Our Wild Spaces in Peril
When I moved to the Como Creek watershed in south Coquitlam, I began to realize just what a Garden of Eden I had been blessed to live in.
In the fall I only have to walk a block to see salmon spawning — REAL WILD SALMON! They live nestled in secret places amongst the streams that ran through the multitude of subdivisions and warehouses in the big box nirvana that is my neighbourhood – and thanks to the tireless efforts of local conservationists, they are still there. But these streams are also bisected and trisected by roads, two highways and a railway — whose contributions to the watershed include runoff carrying toxins like aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and winter road salt. In addition, these roads can form a deadly obstacle course for wildlife trying to hopscotch between green patches on opposite sides of the highway.
As a conservation biologist, I know that much of the damage this infrastructure has wrought on our wild spaces has already come to pass. But that does not justify making a bad situation worse.
The remaining wild places that would fall in the path of Gateway form a living tapestry that sustains us. Such wild places sustain our “Livable Region,” and actually make that term mean something. They are what make the region livable, not just for us, but for the rich diversity of life with which we ‘humans’ share the region.
Once lost, these precious places can never be brought back.
