Editor:
With great sadness, I walked through the Clayton Family Development adjacent to Chatelech Secondary School today. Having just completed a “nature-based” diploma program with 16 other SD46 teachers, I had been teaching in a section of this forest for the past year – watching students consider the “other-than-human” world as it inspired both compassion and creativity, as well as listening to Sechelt Nation educators explain the cultural importance of the plants around us. Now when I approached the cedar grove that was our contemplative home, a football field sized clearing, pounded down into a pre-asphalt foundation, announced its crushing presence. My first response, like the proverbial frog in the ever-warming water, was to look for a scrap of forest elsewhere around the school that might still serve as inspiration. Then I just gave up and let the sadness seep in.
I am aware that this land has been privately owned for some time, and therefore hasn’t been a long-term, viable option for school use (until this past year, there was only a subtle path in this part of the forest). Furthermore, most of the world’s students attend school on long-cleared land, so Chatelech students are simply experiencing the same depravation as students do most everywhere. Nevertheless, I write this letter to point out how one part of our community can affect another, and to, hopefully, raise awareness in order to prevent a similar demolition of forest around some of our other schools. For students to learn and care about human impact on our natural environment, exposure to the beauty and mystery of that environment is essential.
Geoff Davis, Sechelt
