MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Summer 2020

68 words :: Leslie Anthony The oddly resurgent problem of people trashing the environment has been the subject of much consternation and talk of late in Canada— almost like we’ve gone back to the dirty ’60s. A widespread conclusion has been that we must collectively—citizens, business and government alike—find a way to instill respect for nature at a grassroots level, inculcating this into our own actions such that visitors to green spaces and wilderness areas are imbued with the same sense of reverence most of us grew up holding for these surroundings. But here’s the thing about the bottom-up approach: We can pick up garbage and dog poop, uproot invasive species, report illegal camping, scold folks who carelessly toss cigarette butts and warn them about fire danger, but if we leave or encourage other visual signposts of disrespect, entitlement and unconscious behaviour, no matter how innocent-seeming, we’ll get nowhere. One of the worst examples of this is a trend that has reached a fever pitch of silliness, enough to make the news almost every summer: the stacking/balancing of rocks in wilderness and natural areas. I’ve increasingly noted this behaviour everywhere. From Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula to Algonquin and Muskoka, from Rouge National Urban Park in Toronto to backcountry areas in the Rockies, from B.C. roadsides and beaches to the top of Whistler Mountain, people seem to be literally falling over themselves to “outstack” each other in a dubious competition that is: dangerous, as it often involves precipices; aesthetically disturbing; and negatively impactful—especially on delicate alpine ecosystems. You might say the jury is out as to whether the environs of many places people find their way to can be considered any form of natural. But what you see in terms of infrastructure, trails and humans is merely superficial. As with much of nature, the ground beneath your feet is a world unto itself, a microcosm of wilderness, home and habitat to countless creatures from lichens to bacteria, colonizing plants, insects (including pollinating butterflies and bees), spiders, small mammals and birds—all of which, whether on a cobble beach or a mountaintop, are linked in some way to a fragile web, centered on rocks. Never mind the actual needs of those organisms that are truly saxicolous (the biological word for rock-dwelling and/or dependent), it UNSTACK THEM No, building endless rock cairns isn’t cool No rock stack required. BIOPHILIAC