Danielle Marcoux-Hunter

If we want to protect our biodiversity, some of our best opportunities might be found in our urban centres – just ask Scarborough-native Danielle Marcoux-Hunter, a young leader committed to helping nature and people coexist in the urban landscape. She spoke with us by email to explain why the Toronto area’s Rouge National Urban Park might be even more important than Banff to safeguarding biodiversity and why perfecting the model begins with young leaders.

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Why does nature matter to you?

My answer to this question begins long before I ever noticed nature’s impact on my well-being, let alone the world’s well-being. Without consciously knowing it, I was constantly exposed to nature growing up – I lived just outside of Algonquin Park as a young child, where I shared my backyard play space with deer, turtles, coyotes, and wolves. I took swimming lessons in and learned to skate on a local lake, and my family dedicated weeks each year to camping at parks across Ontario.

After that, growing up in Toronto, I became increasingly dissociated from nature and wildlife. Now, after refocusing my interests, I have found myself working professionally to improve urban wilderness landscapes for the people and wildlife that share them. As a young adult, I am very conscious of my changing moods and overall wellness as a result of the time I spend outdoors.

Often times when you live in big cities, you can become so disconnected from the natural world (like I briefly did), that you don’t associate the environment with human vitality. I think it is extremely important for youth, whether through their families, schools or extra-curricular groups, to take the time to get outdoors and experience nature through whatever level of immersion they are comfortable with, and remember that a healthy environment is what drives life on Earth.

You decided to be an active voice for the environment at a young age. Why?

I was more or less passive on being vocal about environmental issues until I saw Rob Stewart’s documentary, Sharkwater, when I was a teenager. When this film came out, I was taking environmental studies at my high school, a course that I was privileged to take as most schools at the time did not offer it. These experiences intertwined, and I learned so much in a short time about how my natural world – the one I grew up in and visited on my summer vacations – was at risk of biodiversity loss, global climate change and extreme weather events, ozone depletion, the list goes on… I knew I wanted to be more informed on these subjects, so I enrolled in university for environmental science. Throughout my studies, I worked in various careers – in retail, at a bank – and I was left feeling un-fulfilled. I knew I needed to find a way to work, professionally work, toward progressive environmental change.

Now, even when I’ve had a hard day at work, I know that my small efforts are combining with similar efforts around the world and helping to make global change.

Fewer young people are getting outside. Does that matter?

I definitely agree that fewer young people are getting outside – although I don’t know whether this is because I live in a big city and the ‘safe’ outdoors that children once explored on their own, by bike, with their friends, are less accessible.

Health and wellness studies have shown that dedicating time for youth to spend outdoors each day improves their ability to focus, decreases negative thoughts, and increases their recreation and resulting physical health. These are all benefits that youth, their teachers and their families can appreciate.
I think it is vital that youth are given the opportunity to get outdoors recreationally, but also in an educational environment – an outdoor classroom gives students the opportunity to feel safe and comfortable, something I’ve learned many students do not feel, when they come out on their first field trip with Friends of the Rouge Watershed. I find I often have to reassure students that they are safe, and most times, by the end of their visit, they cannot wait to return. Once students break past this ‘safety’ boundary, I have witnessed them strongly connect the interdisciplinary environmental themes they learn in their classrooms to the real, physical world.

A big part of your work to create local stewards, I would assume, is to make the outdoors accessible to all audiences. Why is this critical?

Making the outdoors accessible to all audiences is critical for different reasons – one, to ensure everyone is given an equal opportunity to make connections between theoretical ideas and the physical environment, and two, to take these connections further to garner more widespread knowledge and support for the need for progressive environmental change.

Here in the Rouge Watershed, the development of a national park would not have been possible without the advocacy and dedication of hundreds of diverse community members to protect this landscape from urban encroachment and development. The resulting Rouge National Urban Park, along with adjacent municipal parks, are here to benefit all audiences. However, simultaneously, green spaces like these require support and stewardship. In order to achieve the park and watershed’s potential to provide recreation and ecological benefits to the millions of residents who live within and surrounding the Rouge Watershed, the residents need to feel their interests are reflected in this protected space, resulting in a sense of accountability to take action to become local stewards.

Many students will want to know – how do you engage the unengaged? What have you seen? What’s working and what opportunities remain?

I think Friends of the Rouge Watershed offers a unique experience and setting for students to become engaged in the natural world – students from the Greater Toronto Area come out with their schools, families, and community groups, and get the opportunity to give back to nature by taking part in an activity that has tangible evidence of success. We spend our mornings with students planting trees, flowering shrubs, and wildflowers as well as removing invasive species, weeding, mulching, and watering plants. These activities take place in a restoration site – not usually the most visually attractive site (for example, an old landfill, a barren gravel pit, an old agricultural field). Then, we connect the experience by taking students to past restoration sites (ranging from just a few years to 28 years old) – here they can see the trees that were planted by youth like them in the 90s beginning to mature; the bird boxes that were built by volunteers being used by families of tree swallows or wood ducks; the ponds that were dug by volunteers and meadows that were planted by students, now crawling with at risk snapping turtles, Blanding’s turtles, and a diversity of wetland flora and fauna. This is really when students become engaged with the environment – they learn about the problems the environment is facing, and we show them ways that their small but generous actions can benefit and restore the natural world in their local community.

Conservation can be divisive. How do we bridge differences and make nature a common value?

Conservation is a non-partisan issue. There are different opinions on the need for conservation, and also different methods of how to achieve conservation. I think the important first step is acknowledging the need for conservation and providing small, tangible actions for all people to take. First-hand experience is the strongest method I know to bring people together and unite them for a common cause – they can experience the difference their actions make and understand that it is not a political issue.

Is apathy your biggest opposition?

To some level, I do agree that apathy plays a part. Environmental change often comes from grassroots initiatives, yet grassroots initiatives require the support of local community members. When a community is disengaged, it is difficult to achieve the support needed to bring forward important issues. I think the biggest strength we have to overcome apathy is education. The number of adult community members who have built a learned experience of the environment through hands-on initiatives like those offered by Friends of the Rouge Watershed is motivating. I think it is very important for youth to be exposed to environmental issues at young age in order to ensure their connection with, and interest in advocating for solutions to environmental stressors in the future. But I think it is important to deliver environmental education to all generations – and often this occurs by youth taking home the principles they’ve learned and discussing them with their parents and family.

Why can places like the Rouge be a gateway to understanding why nature matters?

The Rouge is a very unique opportunity when it comes to being a gateway for folks to understand why nature matters. First of all – the Rouge is a national park in an urban area. Southern Ontario has less than 1% of its land protected by provincial and national parks. However, it is also the most populated area of Canada. The Rouge National Urban Park is super accessible – it connects to Toronto’s local transit system, there is a park bus that transports people from popular transit stations to various trail heads, and it is ALSO within a one-hour drive to 20% of Canada’s population (this is my favourite statistic from Parks Canada). Many national parks are located in remote settings that take a lot of planning and travel to visit.

Can the Rouge play a role in protecting biodiversity?

The question isn’t can the Rouge play a role – I think in terms of Canada’s biodiversity, the Rouge can play potentially the most important role in protecting biodiversity. Thinking about the definition of biodiversity itself – it is the diversity, the amount of different living things in one area. Here, we have over 1700 species of flora and fauna, making it one of the most biodiverse parks in Canada. Additionally, the Rouge is home to Canada’s Great-Lakes St. Lawrence ecozone, and the northern most tip of the Carolinian ecozone – a unique southern ecozone that only exists in Canada in Southern Ontario, and as such, Southern Ontario is home to 20% of Canada’s species at risk. It is crucial that we are able to showcase the Carolinian zone to all Canadians by protecting it within the Rouge National Urban Park.

Is this place as amazing as a Banff? If so, why?

Although most Canadians may not envision the Rouge as the first national park that comes to mind, I think it is an amazing place and definitely fits into Canada’s diverse park system. Located in Southern Ontario, of course the landscape does not include majestic mountains or active seas, but the Rouge has unique vistas and traits of its own that make it so important for Canadians.

The Rouge watershed contains remnants of old growth forests, including white pine, that are extremely hard to come across in Southern Ontario. It is home to marshes, coastal (freshwater) wetlands, wildflower meadows, cliffs, glacial deposits, narrow streams and large rivers. Additionally, these diverse habitats are sprinkled with unique Carolinian species that cannot be found anywhere in Canada outside of Southern Ontario. Not only is the park one of Canada’s most biodiverse parks to visit, but it is Canada’s most accessible national park.

Is there a danger in getting too many people to love the Rouge? Might we love this park to death, especially as it’s in an urban setting? Or is it more important to get people outside?

I think that the accessibility of the Rouge plays into its importance in being able to protect biodiversity. Perhaps with a greater urban population, the Rouge will experience more visitors, and in turn, more people will become engaged in wanting to protect what is already here. We have seen that local initiatives to improve and put back habitat in the Rouge has increased the species that live here, and provided the opportunity for those that may have been locally extirpated to return. I am also hopeful that this unique urban park opportunity will mean that more people get to access a national park in their lifetime. However, there is definitely danger associated with a high number of visitors, including littering, the spreading of invasive species, erosion, illegal harvesting and damage to wildlife on and off trails.

The Rouge, surrounded by urban sprawl and industry, is already facing immense stress incomparable to most other national parks. Unlike other national parks that are often created to preserve pristine ecosystems, the Rouge is a degraded ecosystem with the hope that national park status will protect and improve its health. The fact that this is the most accessible park in Canada sets the Rouge up to potentially be the most visited park in Canada. But, without proper and careful measures in place, the amount of exposure could be highly degrading, not beneficial, for ecosystem health.

On the other hand, I think that with more people visiting the park, there is greater probability for people to become local stewards and to take action and develop partnerships with agencies like Parks Canada. Actions should include ensuring accessible signage, trail markings, maps, and rules are available to all visitors to prevent more damage to the Rouge ecosystem.

Can the Rouge model be duplicated across the country? Should it?

I think that the Rouge National Urban Park is a nouveau and unique style of park for Canada’s park system. The ‘National Park’ tag has brought more attention and funding to this vastly biodiverse 79km² of land. I think Canada has a great opportunity to protect urban ecosystems against increasing urbanization pressures, while providing people with the recreational and educational opportunities of national parks in a more accessible manner.

That said, the Rouge National Urban Park is still the first of its kind, and it is in development. The Rouge is quite different from other national parks, as it has already experienced centuries of deforestation, industry, agriculture, and urbanization (whereas other national parks are often created with the goal of preserving previously untouched ecosystems). I would like to see how the park develops over time in order to conclude if urban parks, like the Rouge, are better off managed as provincial/municipal parks rather than as part of the national park system.

Should we be placing a higher emphasis on restoring/re-wilding and protecting developed or altered landscapes?

Absolutely. The Insurance Bureau of Canada, leading universities and scientists all agree – restoring natural infrastructure is the number one cost-effective solution to combat the effects of climate change, flooding, and related biodiversity loss. In order to preserve Canadian wildlife from coast-to-coast-to-coast, more action needs to be taken to restore as many altered landscapes as possible.

Friends of the Rouge Watershed has worked with over 65,000 volunteers since 1991 to restore over 3.5 million m² of forest, wetland, meadow, and grassland habitat across the Rouge Watershed. These local actions have recreated habitat for species that were once locally extirpated in the Rouge. Additionally, the number of species, including species at risk, is increasing. Although local efforts may seem small, when combined on the national or global scale, they do make a change.

What’s your vision for a better balance between the needs of people and nature?

Since beginning my career in conservation, I have kept my own personal motto of striving for a better balance between wildlife and humans that share space in urban landscapes. I think all human activity, even in urban areas, needs to consider wildlife to a degree. This is especially true for new development and industry, and I would like to see ecosystem friendly updates become more common in the maintenance processes of older infrastructure.

As a young leader, do you think you’re always taken as seriously as you should be?

Yes and no. I think there is so much emphasis on getting youth involved in environmental issues that other professionals set the intention of hearing out youth leaders when working together. However, although I often feel my voice is heard, I think there is still a need for ideas and collaboration opportunities for youth to be taken off of the drawing board and implemented into reality.

Why is it important for young people to make their voice heard?

Young people are ultimately the ones who will be feeling the results of the decisions being made today. If their say is not heard, they will be living in another generation’s ‘ideal’. Getting youth activated in issues has always been a challenge but it is increasingly important with imminent global issues like climate change and extreme weather events that may change the course of our future.

With that birds-eye view, where are we succeeding and failing when it comes to youth leadership and the environment?

I think that a lot of issues have been brought to light over the past decade, especially with the exponential expansion of social media, and awareness of the world’s environmental problems is definitely more common. Additionally, it is great to see government representatives and agencies listening to their constituents’ concerns and putting the environment first in their platforms.

However, we can improve by ensuring that promises, especially from government, are not just words. Education and awareness of environmental issues is just the first step. Now, we need to implement realistic strategies that will return tangible results and make environmental change.

Can one young person change the world?

Yes. Young people have the opportunity all over the world to become environmental leaders and change the world. Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes. I think about advocates like Greta Thunberg and Licypriya Kangujam, young leaders who are showing other young people that it is possible to have your voice heard globally at a young age.

For me, working for Friends of the Rouge Watershed, a small NGO based out of the east of Toronto, I have witnessed first-hand what change can come about by small actions taken by youth volunteers. Across the Rouge, there are new forests, new wetlands, and diverse species to be seen, all thanks to the volunteers who came out and worked with Friends of the Rouge Watershed to restore habitat across degraded landscapes here. I know that my daily actions are making a change for wildlife and humans, and that is really motivating and will continue to inspire me for the rest of my career.

Different Perspectives