Late yesterday evening I started to write my latest post. It got late and I decided I would finish in the morning. Sure enough, on the front page of the sports section in the Boston Globe was a story that addressed the exact topic I was writing about. It seems that there is a man leading a group in Quincy that wants to build a miniature replica of Fenway Park as a baseball field for the local kids. This sounds like a good idea except for a few small items like there not being enough money and wanting to build the field where there are currently vernal pools and wetlands. The money was not the main issue (although they had a small fraction of the necessary funding) but rather the vernal pools were the problem.

One of the definitions of the word develop is “to make suitable for commercial or residential purposes.” A ballpark for kids would be a residential purpose. “Develop” in this sense is one of the few words that I don’t particularly like. In the same vein, I am not fond of “improve” either.  Both have the sense that something is not right and needs to be built on. As an ecological conservative, these words are anathema to the way I think the world should be.

If my memory is right, when I lived in Canada there were two tax rates for farmland in Manitoba (or Saskatchewan?) depending on whether the land had been “improved.” By improved what was meant was the land had been taken from its natural state and been put to agricultural use. Somehow, a farm field is better than land in its natural state and so was taxed at a lower rate! This is obviously an incentive to “improve” more land.

The case in Quincy raises an interesting point. Why is a ball field better than a vernal pool and how is the field an improvement over nature? I ask these rhetorically because I’m not sure I can answer. Perhaps it has something to do with our disdain for nature and what might be scary because it remains unknown. I have been writing my other blog about many facets of vernal pools that kids (of all ages) might find interesting. It might take the same few million dollars to make the pools as accessible as the ball field with a nature center, a trail through the wetlands, signage, a small staff, and programs that attract kids to see nature at an approachable scale. An entire ecosystem within a few square feet is wonderous.

I would never suggest that we don’t need more fields for kids to play. But I am willing to place a large wager that there are far more fields for play than centers for enjoying the natural world. I’m sure there are many other places to build a shrine to the dump that is Fenway, but there are a rapidly diminishing number of places to respect nature. You want to develop something? Let’s develop a society that respects the natural world. Let’s build a society that knows the place of play. I’m happy to help in that development.