Re: [Paddlewise] The urban paddler

What exactly is meant by "over impacted"?

1.    On a personal and subjective level, "over impacted" might simply refer to an
individual's comfort level relating to the numbers of other people encountered on
an excursion.  I think this is relative to one's expectation.  Thus when I paddle
in an urban area frequented by other paddlers, more often than not I am quite
comfortable with the presence of these other folks, and don't consider the area
over impacted.

When I am off on a remote wilderness trip for a few weeks, I don't want to see
anybody and I don't want to see any traces of anybody.  If I come across a fire
pit I find it annoying.  In some areas simply finding a cut portage is annoying.
It all depends on my expectation of the level of use.

Where many people, including myself, get antsy is when our expectations don't
match up with reality.  We have learned to expect a certain level of use for a
given area, but now find that this level is changing.  If solitude was one of the
primary reasons we visited an area, then increased use reduces the value of the
area for us.  The impact is very real, but the harm is not to the land, but rather
to our sense of what the land means to us.

Over the last decade or so many of us have noticed a dramatic increase in use by
paddlers, and this increase in use has hurt those of us who greatly value
solitude.

2.    On an objective level, "over impacted" deals more with the effect on the
environment as a whole.  What species are being affected and how?  Is there a loss
of habitat, and will this loss move a species closer to the brink?  Is our use
isolating species, which in itself often contributes to putting a species at
risk?  Most importantly, can we change our pattern or intensity of use to mitigate
our impact?

The increase in paddling in the last decade has not had that much of an negative
effect on the environment as a whole.  Yes, there are a handful of sad exceptions,
but over all paddling is pretty benign.  As I mentioned in my previous post on
"saturation level", I believe that over all the benefits of increased
environmental awareness derived from increased participation in paddling out weigh
the negative objective impacts.

3.    The question that many of us now face is to what degree we are willing to
sacrifice our subjective values for the sake of the objective values.  To what
degree are we willing to share our special areas with others so that hopefully the
public will become more supportive of protecting more areas?

I have seen it work both ways.  In Temagami there is a wonderful place known as
"Lost Lagoon" or "Paradise Lagoon".  Diving off of waterfalls and cliffs, crystal
clear water, old cedars, secluded nooks.  You won't find it on a map.  A mining
exploration road was proposed near the lagoon.  It went through because there was
opposition by only a few of us.  Now access to the lagoon is easier, and it is
subjectively overused.

A little to the west in the Spanish River Complex, we went public concerning a
section of the Aux Sables River, which has very beautiful scenery and quite
demanding wild water in its canyon section.  Thanks to public pressure it has
gained a strong level of protection, despite developers wanting to dam it over.
Again, the are is now subjectively overused thanks to increased awareness of its
existence.

What is the difference between the two?  The one in Temagami is not protected from
development.  The one in the Spanish complex is protected from development.
Either way we end up with subjectively too many paddlers, but if we play our cards
right we can at least ensure some degree of objective protection of the
environment as a whole.

In short, it is almost impossible to keep special spots secret.  The best we can
do is attempt to control when and how an area becomes more public, so that despite
the loss of solitude we can at least protect many other values -- values including
protection of habitat, which I suggest is far more important than solitude.

Cheers,
Richard Culpeper

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