Why are we ignoring great outdoors?

Why are we ignoring great outdoors?

I got up a little after 5:00 this morning and I walked down to the streams on the property here near my cabin. As I shined a flashlight into the streams that have always been so full of life with a variety of minnows and several different sizes of crayfish, and a few frogs and an occasional salamander, I noticed things were starting to change. There were much fewer minnows and the number of crayfish swimming around on the bottom was down to one here and one there...and I was lucky to find these two. All because of the ignorance of people and because of several huge houses being built on this property with no concern for nature or for the people that already live here or come to this natural paradise to visit.

When the builder would not take action to fix all the many problems over the course of over eight months, and when the county would not take action, I called up the Environmental Protection Division and they sent out Amy Mundel and she took action and got things done! Both of these multi-million dollar houses were shut down until they meet the proper requirements! And now the multimillionaire owners of these houses, who own Neocom Solutions, and the county is trying to target me and bring me harm only because of my concern for the destruction of this paradise that is so near to my heart and that I have enjoyed since I was a little kid. This was also one of my father’s favorite places to enjoy the outdoors, and now they are trying to run me out like they have already done one of my neighbors who was the first family to live on this awesome property.

Why are we ignoring the great outdoors? Why have people become so indifferent to the importance of nature? Most people in this town just ignore the importance of preserving nature. Here in Canton, Georgia, the building department and their inspectors, the people in Planning and Zoning, those in Engineering and the people in Environmental Health, and those in the Marshal’s office, all don’t seem to care at all about the life in these spring fed streams. And because these people don’t care, when the lives of these creatures that make these streams alive are stamped out they won’t even miss them. When these live streams become dead, like all the other streams around our poorly managed developments, none of these people will ever give a hoot. We are destroying nature, and by destroying nature and our environment we are slowly destroying this marvelous earth.

There are so many other aspects of nature that should be preserved in this virtual paradise. This beautiful place is located in a deep valley surrounded by rolling hills at the corner of the Etowah River and Lake Allatoona. It is literally like another world down in this valley and down the nature trails that wind through the steep rolling hills to the lake. Speaking of not giving a hoot, there are many owls that live in this area. One can hear them hooting everyday and every night and occasionally I will get to see one of these fantastic creatures. In fact I can hear one now as I write this. One day they will have no place to live or they will not be able to survive the damage caused by the ignorance of these harmful development practices. There are also big and beautiful redheaded woodpeckers, and many other kinds of birds, not to mention the other wildlife that need this land to survive. There are also many different varieties of butterflies and other cool insects that are in abundance in this area of natural beauty. Why don’t people care about all this?

This place is in many ways a kind of tropical rain forest. In fact it often rains here and nowhere else in the area. The clouds are often fed by the moisture off the water that goes for many miles. Almost every morning there is moisture in the air. This moisture feeds the many thousands of Earleaf Magnolias and the many species of ferns that cover the grounds, some in thick beds by the hundreds and some are giant ferns, four or five feet tall. There are many hundreds of wild holly and wild azaleas, and the hills by the spring fed streams are covered with Mountain Laurel. Dogwoods proliferate here and there are so many other plants and flowers that grow in this area in abundance and in this area only.

Why do we continue to destroy the very nature that is dependent on our own long-term survival? We already can’t eat the fish out of most of the rivers and lakes in this country and even our great oceans are becoming polluted. Some of the great whales have cysts on them because of our ignorance. There is not much time left for the oceans! Why?! Why are we doing this? It is so simple to use environmentally friendly developments and environmentally friendly landscaping, yet we don’t do it. Why? Is it because we have come to ignore our great outdoors?

The amphibians are already having a very difficult time and the frogs are rapidly disappearing--and when the frogs are dying it means we are definitely doing something wrong. The fact most humans seem unwilling to see, is that when the amphibians are all gone we will not be far behind!

The commissioners think I am eccentric because I care about nature and the animals. When I talk about how chemical fertilizers and the pesticides they contain are destroying nature, they roll their eyes. I know how easy it is to do environmentally friendly construction and natural landscaping because I have a degree in Architectural Engineering and I have done it and I have shown how simple and cost effective it is to do. But because of the greed and belief systems of the masses, people are more interested in having a manicured lawn than saving this planet.

The sad reality is this...it will not be long before we will no longer see the frogs, salamanders, butterflies, owls, turtles and all the small creatures that make nature so beautiful and interesting.

Please. For your own sake and for the sake of those to come...get outside and enjoy nature...and stop ignoring, and please stop destroying, the great outdoors.

Note: I would like to thank dragonfly112 for some of these pictures around the Etowah River and Lake Allatoona!