Term 2 /Take 2
Attention people of Saanich: this is a biodiversity alert.
Biodiversity Biodiversity Biodiversity
Taxes Taxes Taxes
My job as an Independent 100% NOT developer-funded councillor is getting harder every day.
A voice for the environment, wildlife, affordable affordability, safety and ALL residents.
As a lifetime defender of the CDF
It’s time for me to sink or swim.
The housing being proposed by NDP Bill 44 is not affordable affordability. Are we losing the wealth, health and our climate resilience by these forced legislated housing targets?
I will leave my answer for you to guess.
Is this housing more affordable as it is cutting corners with safety?
There are approximately 538 000 trees on private property are without protection (those with NDP Bill 44 reach) and there is no stewardship program in Saanich, I tried to get one going as early as 2008 when I was not elected. Some on my council will say trees or affordability but I believe we can have both.
I would appreciate it if we could all understand the true cost of removing trees for livable neighbourhoods. A replacement forest as the UFS inside the UCB touts (over 40 years)does not provide shade now. Are we creating heat dome ghettos ? Where wild things go .
We care about rental displacement/vacancy and create policies. Yet where is the habitat replacement policy? Where do the wildthings go when land is sterilized. There is approximately 1550 species in one cubic foot of soils. Soil is finite. Yet we dump it, dispose and disrespect it, it is alive.
As a grower building fertility it bugs (get it).
We are lucky to live in the Pacific Flyway the the longest flying in North America from Alaska to Mexico, 400 bird species migrate and over winter here, with less and less habitat and less and less and environmental protection daily, how can we even call ourselves a Bird City?
Panama Flats and other areas in Saanich do simply not provide enough habitat.
Even the ALR lands are on the table. I am very worried when we see provincial flip flopping and abandoning policy).
If by chance, you wanted to see the treehouse us neighbourhood kids built in a Garry Oak tree when I was a ten 10 year old girl, its down a public path beside 4196 Kashtan place off Lily st in Saanich. There was already a metal ladder installed by former generations of kids. I took my husband there a couple of years ago and the trees were still there, a testament to Saanich’s former history of planning.
The ladder was between two trees that had grown and split the ladder, but it was still there. This experience of my innocent childhood picking handfulls of native flowers on the which I became to understand was in the mecca of unceded LEKWUNGEN territory directed my life into ethnobotany, ecological restoration and cultural revitalization.
Digging up the archaeology of one’s childhood is quite a luxury. I can touch upon the grandiose losses felt by the LEKWUNGEN and WSANEC and the loss of their sacred intentionally modified lands and Garry Oak ecosystem gardens.
Fertility and abundant biodiversity was a measure of success in their ecological economy and 7 generation landuse planning, which IMO, development is appropriating for profits for housing today without reciprocity. Did we even consider the severe housing crisis of the First Nations?
There are approximately 538 000 (LIDAR) trees inside the Urban Containment Boundary (UCB) that are sadly all at risk with the proposed NDP legislated proposed housing targets. A majority of my council voted to meet and exceed these targets which had no First Nations or public consultation. These trees are on private property****with the rescinding EDPA on private property protection is no longer protected *****. The foreshore and streams and underprotected.
This legacy of provincially renowed protection the legacy I ran to restore and lost the by-election in 2017 to a colleague who ran on the platform to rescind the EDPA. I was then elected in 2018, it has literally been like hell for me to advocate-advance environmental protection in the imperiled CDF in the most biodiverse province in Canada.
I am a minority voice and need your support.
I have been kept busy. On my off council time reprotecting lands once protected in my former capacity at TLC.
Restoring biodiversity conservation in Saanich as promised which is an easy promise for me to keep, has been the focal point of my council life (obviously safety, true affordability. First Nations justice, etc are key items for me too) for 7 years. The lengths I have gone only some truly know and I should be happy both the biodiversity and urban tree strategies have been approved, however they are not guaranteed funded.
***a conversation about conservation without finance is just a conversation *****
With all that we have subsidized and been legislated to absorb as tax payers I insist on this with no cuts to safety, services or our strategies.
Endemic trees of the CDF whether bylaw protected or not can be cut if in the building envelope. Just imagine the biodiversity sweep in site preparation called accurately “sterilization” (not a word I like) which occurs to prepare the site development, it removes all soils and trees (trees will be retained when possible). Ecosystem and trees connected by mycorrhizal communities are disturbed removed. ******the synergistic function of ecosystems is disconnected -and cannot perform ecosystem services. The cost of preservation of these services is far cheaper than tax payer replacement. We are liquidating and bankrupting ecosystems. This is forwarding dept of ecosystems services on our children and grandchildren.
Sadly, this mis-thinking is derived from the anthropocentric world view of regarding the value of ecosystems based on highest and best use. This according to the corporate view which collects approximately 77% of the tax revenue from real estate, and donors to political campaigns come from real estate/development lobby groups is flawed and conflictual. These influencers vie for subsidies and contracts.
We must adopt the biocentric worldview of the First Nations (master survivalists) that considered all species and 7 generations.
The Urban Forestry Strategy thankfully does include First Nations names, staff did presentations, etc, but is missing TEK traditional ecological knowledge to guide land use policy. It says in the report that it will continue to work on this. This is good, but for the majestic Garry Oaks that stand now there is a good case the time to adopt now.
To emulate, replicate and regenerate ecosystems now and in the future we need to adopt sustainable development now. (The separation of the planning and environmental department which was married as Saanich’s commitment OUR COMMON FUTURE was separated and the environmental department diffused into parks). It does not take an academic to acknowledge that rapid development without adequate environmental policy is not sustainable.
These ecosystem services come free of charge, their true cost will only be known to the tax payer until we have to replace them. We can show our gratitude now by being good stewards.
Those big majestic Garry Oaks are all at risk, boulevards trees are at risk of being in the way of servicing requirements, in the Biodiversity Report it talks about limited space in our parks (many volunteer park stewards disagree with this) but the Mayors campaign goal of planting 100 000 trees had to be edited for lack of space (“As part of his climate change plan, Murdock promised during his campaign to plant 100 000 trees by 2032 on public lands and private properties”, Times Colonist , November 08, 2022 Cindy Harnett) which we were all happy to hear.
I am glad we will continue planting trees, but my worries about land use do not land here.