3 writings to our mother
Untitled article
John Bacher
Since 2008 there has been an eight year struggle to protect a 500 acre, predominately old growth Carolinian swamp forest in Niagara Falls from urbanization. While opponents have so far defeated schemes to stop the biggest recent assault on Canada’ s most diverse habitat, home to such threatened species as old growth Black Gum trees, and Honey Locusts with massive thorns that are a relic of the Pleistocene, the scheme is still slowly proceeding through the review process. Part of the effort to achieve approval is propagating a myth about good buffers around the areas on the site which are off limits to bulldozers because of their protected wetland status.
Only about a third of the 500 acre Thundering Waters Forest is actually protected wetlands, and of this area two percent is threatened by roads. What is being proposed is tree carnage on a massive scale: the destruction of three hundred acres of mature native forest. Forest clearance on this monstrous magnitude in Carolinian Canada has not been seen since the backwoodsmen of the 19th century burnt out old growth forests for soap ashes.
There is an attempt to lull the public, review agencies and municipal councillors to sleep by a claim that the Thundering Waters wetlands will be protected by additional buffers. These are supposed to involve native bushes to protect wetland trees from storm water pollution.
The difference between the reality on the ground at Thundering Waters, and what we see in consultants reports is very stark. What the contrast points to is the difference between promises and reality. It resembles the old western movies, where the wise Medicine Man warns