca/sites/cela.ca/files/uploads/419precautionary.pd
The pervasive business as usual mentality when it comes to development furthers ongoing misuse of land, and is occurring to the grievous detriment of local, provincial, national, and international environmental well being. This is evidenced in the IPCC report of Oct 2018 which states in no uncertain terms that we collectively have 10-12 years to make systems wide societal change in how we live our lives thereby reducing CO2 levels etc. or suffer the drastic consequences of failing to act within this time frame.
Ensuring that adequate habitat for myriad species exists as a mitigation to climate change is a very wise investment in Earth’s future well being.
In failing to better and urgently implement further improved sustainability and environmental standards we will continue to suffer the ill effects of runaway climate change, soil degradation, air and water pollution, habitat loss, and species extinction. It is far wiser to address these issues now rather than continue with a business as usual approach and attempt to pick up the pieces after each increasingly more devastating storm system moves through our region.
In conclusion, I rhetorically request that the precautionary principle be invoked when it comes to all development proposals. The land, air, waters, and flora and fauna must be given their due consideration each and every time the soil is turned for another development. (Phosphorus net loading is a real, and detrimental consequence of soil turnover--it is so incredibly harmful to waterways, and all the life therein.)
Not being a land trust expert, rather, simply a concerned citizen, I share this link with you. https://olta.ca/who-we-are/land-trust/
Sincerely and with a heart in love with the wonder of this world,
Jill MacCormack
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