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magazine / mj00
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May/June 2000 issue |
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
From swamp-ugly to wetland harmony
EVER COME across
a landscape that could only be described as pug-ugly? Okay, some
strip malls and maybe those wastelands on the edge of every city
where junkyards and waste-oil outfits and slaughter-houses tend
to locate. But I mean an out-of-the-municipal-limits sort of
landscape that appeared grotesque or hideous?
Nature may be inconvenient and occasionally bug-ridden, tangled,
windswept or desolate, but the environmental ethic of our age
has taught us to appreciate the beauty of its harmonious complexity.
Every flutter of a butterfly’s wings matters. The disappearance
of the homely little Oregon spotted frog, as Candace Savage reports
in her column in this issue, means the loss of a "unique
and irreplaceable genetic lineage." Saving the frog means
preserving its habitat, wetlands we once regarded as worthless.
Every hectare of barren, soggy ground we drain for bright new
subdivisions robs a frog species of a home. It also steals a
sustaining element from one of the water systems we take so much
for granted in this country, says author Marq de Villiers in
his essay on water in this, our fifth annual environment issue.
The painting above is by Lawren Harris of Group of Seven fame.
Entitled Beaver Swamp, Algoma, it was exhibited in Toronto in
1921 and provoked a comment from Saturday Night magazine critic
Hector Charlesworth. The painting of the swamp, he wrote, is
a "repulsive, forbidding thing. One felt like taking a dose
of quinine every time one looked at it. If ugliness is real beauty,
they have yet to prove it to a very large mass of the assembled
public."
Done. Proved. Clayton Rubec, an Environment Canada scientist
who has devoted himself to preserving Canada’s wetlands, says
Charlesworth’s comments "reflect the mood of a bygone era."
They are echoes of a time when swamps and marshes and sloughs
were home to the bogeyman, mosquito-plagued mudholes that any
Canadian of real virtue would quickly drain and put to the plough.
Now flip to our pictorial introduction to the poster on wetlands
that forms the centrepiece of this issue. These views of a tidal
marsh, a swamp and a fen reveal their ecological riches. We see
in them what Charlesworth didn’t — diversity, harmony and beauty
plainly evident to a large mass of the assembled public.
WE LOVE to visit
national parks but what is our place in them? In March, the Panel
on the Ecological Integrity of Canada’s National Parks delivered
a report that detailed the ecological threats to the 39 parks
in the system. The panel reported that 22 of the parks are suffering
major or severe environmental stress. It said ecological integrity
should be the foremost concern of park administrators and Heritage
Minister Sheila Copps agrees.
We believe this is a laudable goal but it is one that raises
many difficult questions about people and parks. To explore those
issues, and to monitor the government’s commitment to the principle
of ecological integrity, we plan to publish a series of portraits
of our national parks, to commission stories that assess the
health of the park system and to initiate a dialogue with our
readers. Tell us about your experiences in our national parks,
about your expectations when visiting them and about what you
think we should be doing to ensure these special places are preserved
for future generations. Send us your comments via our website
or e-mail us at editorial@canadiangeographic.ca.
— Rick Boychuk
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