Editor:
The news that the hottest properties on the Sunshine Coast are empty lots is heartbreaking. Property owners and developers, here on the Coast, are permitted, even encouraged, to destroy every living thing on a lot, leaving it a husk. Other municipalities, including some in the Lower Mainland, have introduced or are considering tree and canopy protection plans. This is crucial for a number of reasons. Trees provide critical soil protection and are crucial allies in responding to climate change. Not only that, but they are vital in stemming the sixth great extinction. Thirty per cent of all North American bird species are facing extinction and the primary culprit is habitat loss.
Canada and Russia lead the world in deforestation, but this goes beyond our antiquated industrial forestry practices (a separate but no less pressing issue). Because we are allowed to cut down all the trees and shrubs on properties (all too often in spring) and spray pesticides for pointless, cosmetic reasons, we contribute in a devastating way to species endangerment and extinction.
Trees provide birds with food sources and food caching sites. They provide nesting sites as well. When property owners and developers blithely cut or severely “trim” trees and shrubs in spring and early summer, not only are they possibly killing adult birds, they are definitely wiping out the next generation, killing nestlings, hastening extinction. If this was a region that recognized these realities and respected the environment, there would be a limit to what kind of devastation individuals and developers could wreak. There would be time frames within which the damage would be allowed. Instead, because of our region’s obsequiousness to development, it’s just a 1970s-style free-for-all out there, leaving nothing but desecrated landscapes.
E. Carpentier, Gibsons
