Saturday, August 1, 2009

Another reason not to reduce agriculture in Minto Brown Island Park

April 4, 2009: Ride TrainingThere's no reason that agriculture and enjoyment of the park should be viewed as conflicting. Image by Mr.Thomas via Flickr

Nick Kristof, a native Oregonian, has an outstanding column today about "nature deficit disorder" -- the increasing tyranny of electronic doodads that dominate kids' lives and the paucity of contact with the natural world.

How to Lick a Slug

















Well, if we're worried about nature deficit, doesn't it make sense to reduce the agricultural acreage and increase the "restored" naturescape in the park? No, for a number of reasons.

First, agriculture is natural. Agriculture is how humanity earns its living, just like herons fish and eat frogs and slugs eat plants. For all intents and purposes, every calorie we eat derives from farming, directly (plant foods) or indirectly (animals nourished on crops). When you reduce this basic and essential human activity in the park, you reduce the park to a monoculture just like the suburban sprawl that surrounds this gem. People whose conception of nature means "no agriculture" have an impoverished view of nature and man's place in it -- they see man as outside of nature, able to observe it at a distance, rather than a being whose every molecule is part of the web of life, whose every sip of water has been shared by innumerable other creatures. Children (and adults) LOVE to watch agriculture when it is done at a human scale, as it is in Minto Brown Island Park -- and it can be even more so if we preserve the right to use that land for farming (the way the farmers who deeded the land to the City thought it would be preserved).

Second, most of the park already is "natural" in the sense of being undeveloped (no structures or permanent habitations). Of the 900 acres in the park, the 200 acres proposed to be locked away forever include some of the highest, driest ground in the park, two small parcels on either side of a legacy cherry grove -- a place where chemical sprays were never used and, therefore, a place easily converted to organic production. Oddly, the most regularly flooded ag land in the park is not amongst the acres proposed for this "conservation."

Third, the idea that simply "restoring" acreage to plantings similar to those found in undisturbed parcels is inviting is wrong. The most inviting and appealing acreage in the park ARE the agricultural lands and the boundaries surrounding them. In nature, boundaries (ocean/land, forest/field, prairie/lake, reef/sea, etc.) are the most interesting and biologically richest places of all. Replant the 200 acres into black cottonwoods and you will soon have a place that few children will go to, even if their parents let them.

The Minto Brown Island Park Master Plan calls for agriculture to be continued -- not reduced, and for conversion to organic agriculture. We have a unique opportunity to increase the natural diversity in our park in a way that puts humans into the natural world, rather than defining nature as a place where humans are excluded or limited to defined paths. If we want to have "naturally literate" future generations, we need to have places where they can see humans being part of nature, rather than just observing it through a windshield or on park display signs.

UPDATE: August Salem Monthly has a small story on this.
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Says a thousand thousands of words

Minto Survey

Minto BrownImage by voodooangel via Flickr

A friend writes:
As some of you know, I've been following the proposed use of federal economic stimulus money to create a conservation easement in Salem's Minto Brown Park [which will forever bar any kind of agriculture from 200 acres of the park, most of which are currently being cultivated]. On August 10, the City Council will decide whether or not to accept the Feds' offer. It's hard to know how people would react to the changes the easement would create in the park.

So here's an unofficial, 4-question survey being conducted by a Salem resident to assess people's feelings about the proposed changes.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No Ikea in Salem, but great stuff anyway

The IkeaHacker website is full of creative ways to use bits and pieces of stuff from Ikea -- including this elegant design for a quick and easy coldframe, a Salem essential for stretching the fall harvest (sometimes through the winter entirely) and for getting an early start on spring and summer delights.

Not a local business though -- so just make a list of ideas and then remember to stop at Ikea when some you're up there near the Portland airport for some other reason.

New brewpub in NE Salem??

Growing HopsHops -- the source of the phrase "hopped up?" Image by joelplutchak via Flickr

The nice folks who run the Willamette Noodle Company (whose veggie mac and cheese is to die or even murder for) have put a cryptic hint in their newsletter that suggests that we may have even more to love about Salem soon --- a new brewpub would be my guess (since grapes grow in Colombia too):
Boy you are all a curious bunch! Yes, something new is still "Brewing" for our little Broadway location... and the hints will start soon as to what's coming! Awww... what the heck - I'll give you one now. If I was a betting woman I would pick something that is brewed with something grown in Oregon as opposed to, say, Columbia [sic]. :) Happy guessing!

Janet & Robert
Willamette Noodle Company

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]