| It’s all well and good to want to save the rain forest, but we’ve got our own spectacular forest now in need of help. The integrity of Canada’s, and especially Alberta’s, boreal forest has been profoundly sabotaged. However, it has been the more exotic Amazon jungle that has been the poster cause of the North American environmental advocacy impulse. Environmental groups are now launching boreal protection initiatives in recognition that the ecoregion is of global importance.
World-renowned Calgarian wildlife author and photographer Wayne Lynch has spent countless hours in the country’s boreal forest. Its owl species have been a particular focus. He’s photographed them extensively for a forthcoming book on North American owls. Lynch’s The Great Northern Kingdom: Life in the Boreal Forest (2001) illustrates the beauty and global importance of the boreal forest. He calls it the most important book of his career.
Its mission was to ignite public interest in the forest. "It’s the biggest terrestrial ecosystem in Canada and on the planet," Lynch explains. It covers almost half of the province. "And yet it’s taken for granted. We think it’s always going to be there and it’s being logged and despoiled by pollution at unprecedented rates.
"Unless people have an interest in the environment they won’t save it," he says. While destruction of the forest provided motivation for completing the book, Lynch chose to focus on the beauty and natural stories of the forest to motivate his readers’ preservation impulse.
After publishing the book, Lynch embarked on a cross-country speaking tour with fellow author David Henry (Canada’s Boreal Forest). A benefit for Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), it was meant to alert people to the forest’s plight. "The surprising thing," he recalls, "was that most people didn’t know what the boreal forest is."
Though Calgary is situated on the prairie, there’s good reason for Calgarians to champion forest preservation. An enormous portion of what remains is threatened by forestry, oil and gas and other development. Calgarians can affect whether or not provincial lands, waterways and recreational areas are despoiled in exchange for short-term economic benefit or are managed sensitively says Lynch. "Those are the questions that everybody in the province should be asking. What price do we pay for this?"
Further, our national character is tied to the North, and by extension, the boreal forest that covers much of it. "It’s an environment full of things that are typical to Canada – beavers, moose and wolves," Lynch expands. "Those are the charismatic mega-fauna that we’ve all grown up with." Trapping of the forest’s beaver by the Hudson Bay Company, he points out, was Canada’s founding impetus.
Advocacy and activism on the forest’s behalf as well as public education on the subject is critical as all Canadians become more urbanized. Many Canadians are unfamiliar with it unless they’ve visited it to camp, hunt, canoe or pursue other recreational activities. "Society is becoming more and more separated from the environment," says Lynch, "and people don’t feel that it has any influence on the quality of their lives. If these people have no sensitivity to it or no contact with it then we’ve lost that vote." The task is to keep Albertans and Canadians attached to their forest. To know it is to love it.
Despite the disconnect, Lynch is positive that Canadians do care about their natural heritage. He cites two federal government surveys that found the majority of Canadians place a high value on wildlife and wild places. "As a culture," he says, "even though we might not be going into the wilderness we value it as part of our national identity.
"It also has value as a stimulus for recreation, for solitude, for writers, photographers. People come to Canada not because of our cities, they come here for our wilderness."
Lynch agrees with the analogy that the boreal is our rain forest. "It is much more important," he says. "The rainforest has diversity but the boreal is much bigger.
"We think it’s much more important to save gorillas than beavers," he says. The assumption being that beavers, wolves and loons are numerous. "Beavers can disappear just the way the gorilla can," he warns. "There goes our identity with it – we’re just another urban society." |
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