CRD's Deer Cull Citizens' Advisory Group

As soon as it was convened, the CRD's Citizens' Advisory Group on a proposed deer cull lost all credibility. It was widely recognized as stacked against the deer the members were supposed to discuss. Any advice it gives will be tainted, and rejected by the public. Anti-cull folks will not go away. A program of public slaughter of innocent animals will continue to be resisted by anyone of a non-violent disposition.

In what way was it stacked? First of all, two spaces were reserved for First Nations members. (Were there any other raced-based appointments? Is that even legal under the Charter??) Then three spaces were reserved for farmers, who had already asked for a cull, and then most bizarrely of all, an advocate for bow hunting sports was appointed! Meanwhile, anyone who had expressed interest in finding a non-cull solution to deer problems, was systematically excluded.

Some of the latter have sat in on the committee's first meetings however, and have heard that no one actually knows how many deer live in the CRD, or how much revenue any farmer has actually lost due to deer. "I was nearly in disbelief that our hard earned tax dollar is being wasted on these kinds of meetings," says one. "Most of the members were not speaking loud and clear in order for the public to actually hear what was being said ... the average Victoria resident has no idea what is going on behind their backs, until it may be too late."

Someone on the committee even suggested deer were a threat to songbird habitat! (How on earth did deer and birds manage to co-exist in forests around the world for hundreds of millenia??) Development and pavement-creep are the threat to songbird habitat. Why doesn't the CRD appoint a citizens' advisory committee about that?

Size Matters in Oak Bay - of trees and of houses

In Oak Bay, residents took to the streets in peaceful protest against the destruction of treescape caused by "big box housing" taking over the neighbourhoods. The mayor tried to turn this into a discussion about architectural choice, but it is really about the size and extent of development and whether the municipality will leave any green space. The protesting residents, who call themselves "Oak Bay Watch," are trying to preserve the green and leafy nature of their community.

Next, Mayor Jensen tried to make this be about preserving "diversity" in Oak Bay (and he does not mean biodiversity), saying in the Oak Bay News that new "... members of our community are made to feel unwelcome by those kind of things," and: "there are a lot of issues that over time will need to have debate and conversation in the community.” That is just what the conservationists are trying to have, with "those kind of things"!

Are there any new public parks being planned for Oak Bay? No. So private green space is the only green space that Oak Bay will have a chance of preserving, and it will have to be done through the municipality's zoning bylaws. Current builders of monster homes may "not be breaking any law" -- that is why the building laws need to be changed. We need to protect large lots (floor area ratio to lot size). We need to leave space for large trees, because large trees cleanse the air, provide oxygen, shade, beauty and songbird habitat. Large houses we don't need, but when they are built (as in days of yore when people perhaps put a higher value on privacy and natural beauty) they need to be put on lots of corresponding size.

Living the Indoor Life

There's a new trend in gardening books - essentially, they seem to favour gardening without nature. Gone are the days when book stores displayed piles of titles by famous horticulturalists, featuring great stretches of colour, shrubbery, herbaceous borders ... now the emphasis in books and gardening magazines is on the small garden. That's because the trend is toward huge houses with little garden space between them -- all lining up in new subdivisions like clones of each other (witness the new "Sun River Estate" in Sooke), with no room for even one big tree in back of them. (The name "Sun River" must be meant to distract people from the rain Sooke is known for, but it could also refer to the fact in te midst of the summer heat, there will be no shade.) People live more indoor lives now, so they are persuaded to buy big houses full of big bathtubs, wall-sized TV screens, entertainment centres, restaurant-scale kitchens, and exercise equipment -- an alternative to getting outside in the weather and in nature. For kids this is especially dubious, as obesity has become epidemic in North America, Europe and Australia -- all these countries pouring healthcare dollars into programs to counteract it. (Simply playing outside, as previous generations did, would do the trick -- but that would mean retaining places to play, like big back yards, plentiful park space and rural fringes to the increasingly dense sprawl of urbanity.)

As to gardens, garden supply stores and magazines seem to supply more garden "furniture" than plants -- more patio chairs, barbecues, pots and funky sculptures than anything living. "Monoblock" surfaces are being marketed, sealed against moisture and treated with anti-funal substances to prevent moss or lichen growing -- anything living, in other words. The tiny modern back yard is now just an outdoor room. This is bad news for retaining a city's tree canopy or songbird population. It also gives rise to a desire to plant the begetable gardens which used to be in backyards, onto the public boulevards. Next stage is a demand that cats and dogs (let alone deer) be eradicated from the public scene. More exclusion of life. Trends in urban living do not bode well for nature-lovers. BJ

Would planners more likely notice our trees if they were blue?

Linda Foubister captured this image in Seattle, where someone thought trees might have a better chance of being preserved if they were more noticeable, e.g. blue instead of green and brown, for a change.

Australian artist Konstantin Dimopoulos stained sixteen trees at Westlake Park an electric blue to draw attention to the trees. Dimopoloulos believes that people take trees for granted, noting that forests are the lungs of the world. The blue stain is made from azurite, a blue rock, and is expected to wash away over time.

According to the Seattle Times, "Dimopoulos believes that deforestation, for many, is out of sight, so people don't often think about it. His hope is that by creating a striking contrast between what trees look like normally and the blue that he will color them, he can get people to stop and educate themselves on what the project is and what it represents." He has done Blue Trees in Vancouver, Richmond and New Zealand. So what do you think? Blue trees in Victoria?

Linda Foubister

Losing the path to "sustainability"

With land use in Victoria, we're losing our way. We've lost the path. Look at the bottom picture: there used to be a short path leading from the end of the cul-do-sac of Queen Anne Heights (off Fairfield Road) through to Romney Road. It was an area of large woodland gardens around heritage houses. You can see what the path leads to now: another box of a new house dominating the landscape, blocking the way.

All paths lead to dense building in Victoria -- to the paving of land and the destruction of treescape. The loss of the Chadwick Oak (see previous post) was a matter of deep grief to tree-lovers; there is another in James Bay identically threatened by developers, and the next one will be the monarch watching over tiny St Alban's Church in the Oaklands neighbourhood (see 2nd from top). That property was sold by the Anglican Diocese, and furious negotiations are now going on between the Oaklands Community Association and the new developer-purchaser in a probably futile attempt to keep the land undeveloped.

The top photo shows the boulevard, recently planted with native plants, which the City of Victoria is pleased to call a "park" (complete with signage) -- an area stretching along Ryan Street in front of the small church and its hall. If they claim this as park space, why didn't the City act to acquire the lot behind it as more park? It was an obvious little chunk of landscape to acquire. It must have cost as much just to fiddle with Pioneer Square, the 900 block of Pandora, and Beacon Hill Park's traffic pattern, none of which actually increases parkland.

The City Council seems to see its role as facilitating developers' profit-making, not the provision of green space in residential neighbourhoods so that kids can grow up without nature deficit disorder, and well-loved trees can be preserved to continue their job of beautifying the city and counteracting pollution and climate change.

B. Julian

Goodbye Old Friend, Rest In Peace -- as a pile of logs

It was three years ago that word first went out that the unique Garry oak at the back of the garden at 1972 Fairfield Road was under threat, due to subdivision and building on the property. Now, three years later, the oak is gone. Artists painted and photographed and came to love the tree. It swirled its limbs into the air, ballet style, it dipped others down to greet us, it grew around an astonishing hole in one of its thick branches. It inspired a show of glass sculpture at Winchester Gallery by Waine Ryzak, and a well-known watercolour by Avis Rasmussen. It was much visited, as above, and dressed with symbolic objects in a futile hope that magic would help. Evenings of readings about preserving the oak were held at Serious Coffee outlets, petitions were signed. Local politicians ignored it all. The top photo merely hints at the glorious shape and character the oak had; the bottom photo shows what is left of it now.

How can a city allow this to happen? We have a "heritage tree bylaw" -- but what good is it? Even the most exquisite examples of heritage trees are sacrificed to "development". Three years ago the garden at 1972 was abloom with wildflowers. Deer drank in the pond. Now it is chock-full of extraordinarily ugly, boxy, brutal-looking oversized houses. No meadow, pond, trees or songbirds left, no camas, or rhodos ablaze along the driveway. Who decided that this is the kind of town we want? That this is the kind of urban (non)planning we want?

Who benefits? Not the taxpayer, not the City, and certainly not the natural landscape; just a handful of developers. Just today, one city councillor spoke on the CBC about the City being broke, having to raise taxes, raise parking fees, lower services ... That's where uncontrolled development has got us: higher taxes, yet less revenue.

BJ

Public Oak Trees Lost to Private Development?

Sometimes it seems that to engage in a "tree watch" is to engage in a death watch. The stumps above are all that is left of a clump of oaks on Brighton Avenue that (long ago) I used to walk by every day on my way to school. They were part of what made the walk pleasant, and part of the tree inventory that made Oak Bay green, leafy and attractive. Then one day, after decades, the trees are gone -- sacrificed because private home-owners are permitted to build on their lot, turning the surrounding street and public pathway into a construction site for months, reducing Oak Bay's green inventory and extending its paved space.

Why do successive municipal councils allow this to happen? What legislative tools might be devised that would protect green space? Why do trees not have "standing" in themselves? Why is the fact that public land destruction results, not sufficient grounds for refusing permission for private "development" (i.e. landscape degradation)?

In a recent display of tree imagery at the Oak Bay Public Library, the OB Green Committee supplied the information that of a couple of hundred trees cut down since the tree protection bylaw was put in place, only a handful of trees were replaced with new plantings, although the bylaw requires it. Why does Council not enforce their own bylaws? Will the trees pictured above be replaced by those who make a profit on subdividing the property behind them?

B Julian