April 23, 2010
Trees that once stood
It's the day after Earth Day and I'm on my favourite North Shore bus route. Lined by trees most of the way, including a park ravaged in the windstorm of a few years ago and a protected habitat area with beautiful deciduous trees, the two-lane Dollarton Highway can feel like a backcountry road. Certainly in the rear view mirror of my bicycle it can make me pretend I'm somewhere else.
The road was realigned and widened years ago, and I still remember the disappointment and shock I felt in staring at this huge, ugly, wrecked swath where they had pummeled through what I can only assume was old-growth forest. I had forgotten the image until a reminder came today.
Developers have been clear-cutting small chunks at a time to build two-story business operations. They're not the ugliest buildings in the world and they did a fine job of either keeping perimeter trees or replanting, which is more than I can say for most areas. It's a beautiful road, even, as roads go with its remaining forests. I know one treed part is doomed as it has a Colliers sign on it while the trees are still standing. Today I'm distracted by writing a different blog post on my iPod. In my peripheral vision, something has changed. Massive trees and mangled branches are heaped on bare ground where a magnificent, dense group of conifers had stood untouched for decades. My heart cracks open and a knot grips my throat. I'm paralysed for a moment by an aching sadness that becomes a desire to vomit as I pass existing cleared blocks and those currently spared, beautifully lush but damaged. I am overcome; my lower lip quivers and I wonder if anyone else has noticed the abrupt change and felt similarly.
Where we have something so irreplaceable, and that defines space so dominantly, I can't grasp why we destroy it for a mere two-story building, parking lots, a gas station, a puny Tim Hortons drive-thru. We ignore opportunities to decrease our buildings' footprints by building them compact to begin with or replacing old single-story ones with multi-story. There's no shortage of this activity with houses in older neighbourhoods, so why do we treat our commercial spaces differently? Why are these formerly forested areas being developed now? Does anybody give a damn?
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About
I am a communication designer in Vancouver, BC. Most of my writing and community activism are in the interconnected issues of public transit, local eating and food security, politics, health, environment, and sustainability in general. At heart, I'm a geek and a total treehugger. Nature, tea, good food and great company make me happy.
Currently reading:
"Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life"
Brian Brett
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Comments (2)
Sadly, many notice, but few really care. Apathy is the one of the greatest forces in our cities today and with a growing population it’s easy to place blame on other parties or simply allow tragedy to occur in the name of the greater good. Unless it impacts the individual, not much will occur to alter the current state of affairs.
If you look at cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong, they maximized their area only because they had to. Unfortunately, here in North America we can don’t have their land limitations or population pressures and won’t have to change our ways for quite some time.
Or, at least that’s what we like to think.
Well put, Jason. That is something I’ve noticed, the apathy. So land limitations — that’s why those cities developed UPward? Vancouver’s land limitations end up an encouragement to develop farmland; meanwhile Portland’s physical limit on sprawl is forcing them to think in creative ways we currently lack. We’re moving slowly toward that creative problem-solving but yeah, we seem to think we’re immune to natural forces.