Re: [Paddlewise] ACA abandons conservation & advocacy!!!

I expect that the ACA assumed that environmental organizations would be better placed to
address environmental issues than the ACA itself.  I have five concerns with this.

First, with regard to energy supply, environmentalists and paddlers do not necessarily
support the same solutions.  For example, when I became the environmental director for Canoe
Ontario and for the Ontario Recreational Canoeing Association, I was shocked to learn that we
were involved in a major class environmental assessment as part of a coalition of
environmentalists that was supporting the development of small private hydro dams throughout
the province as part of the solution to our energy needs.  With the developers wanting to
build such dams, and the environmentalists wanting to build such dams, there was no
organization at the hearing trying to keep the rivers free flowing.  A strong environmental
arm of a major paddling organization would have been of tremendous help, but there was no
such body.

Second, numbers count when dealing with regulators, so leaving the fight to one organization,
or one type of organization, is not as effective as having several organizations representing
several interests at the table.  Take for example the Spanish River complex.  Paddlers,
hunters/fishers, and environmentalists all came to the table, resulting in a significant
degree of protection from further logging and from hydro development.

Third, the people with the most to lose will often put out the greatest effort, but they need
organizational support.  Skip forward a few years after the big class EA for power
development in Ontario and look at the River Aux Sables, which was being dammed top to
bottom.  It was a jewel of a river, so the local paddlers took on the developer and
eventually had the best section turned into a provincial park.  It happened that the local
paddling club had quite a few paddlers who were professional environmentalists (e.g. fresh
water biologists, toxicologists, hydrogeologists, etc.), so they pulled it off.  Few paddling
clubs are so fortunate.  When faced with similar problems, they usually do not have the local
resources, including funds and expertise, to shut down hydro projects and to create protected
areas.  Thus while there is the occasional success, there are far more projects that go
through, for it becomes a matter of death by a thousand cuts.  Without a strong environmental
arm of a large padding organization, local paddlers can rarely have significant success
against hydro developers.

Fourth, and from a particularly Canadian perspective, paddlers are often the only persons
knowledgeable and interested in an area.  I can?t begin to describe how much wilderness we
have up here, particularly north of 50.  For most of it, there are rarely any people passing
through:  an occasional mapping fly-by, an occasional geologist, a wilderness canoeist every
few seasons, a few fly-in villages scattered over thousands of square miles.  The land is
indescribably big, and people are few and far between.  When mines or logging interests move
in, more often than not the only competing interest is that of paddlers.  The first nations
need to find jobs for their people, so they tend to support resource extraction if they can
cut deals which provide economic benefits.  The hunters/fishers, which in Ontario are the
primary intervenors in land management, tend not to squawk too loudly about the incursion of
roads, for roads provide greater access.  Environmental activism tends to be an urban
phenomena simply because that is where most people are, and that is where environmental
degradation is most obvious.  That leaves the wilderness canoeists, who being so few and far
between, require an environmental organization geared to their interests.

Fifth, and most simply, paddling without promoting respect for the paddling environment is
rather contradictory, and representing paddlers without working toward preserving
opportunities for paddling seems rather pointless.  In short, I do not need someone to teach
me a J stroke.  I need places to paddle.
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************