A History of the Nature Conservancy of Canada
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by Bill Freedman
Oxford Univeristy Press, Don Mills, Ontario, 2013. 262 pp., $29.95 hardcover
A double review with Canadians and the Natural Environment to the Twenty-First Century
by Neil S. Forkey
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2012. 168 pps., $24.95 paperback
For a quick and very readable overview of Canada’s complex history of environmental issues, Neil Forkey’s latest book is a good choice. Canadians and the Natural Environment to the Twenty-First Century is a slender volume that combines an immense amount of data with straightforward storytelling.
Forkey, a visiting Canadian studies professor at St. Lawrence University in New York, delves into the record as far back as the 1600s to explore the ongoing tension between the need to exploit the environment and the need to protect it. For instance, as early as 1620, missionary Gabriel Sagard was lamenting the imminent collapse of beaver populations in New France due to over-trapping to meet fur-trade demand.
Meanwhile, ginseng, a medicinal root much valued by Native people, was pretty much tapped out in New France by the 1750s, thanks to a short-lived but brisk trade with China. Desperate Aboriginal harvesters even took to setting forests ablaze in 1752 in their search for the precious medicine.
Forkey explores how environmental controls came to be put in place. By the 1860s, there were already strong calls for government intervention to set aside forest reserves to quell rapid deforestation. But it was hard to turn the tide — by the First World War, ninety per cent of mature woodland south of the Canadian Shield was gone.
The book looks at how our view of nature has changed over time. By the 1800s and 1900s, romantic views of the environment took hold and nature was seen as worth preserving for its own sake. But it wasn’t until after the Second World War that a strong environmental movement took shape.
The book provides a good overview. My only qualm is that it contains no illustrations of any kind.
Environmental issues can feel overwhelming, and oftentimes individuals are at a loss to know what difference they can make. So it’s nice to see a book like A History of the Nature Conservancy of Canada. It’s the story of how a few volunteers came together in 1962 to establish a charity that today is supported by forty thousand donors and that manages 2.2 million acres of ecologically important land nationwide. Land trusts such as the NCC work with the private sector to establish protected areas.
Author Bill Freedman is a biologist, and, while he writes with a scientific mind, he also writes with passion. As he states in an early chapter: “We do love the natural world. But sometimes we hurt the one we love.” It’s a statement worth pondering.
— Nelle Oosterom
— Nelle Oosterom (Read bio)
Nelle Oosterom is the Senior Editor of Canada's History magazine.