Save the Rouge Valley System Canadian Geographic
Spring, 2003 – Today, the rallying cry of Save the Rouge Valley System is “It’s Wild in the City!” and as stewards of the largest urban park in North America, SRVS members have good reason to be excited. But back in 1975, when 17 citizens in the Rouge River area got together to take on a Goliath – urban sprawl on the northeastern outskirts of Toronto – their task was formidable. After more than a quarter century’s worth of lobbying and legal action, the SRVS, now 2,000 members strong, has been able to shift its focus to rehabilitating and restoring the watershed wildlife habitat.

The group’s first major victory came in 1990, when David Peterson’s Ontario Liberal government pledged some 4,500 hectares to create Rouge Park from land that stretches across parts of Markham, Scarborough and Pickering. The landmark win reflects the group’s calculated change in strategy. “We realized we had to market the environment like Coca-Cola,” says SRVS president Glenn De Baeremaeker. “We shifted from a defensive posture to a sustainable strategy mindset – green economics.”

The result today is a park that is home to an all-but-vanished Carolinian forest ecosystem whose inhabitants include 400 bird species, 55 species of fish, 47 amphibian and reptile species and 2,200 species of plants.

“I have seen monarch butterflies so thick, it’s as it’s snowing,” he reports.

To date 4,500 volunteers have pitched in as part of the SRVS Habitat Restoration Project to rescue wildlife habitat by clearing river silt and removing dams so that fish can live and breathe freely, planting thousands of trees, shrubs and wildflowers, creating wetland and installing bluebird, bat and butterfly boxes. Involving people is one of the keys to the group’s success.

“When you do hands-on restoration, you get a sense of ownership,” says De Baeremaeker. “And then you want to protect it.”

Bolstered by its results, SRVS is seeking to protect another 15,380 hectares. That means stepping up efforts to help area landowners see the human benefits of saving natural environments, says De Baeremaeker. “Now our goal is to make it last.”