By STEVE ERICKSON
Compromise. As proposed in The Record’s recent editorial, what could be fairer? But does compromise always work for everyone? Consider the wild native prairies with their carpets of wildflowers found nowhere else. At the time of Euro-American settlement of Whidbey Island, there were about 7,800 acres of this rare habitat on Central Whidbey. That’s about 7 percent of the island. According to the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, there are now less than 100 acres left. That’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Whidbey and about 1 percent of the original prairie. So, let’s compromise and only protect half of the remaining prairie now, and half of that half during the upcoming 2016 comprehensive plan update. And half of that half of a half of less than 1 percent of the original prairie in 10 years at the next comprehensive plan update. That will leave less than one-sixteenth of 1 percent of the original prairie — less than five acres. In some situations, “compromise” is just another word for extinction.
But what about farmers? Shouldn’t we be worried about “our” farmers going extinct, as a county commissioner did at a recent hearing on the fish and wildlife ordinance update? The few farmers who constantly tell the commissioners that to continue farming they need to dredge creeks and streams and shoot beavers mostly seem to be old-fashioned. The model for the future is the burgeoning farmers markets. They’re full of farmers, including young, new farmers, who by and large farm in ways that don’t require treating our streams and creeks as drainage ditches. These farmers don’t seem to be endangered at all. Sure, they have their ups and downs. Some do well, some don’t. But if you watch the farmers markets it sure looks like there are more young farmers starting than quitting.
Farming on the island is in no danger. But farming like great-great-grandpa did, back when we knew and cared considerably less about clean water, fish, wild animals and plants, is. As these farmers repeat over and over to the county commissioners, they work really, really hard and make very little money. Like an ancient or relict species with a narrow gene pool faced with a changed environment, they just don’t seem able to adapt to the changed conditions of today’s world; a world where we recognize that we made serious mistakes in the way we’ve treated the land and water on which we depend, the environment of which we are a part and in which we live.
We can’t pretend nothing has changed if we want to correct the damage our mistakes have caused. That’s really the question we face as a people, as a society. Do we continue making the same mistakes over and over again because that’s what we’ve always done?
Steve Erickson is a founder of Whidbey Environmental Action Network and currently works as the advocacy group’s legal coordinator.
