My name is Gavin Mounsey, I am an Author, Activist, Animist, Voluntaryist and Regenerative Garden Designer
I recently learned that our local monopolized power corporation racket (Hydro One) and the Ontario government have proposed a high voltage powerline to be carved through farms, homes andCarolinian forest for their "Windsor Lakeshore Power Line" project.
The 2 proposed routes would cut through ecologically sensitive forested areas on private property (requiring clearcutting old growth trees, including the biggest Chinquapin oak I have ever seen in Ontario and 3 old growth white oaks that are over 200 years in age).
Read this petition https://www.change.org/oldgrowthtreesbeforepowerlines for more info with pictures of the intended routes (and sign to support our efforts).
I reject both their options.
Both are despicable, disrespectful, unnecessary, ecologically devastating and represent a government enabled corporate attack on people’s homes and our last few forested areas for a project that no one here wants.
Any industrial project that is capable of being built on already deforested farmland instead of cutting through some of the few forests we have left should at the very least be built on fields, not over the bones of murdered elders (old growth trees).
Each of us (regardless of genetic background, if you go back far enough) have ancestors that revered their local tree species as kin and many of our ancestors viewed old growth trees as our elders. They viewed trees as not just sources of lumber, but as sentient beings with wisdom to share with us. They saw protecting their elder rooted kin as a sacred duty and some ancient cultures codified that animistic ethos into laws which honored the elder trees as worthy of special respect and protection against exploitation. They sought to imagine ways to shape their communities, infrastructure, food production systems in a way that honored, symbiotically aligned with and respected the trees.
Today, within Statist regimes such as Canada (and Ontario) elder trees are, at best, treated as “renewable resources” or most of the time as “obstacles” standing in the way of “progress” and “sustainable development”. There are no institutionalized teachings on the sacredness of trees, on the contrary, Canadian government and industry standards follows a fundamentally colonial model, in which forest lands are treated as terra nullius. That includes forest on private property if you get in the way of the government’s corporate partners, they`ll take your land using expropriation and “land easement” laws and send in the armed goons to remove you if you resist.
It leads to forest management regimes that involve stripping forests bare, killing their many inhabitants (Ecocide), then either leaving the land denuded of trees (as most of this region is now). This ecologically illiterate worldview has resulted landscape you can observe in southwestern Ontario today which mostly deforested and devoid of old growth.
For me personally, I intend on helping all those resisting this duplicitous corporate profiteering dressed up as “necessary” for “the public good” (including but not limited to the Rhoads family) and I call on all those reading this that understand the significance of old growth forest ecology (and how few trees we have left in that age bracket here in southwestern Ontario) and I ask for your help to share this far and wide and help rally support to stop this unnecessary, corporation benefitting ecologically degenerative project from going forward.
We live in a time when governments and corporations are arriving at our front doors with a smile on their face telling us we need to allow them to seize our land in the name of “the public good” so they can clearcut the old growth trees and build industrial scale powerlines to perpetuate and scale up their racketeering operations (for electric car factories, industrial chemical soaked hydroponic grow operations and Data Centers). They tell us it is “sustainable development” they inform us that they do not care that 200 year old plus oaks will have to be cut down for their powerline to go on their intended route.
They talk about clearcutting some of the last bits of Carolinian Forest and old growth trees we have left in this county (after over a century of industrial development has decimated 99%+ of the old growth forests here) with euphemisms like “vegetation management” and they try to tell us this appalling ecologically degenerative behavior is “necessary”.
I refuse to buy nor tolerate their lies and nefarious behavior any longer.
I want to raise funds for creating firstly public outreach and educational materials (posters, flyers and doing speaking events) and then secondarily to purchase equipment that is specialized for non-invasive tree measurement and age assessment, endangered species documentation and arial photography of the forests in question.
Please help me to raise the funds necessary to educate, document elder trees/endangered species and protect these forests for future generations.
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If you would like to support our continued efforts in defending these trees against being clearcut for corporate exploitation of the land in another way, you can sign the petition linked below to help raise public awareness and put pressure on local zoning authorities and power corporation officials:
https://www.change.org/p/oppose-and-reroute-the-proposed-windsor-lakeshore-power-line-in-sw-ontario
