In December this year the UN Climate Conference takes place in
Paris. Ahead of the summit, we will release a series of stories,
titled "Earthprints," that show the ability of humans to impact
change on the landscape of the planet. From sprawling urban
growth to the construction of new islands, each site has
profoundly changed in the last 30 years. Each story has
accompanying NASA satellite images that show the scale of the
change. (http://widerimage.reuters.com/story/earthprints-leslie-street-spit)
By Andrea Hopkins
TORONTO, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Like a rooftop garden in an
overcrowded financial district, Toronto's Leslie Street Spit is
an unexpected urban oasis whose narrow escape from development
has brought marshes, lagoons and forests to the center of
Canada's largest city.
Jutting into Lake Ontario just minutes from the worst of
Toronto traffic, the more formally named Tommy Thompson Park was
created over 60 years ago by the dumping of dredged sand,
concrete chunks and earth fill, expanding what was once just a
thin strip of land in the city's busy harbor.
The dumping continues to this day but while development
plans have threatened the spit from its beginning, the passion
of the cyclists, birders, hikers and naturalists who flock to
the artificial peninsula every weekend has preserved the
unlikely park and left nature to prevail.
For some, the spit offers the best views out to the Great
Lake and towards the city's soaring skyline. For others, the
auto-free roads offer safe, serene cycling, running and
roller-blading in a city whose streets are often clogged with
cars.
For most, it offers a 5-km (3-mile) stretch of nature
untamed by development: home or visiting spot to 300 species of
birds and site of 500 hectares (1200 acres) of pioneer plant
life, cottonwood and poplar groves, grassy marshes and gravel
beaches.
While trucks hauling concrete and earth from the city's
construction sites ply the spit from Monday to Friday, the park
is turned over to an eager public every weekend, when its main
road and numerous winding paths beckon city residents. Admission
is free.
More than 100,000 people visit annually, according to the
Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority, which owns the land
and water bodies included in the park.
Initially eyed for port-related facilities in the 1950s, the
spit was opened to the public in the 1970s after a decrease in
lake shipping made those early plans obsolete.
The spit of land has a diverse ecosystem, with a rugged
eastern shoreline giving way to wildflower meadows in the middle
sections and marshy lagoons on the western shore, beneath the
city skyline.
"Nature has a remarkable way of taking over," said Karen
McDonald, project manager with the conservation authority. "It's
really strong in some areas and plant life started to grow here
without the help of a human hand."
The gradual transformation from a lifeless pile of rubble to
an urban wilderness means the Leslie Spit is never finished, an
ever-changing and unmanicured parcel of water and land.
Cobble beaches are, upon closer examination, composed of red
brick, concrete, and kitchen tile worn to colorful pebbles, with
patches of rusting rebar and urban detritus piled nearby -
unlovely to some, a gritty oasis to others.
Colonies of gulls, terns, herons and cormorants nest along
the beaches or in the groves, attracting binocular-toting
enthusiasts at dawn. Late summer brings butterfly enthusiasts to
the spit, while anglers fish from the park's shores and small
bridges.
The place has been eyed for other uses in the bustling city
- the population of greater Toronto is some 6 million. From
early on, an activist group who call themselves the Friends of
the Spit have fought off development, including plans for a
hotel, amphitheatre, government dock, yacht clubs, parking lots,
water skiing school and campground.
"As honey attracts bees, vacant land attracts plans," the
Friends say on their website www.friendsofthespit.ca, pledging
persistent vigilance to protect the park for public use forever.
"No other piece of land has attracted such passionate
defenders, nor has any other piece of land had such a lengthy
battle waged, simply to maintain it and allow it to grow as
nature intended."
(Editing by Frances Kerry)