From Knowing the Land is Resistance
http://knowingtheland.wordpress.com
From the sidewalk, we can peer past the thick, tangle of Raspberry and Red Osier Dogwood framing a tantilizing vision of Cattails beneath Black Willow. But it’s difficult to find a clear passage into this cool slice of green, and so we’re left fumbling along the sidewalk under the hot sun, adjacent the sun-scorched grass of Trent’s lawns.
This wetland is a hotly contested space in Peterborough, as it is slated to become the site of a privately owned residence for Trent students. We are here to explore this site, to appreciate the health and value that it has as a healing wetland.
While searching for a path in, we reflect on all the work that has been done to oppose the university’s scheme to sign a ninety-nine year lease of this land to a private company that will build a residence here. The students at Trent are overwhelmingly opposed to this project – they see it as a step towards increased privatization and fragmentation of their education. This new residence will not pay into the university, and will not be part of the college system that currently supports Trent students as in their studies. The project was recently approved by the Peterborough city council.
However, on the websites and articles that describe these struggles, we were lucky to find even one sentence about the value of this site as a wild space, as a wetland somehow thriving between a busy road and a neighbourhood. And that one sentence would usually focus only on the presence of endangered species that may be present, but not mentioning all the other signs of health that do not have special legal status but are clear to anyone who looks.
