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Conservationists have to win again and again On our cramped and crowded Cape, where there is less and less natural
land available, towns are eyeing land that their voters set aside
for open space when they need a site for a wind turbine, parking,
or a fire station. The land is just sitting there “unused,” they
think, and it's "free." We will spend this century fighting rearguard actions, trying to preserve those lands we thought were preserved in the past century. The threats will come from all angles and be relentless. Already, there is a fire station in Barnstable and a softball field in Falmouth that sit on land bought for Conservation Commissions in the 1980s. Last year, statewide, 319 acres of public conservation land were converted to other uses, such as senior centers, affordable housing, and water towers. Granted, in many cases, there was land traded back, but once towns get in the habit of treating their conservation land like a convertible asset, it becomes easier the next time to wheel and deal with it. David Brower, long-time leader of the Sierra Club, once said, “Conservationists have to win again and again and again. The enemy only has to win once. We can’t win. We can only get a stay of execution.” There is no end to the list of beneficial community needs that conservation land is looked at to solve. There are those who think they need a subsidy in the form of town land to make their enterprise work. It has regularly come from proponents of wellfields and ballfields. Now, it is farmers and alternative energy advocates. Soon, it will be for wastewater treatment. A Dennis farmer suggests “using conservation land for sustainable farming” to encourage the locally-grown food movement. Brewster and Harwich officials hope to site municipal wind turbines on land bought for open space habitat and water protection, in order to keep the turbines away from neighborhoods. Brower again: “All a conservation group can do is defer something. After we win a battle, the wilderness is still there, and still vulnerable. When a conservation group loses a battle, the wilderness is dead.” By ecological standards, there is little wilderness left here. One piece is a 1,200-acre block of forest in the Cape Cod National Seashore, owned jointly by the Town of Wellfleet and the National Park Service. As a wildlife habitat still unfragmented by development, its integrity for shy, sensitive nesting songbirds, such as scarlet tanagers, is still intact. A 1,200-acre habitat block is valued much more highly than four 300-acre blocks divided by roads or houses. Before terminating the project late last month, the Town of Wellfleet sought to build a large wind turbine, access road and transmission line on 100+ acres of town-owned forest in the heart of this block. Though not reserved for conservation, it is the Town’s largest and most significant upland habitat. The amount of land consumed by energy development would have been marginal on a percentage basis. But the impact on the integrity of the forest would have been enormous, a wilderness no more. Indeed, the biggest threat to open space in the 21st Century will not be from commercial developers, but from ourselves and local leaders searching for solutions. In the Wellfleet case, a grass-roots group called Save Our Seashore had to form rapidly and effectively around the issue, “to speak for the trees,” as Dr. Seuss’ Lorax once did. The Selectmen finally and courageously voted to abandon the turbine proposal, but the woods sit there with their fate undetermined, a platform waiting for the next thing to come along. (A town landfill proposal was similarly beaten back on this site in the 1980s.) Being surrounded by National Park land suggests that the best idea might be moving that land into permanent conservation status. Owing to the anxiety caused by rapid growth, Cape Cod voters have been strong supporters of the need to buy and protect open space. Between 1999 and 2007, Cape taxpayers in all 15 towns bought 4,450 acres through the Land Bank program. This was a heavy lift, but absent open space, there is no Cape Cod. Keeping faith with the voters means keeping these lands free from other uses, no matter how worthy. Otherwise, the Land Bank’s Golden Age of Open Space Protection will be in danger of becoming a cynical “bait and switch” program. Land Bank meant a funding source for open space, not a bank of land from which to make withdrawals. Ultimately, there is no law strong enough to prevent any public conservation land or wilderness from being diverted to other uses. There is only the determined political will of Cape Codders to demand that our open space be left open, for all to enjoy, for all time. Mark H. Robinson has served as Executive Director of The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts since 1986. (This article originally appeared in The Cape Codder and Barnstable Enterprise newspapers in April 2010.) David Brower, Sierra Club Executive Director, 1952-1969 |
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