My daughter counts tree piles. Admittedly, car games involving scavenger hunts and license plate spotting or ones that include tormenting siblings (such as Slug a Bug and Bruiser Cruiser) are far more appealing. However, in Chatham-Kent, there is a whole other automobile experience where one can test one’s math skills, as my precocious tween has discovered.
Kirsten’s first count of tree piles began the night she accompanied me to a council meeting in early February. She was the youngest (11 years old) to give a deputation that night. She encouraged our Mayor and councillors to think of her generation as they voted on a six month moratorium that would halt clear-cutting in CK while studies were done. She informed Council she had lost her father to brain cancer (CK Firefighter Bob Van Goethem) and she therefore worried about our health as a community. Council voted against the moratorium that night, persuaded, no doubt, by the ample lobbying of landowners arguing property rights.
While ‘property rights’ are certainly a valid concern, it is with a certain apprehension that I, as a mother, sit back and hear testimony after testimony of landowners who are intent on annihilating ever tree in sight due to rising land and crop prices, not foreseeing the devastation they leave behind. Are property rights more important than the future we leave the next generation?
Property rights are, in themselves, debatable. They may be modified to respond to new threats of the environment, which CK, on minimal observation, is obviously experiencing. The issue is, inevitably, finding harmony between private rights and public welfare; society as a whole faces this dilemma on a continual basis. The question is then, is the loss of trees damaging our welfare and that of our children (and their future)? The fact is that evidence is increasing through multiple scientific fields that exposure to the natural environment can improve human health, and that ultimately, the presence of trees is associated with human health. Studies show an association between loss of trees and human mortality, particularly from cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease, among others. Compounding all of that is the fact that CK, with its southern location, and moderated climate from the Great Lakes, is home to what is known as Carolinian Forests. The Carolinian Forests are able to support animal and plant species usually not found in other parts of Canada. Yet due to major population centers in Ontario, there has already been significant loss of wetlands and forested areas to urban areas and farms. It is estimated that 90% of Canada’s Carolinian Forest has already been destroyed. One of the best preserved areas is located at Rondeau Provincial Park.
Last year alone, CK lost over 1000 acres of trees. We are a fragile community, both in regards to environment and economics, and the continual piles of trees amount to more negative imagery on our municipality. The World Health Organization states that forest cover should be 12%, as this has a direct correlation on the health of people and the environment. Does it alarm you to know that CK has 3-5% at best? And that those numbers are decreasing daily?
Despite these facts and more, on March 25th, Council again voted against the moratorium, to the dismay of Kirsten, who again pleaded for her generation’s future, albeit perhaps not with the initial etiquette she had first displayed. She told Council that at school they were taught not to bully, and that on observation, what she had witnessed was landowners effectively bullying Council into the wrong decision. She wanted Council to make the right decision this time and informed them that her generation would have to fix what they (the council members) were letting be destroyed. She told Council there were more voices than hers and that they would be heard. And that if she was old enough to vote, she would not vote for anyone that didn’t consider the future generation.
Although discouraged with Council’s decision again, it didn’t take long for Kirsten and many other children, with resiliency forgotten by adults, to form other plans. Staging a protest in Ridgetown their voices were heard as they expressed their misgivings about Council’s decision. Feeling more proactive yet, they decided to assemble as a group and work together. Giving their group the name of “Generation Roots,” they have organized a penny drive, collecting all those now ‘worthless’ pennies (as some may see our ‘worthless’ trees) in the hopes of purchasing their own trees to plant, with the aspiration of a greener CK. Perhaps these children, our future ‘eco-warriors,’ as they call themselves, are the ones who will teach us how to live simultaneously on an ever evolving planet and yet within nature. For one thing is for sure; we cannot continue in the direction we are headed.
And as for heading in directions, if you intend to take a drive in CK, particularly in East Kent, and play the tree pile counting game, know that your counting will end abruptly when you cross into another municipality. It seems Chatham-Kent and Essex remain as the only two municipalities this side of Peterborough that do not have some sort of tree conversation bylaw. If these children are so intent on fighting for their future, it is the least we can do for them, as their parents, to fight for that future as well. A future with trees, that is.
