Fifty years ago, nobody specialized in environmental science because there were no jobs when you graduated. I can remember when the first classes were offered at McGill on environmental problems and they were not very popular. Now most universities offer courses and degrees based on environment. When I attended college more than half a century ago, entomology was the least appreciated course. Now, one of the most important subjects targets life in the soil but when I attended the soil was made up of water, air, and a variety of minerals.
Until Rachael Carson wrote Silent Spring, very few people paid attention to the ever decreasing number of song birds. Now we closely watch the numbers of bees, butterflies and song birds in our world.
Widespread use of insecticides, herbicides and a decrease in weeds and wildflowers were the first things to be targeted as the major cause in decline of bees, birds and butterflies. Then when our world was brought to a halt by the COVID-19 virus, we noticed a sudden increase in numbers of bees, butterflies, and songbirds. Until then, man didn’t realize the major problem was our extensive use of fossil fuel in cars, trucks, trains and planes.
Once transportation slowed to a crawl and only essential transportation of foods, medical supplies, etc. were continued, air quality improved, and the numbers of bees, butterflies and song birds increased worldwide.
Farmers have also became educated in the use of correct timing of application of insecticide after the bees and butterflies have retired for the night which eliminates poisoning of these beneficial bees and butterflies.
Since a decade ago, blue-green algae blooms on lakes and quiet areas like bays on rivers were very seldom noticed or noted in the news. Fingers were first pointed at the runoff from farmers’ fields that contained nutrients either natural or chemical. Then it was noticed that sometimes these algae blooms appeared on lakes where no farm fields even existed to drain into the water. Water tests still pointed at an increase in nutrient load of nitrogen and phosphorus. Then it was also noticed that the land beside these waterways was increasingly being built up with cottages and houses. Although the farms are now using less chemical fertilizers per acre because of the tight margins in farming and the ever-increasing price of fertilizer. Most of those nice cottages and waterfront houses have well maintained and fertilized lawns and their own septic systems. It has also recently been published that these ever increasing blue-green algae blooms emit more methane gasses than the world population of cows.
Recently farm organizations have become involved in looking at the benefits of maintaining wetlands, as well as saving high producing soils for food production.
Beaver dams have always been a problem to farmers and cottage owners because the beavers can flood farmland and cause problems around lakes where cottage docks and other ecosystems depend on maintaining a stable water level. Municipalities and provincial road departments also get very concerned when beaver dams appear upstream from culverts that carry water under roadways.
Although landowners were not allowed to destroy beaver dams, they were also liable for damages caused by those same beaver dams breaking because of excessive rain or age of an old beaver dam. These beaver dams were not engineered by certified engineers so the beavers could not be sued if a dam broke either. Recently, water levels can be controlled by instillation of overflow pipes in the beaver dams that can help keep water levels above the dams at a level that keeps fields from flooding and cottage owners happy because water levels in lakes and streams remain constant. Large parks and road departments have employed local contractors to install these beaver dam water level control pipes.
We do not and never will live in a perfect world but mankind is slowly learning how to work with nature instead of killing off or destroying everything that today we think is unnecessary.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
