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magazine / mj03
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May/June 2003 issue |
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Mass movement
For the past thre years, drought across the central Prairies has turned soil
to dust, triggered a Biblical plague of grasshoppers and silenced the songbirds.
Low snowfalls last winter suggest the winds of a fourth dry season may be gathering.
What are the causes of this drought? What does it look like? How are people
coping with it? Is human activity making it worse?
Our report on the drought in this, our eighth, annual environment issue is
a response to those questions. Our cartographic feature, "À la
carte," uses satellite images of rich farmland in eastern Alberta to illustrate
the starkness of a dry season and explain what we know about the climate changes
that are causing the parching of the Prairies. Photographer Dawn Goss travelled
into the heart of the drought zone to meet the farmers and ranchers who have
not yet succumbed to the ravages of the weather. Ranchers George and Arlana Glazier of Coronation,
Alta., who, for lack of feed and water, had sold all their cattle by last summer.
"You can’t turn your back on a thirsty cow," George told Goss, "not
if you have any kind of compassion. I couldn’t begin to haul enough water
to keep them." The Glaziers farm more than 3,300 acres, which is a good-sized
operation by any standards. But by mid-summer last year, they didn’t
have enough feed in their pastures to sustain 20 cows.
And finally, naturalist Trevor Herriot, author of the marvellous, award-winning
book River in a Dry Land, concludes our report with a thoughtful essay on the
ecology of a landscape shaped by drought and, more recently, by humans.
Leaving the plains, writer Brian Payton and photographer Patrice Halley sweep
us to a summit in British Columbia’s Cariboo Mountains for a story on
the last remnants of the mountain caribou population and assaults on its habitat
by loggers, heli-skiers and snowmobilers. Then, across the country, Marci McDonald
profiles Trent University scientist Tom Hutchinson, who has been studying air
pollution for more than 30 years and tells us that the smog generated by tailpipes
in Toronto is often much worse in farms and communities far to the northeast
of the city than it is in the big smoke itself. And Anita Lahey, who also begins
her report at Trent University, probes the relentless march up the food chain
of a chemical that may be as hazardous as PCBs.
If these stories inspire you to get involved, leaf through the Canadian Environment
Awards digest included with this issue. Last fall, we invited Canadians to
nominate people or groups that are making an outstanding contribution to environmental
protection, preservation and restoration. Reading those nomination forms was
electrifying. A mass grassroots movement is toiling away out there defending,
protecting and preserving our environmental commons. The digest features biographies
of the finalists in each category as well as the winner of the Citation of
Lifetime Achievement. The category winners will be announced at an awards banquet
on June 2 in Toronto and will be posted on our website.
Join the movement.
— Rick Boychuk
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