Doug Pazienza

Regretably, interconnectedness escapes most people in our culture, I believe.... Prior to my activism in wolf conservation in BC over the past year, I would never have imagined the extent of environmental degradation there. And the paradox is that it is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Do you think the abundance of and proximity to nature somehow diminishes the need to conserve and preserve it? And do you think the natural resource economy there engenders and reinforces a plundering mindset? NB I know there are many on these pages and others like the folks at Raincoast doing great work to remediate, preserve and conserve.

Thank you, Leslie. A great template for a letter to BC politicians. Theberges are the voices of reason and wisdom. We need as much as we can get in this mixed-up world.

Barb - thank you very much for introducing me to Val Asher. And I have a newfound respect for Ted Turner. I am very grateful to you, Val and Ted for the good things you are doing. I am not Canadian but I will write to the politicians you listed. May the force be with you!

Are ecology and the environment low priorities for Canadian politicians? Are provincial governments responsive and accountable to their constituents, do you think? They have the appearance of being very bureaucratic and removed. It is reassuring that you have a watchful eye. Social media is a vast underground that is invisible to those of us who don't really use it so much.

Thank you for posting this.

Absolutely. Toronto-based Polymet Mining Corp owned by Swiss mining giant Glencore and Twin Metals owned by Antofagasta, a major mining company based in Chile both seek to open copper mines on the Minnesota Iron Range. They are both in sensitive watersheds in close proximity to the near pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a designated Federal wilderness adjacent to Quetico Provincial Park in northwest Ontario.

Nothing so blind as those who won't see.

And the mistrust is certainly warranted. The Industrial Growth Society is very shortsighted and disposable. Mining depends on two things and look at the language: human resources and natural resources. When one is depleted the other is discarded. Typically the exhaustion of the natural resources comes first. Then the human resources are just unemployed statistics and investors in their own pension funds that are gambled on Wall Street. They can't even fall back on the natural environment because the mining company ravaged it.

Decades ago I read that the most ecologically destructive creature is the feral cat. Maybe it needs updating. The feral human!

This whole right brain/left brain, rational/emotional, science/emotion thing is ridiculous. Humans are the sum total of the biochemical, physiological, perceptual, emotional, behavioural and relational "whole person" that comprises the human organism. You are kidding yourself if you think we can parse out the bits that don't conform to your perception of science. What science? I hope we can become stewards rather than managers of wildlife and something tells me that you might agree with that. Let go of the binary thinking and begin to accept that the best way forward is a synthesis of knowledge from diverse sources of our knowing that take into account tens of thousands of years of wisdom. Science is not strictly number crunching. The interconnected web of life, to which humans belong, requires a systemic and holistic approach that takes into account more than statistical data. And that data is important. The natural world is dynamic and why wouldn't wolves mirror that. Wolf density varies greatly according to prey, human activities, habitat and other variables. Many wolf hunters are seeing wolf tracks and drawing conclusions that wolf numbers are out of control. They are seeing a localized snapshot and drawing inferences. This is not a scientific conclusion whatsoever.

This whole right brain/left brain, rational/emotional, science/emotion thing is ridiculous. Humans are the sum total of the biochemical, physiological, perceptual, emotional, behavioural and relational "whole person" that comprises the human organism. You are kidding yourself if you think we can parse out the bits that don't conform to your perception of science. What science? I hope we can become stewards rather than managers of wildlife and something tells me that you might agree with that. Let go of the binary thinking and begin to accept that the best way forward is a synthesis of knowledge from diverse sources of our knowing that take into account tens of thousands of years of wisdom. Science is not strictly number crunching. The interconnected web of life, to which humans belong, requires a systemic and holistic approach that takes into account more than statistical data. And that data is important. The natural world is dynamic and why wouldn't wolves mirror that. Wolf density varies greatly according to prey, human activities, habitat and other variables. Many wolf hunters are seeing wolf tracks and drawing conclusions that wolf numbers are out of control. They are seeing a localized snapshot and drawing inferences. This is not a scientific conclusion whatsoever.

My generation used to refer to a hunting target as having a "sporting chance". Nah, not even with all the tech today. And the very language of referring to it as sport is, to be frank, repugnant. There is nothing sporting about it.

My generation used to refer to a hunting target as having a "sporting chance". Nah, not even with all the tech today. And the very language of referring to it as sport is, to be frank, repugnant. There is nothing sporting about it.

Really? I didn't say that! Timber is a renewable resource. Preferable to plastic. But clear-cutting. No good. Logging ancient rainforest. No good. The timber and mining industries have shot themselves in the foot. They have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. They have systematically exploited the land and killed everything in their way. British Columbians work in these industries! It's not like some phantom devastated the environment. If the people are complicit in these activities, don't wait for others to put a stop to it. Stand up and be counted.

Wolves are resilient. I wouldn't describe them as prolific breeders. And if they were, according to your remarks, you fail to take account of pup mortality which is high. I don't know who annointed you to post your "facts" that are less than factual. The only facts you espouse are hyperbolic. And by the way, when did you have your vasectomy?