Like a dragonfly over its pond abode, I have been darting around the Niagara Peninsula for work and leisure over the past few weeks, travelling here and landing there. There is a certain irony in travelling to meet and teach others about the inspiring awes of Niagara's biodiversity as countless new ‘proposed development’ signs are popping up everywhere, it seems.
Due to the nature of the tours I've recently had booked, I have had opportunities to drive out to some further-flung corners of the peninsula which I rarely get to visit, especially south Niagara. It is easier to keep an environmental ear to the ground in Niagara-on-the Lake, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls where I most often frequent. Although I have seen the steady influx of those large proposed development signs here, I found myself shocked to see south Niagara's countless new signs adjacent to wetlands and woodlots. There are now too many to keep track of.
I think what was disturbing to me about my observations was due to the fact that the southern half of the Niagara Peninsula was, and still relatively is, more heavily forested and than the northern half. Many of the larger and contiguous tracts of habitat in the south have acted as stronghold oases for aerial, terrestrial and aquatic wildlife over the years. Like a mouse chewing its way around the edges of the bread slice, that is what we are witnessing in places like Fort Erie, Port Colborne, and south Niagara Falls.
I've written about the impact of urban sprawl in Niagara from many angles, but this time, the theme is simply to focus on how much and how fast it is coming in, and how that is going to impact us in our own heads.
Today, it both professionally and emotionally struck a chord. The environmental and human community impacts are going to be enormous, and in the near future. You can't tell me that driving through Fort Erie and seeing a proposed development sign every few minutes, placed pointedly in front of lush green blocks of habitat in between current suburbs, is not a sign of how much the entire region is going to change.
The youth who grew up there will likely never afford to live in these houses, get to know these neighbours, or show their children the magic of living in suburbs with the awe of nature right in your backyard. Not long ago, Fort Erie was actually a textbook example how a patchwork of suburbia and natural spaces can coexist in blended unison.
There are lots of cliches about this scenario and a handful of misconceptions to unpack with this conversation. The first is, “Oh well, everyone is resistant to change.” Absolutely, and we have all been guilty of feeling this way about issues both monolithic and minuscule in our lives.
Sometimes, change truly is borderline inevitable. I say borderline, because nothing is ever truly impossible, but there are quotas and directions from powers and politics above us that are simply going to happen whether we like it or not. It's a blunt fact of life. I do, however, express concern with changes that are unsustainable and will have long term environmental and societal impacts that may eventually outweigh the immediate perceived positive rewards, such as more housing to accommodate an explosively growing population.
There is also not just something to be said, but actual scientific studies to be said about the impacts of mental health and human psyche about living in bleak and urban dominated areas without subconscious nature exposure.
On that note, As a professional biologist and a personal environmentalist, I truly do understand the need for more housing. I'm not anti-development. I do, however, take issue in how and where it happens when we've lost over 90 per cent of Niagara Peninsula's original habitat coverage. What kind of future are we leaving for the generation coming up? Will they even know any different?
Sadly, those who move into these new homes will likely never know what that area once was like. I remember as a kid biking and scootering around Ridgeway and Crystal Beach with my cousins, still very much suburban at the time. Yet, in between the tight streets and rows of homes were these pockets of mystic swamps and woods. There were farm fields where insects sang and the economy churned beneath the soil. I recollect getting ice cream from the stand, biking beneath the warm hue streetlights and hearing the chorus of frogs and evening bird life. A haunting, beautiful and nostalgic 90s kid timeframe I will never forget.
Just today, I drove by some of those Fort Erie areas with my buddies to explore a creek system by canoe, one of which I have never attempted. With all the fun and success of the exploration, there was a deeper, digging question in my head: “how much longer will it be like this?” as the walls of urban sprawl are closing in from all sides on this otherwise beautiful waterway hiding in plain sight.
I know I can't change what's coming. I'm not a developer with millions at my disposal, and I'm not a politician. I respect those who want to make money, even lots of it, but I have to wonder where the buck stops with this unsustainable development push.
Before we know it, the kids of Fort Erie and Niagara Region will be biking through a monotonous and unoriginal landscape, where the ice cream will still melt but the frogs will no longer sing.
