Roger Harrabin, specializing in environmental news and issues, has been distinguishing himself for many years at the BBC. (He even has a statistical-sociological-media rule-of-thumb named after him, Harrabin’s Law.) He has visited both Niagara Falls in the US and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Right now, while on a sabbatical journalism fellowship in the US, he surfaces to write a stinging comparison of the schlock surrounding the US’s natural hydrological wonder with the near-pristine sights that greet one on hiking through a national park to reach the Zambezi’s greatest cataract. Other than a graceful and historic bridge, the latter looks about as it did 200 years ago.
At the first level, the point of this essay is right on. The US and Canada have provided fabulous views of Niagara from high rise hotel luxury rooms – but those vistas are seriously fouled by neon lights, other hotels, and additional layers of garish tourist facilities and their ads. Impoverished Zimbabwe, a darned near failed state, has managed to respects its falls’s listing as a World Heritage Site and held the impingement of modern society to a minimum.
He does temper his tantrum by noting that American and Canadian promoters began tatting up Niagara long before zoning bodies and traditions enacted controls over what one can build near natural wonders or within vulnerable landscapes and their wildlife habitats. Still, he asks, “Does Niagara really need to look like Las Vegas on the water?”
The UNESCO natural heritage rules and America’s (and Canada’s, I presume) reluctance to list Niagara permits Harrabin to make a good and focussed point. But his lens goes too wide with this:
It is to the shame of the US that impoverished Zimbabwe, an international pariah to many, is willing to protect its portion of the world’s natural heritage more lovingly than a nation which can afford such protection so much more.
The point is that Niagara’s besmirchment is a historic anomaly. The US, starting with Yellowstone and on through the vision of Teddy Roosevelt to today, has pioneered the creation of large and well-guarded national parks. Today many are polluted by industrial emissions, hemmed by development and by natural resource extraction industries, sometimes besieged by hordes of visitors to the point of fraying their natural system, and underfunded by taxpayer’s money. Conservationists must remain vigilant. But respect for the parks remains strong. Overall the US continues by federal law and private philanthropy and support to expand and care for them (along with state and county parks) as well or better than most of the rest of the world. And Canada, far as I can tell, has a solid record as well.
– Charlie Petit
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