Letter: Parks and ravines need respect

I want to thank Matthew Kellway (former MP for Beaches/East York) for his thoughtful and timely letter [“New urbanism must embrace nature, not oppose it,” Letters to the Editor, May 17].

I see that the point of his letter is to oppose the seven-storey condominium project that is suggested to be built into ‘our Glen Stewart Ravine’. But his use of the image that “most of us (I would say all) live with some degree of regret about what’s been lost to build the kinds of cities we live in” really resonates with me.

I listened to a wildlife filmmaker interviewed on CBC Radio this week describe the snow geese he was filming as “blotting out the sky” as they came in for a landing on a lake. He pointed out that most of us do not see this kind of beautiful phenomenon anymore.

There was a time on the North American prairies when the bison herds passing a certain point filled the view well past the horizon for hours on end. Or that the now extinct passenger pigeon would fill the sky in the same way as the snow geese, or caribou would exhibit the same image as the bison. I truly regret what we have all allowed to be done to nature.

And now we have the boreal forest burning in a way that we never imagined it could.

I agree with Kellway that we, as a collective group of city dwellers, need to demand that no more of our ‘natural’ parks and ravines, that are easily accessible to all by walking, cycling or transit, be removed from our environment. This condo should not be allowed into ‘our Glen Stewart Ravine’.

Murray Lumley

Danforth Avenue