The CommunityAIR website inspires the vision of reclaiming the beaches that the island airport now fences off for its own use and of enhancing the bird sanctuary that lies just behind the current airport.  I see the most amazing number of birds near the airport, in huge formations, at this time of bird migration.

New Jersey, whose coast is also a bird migration route, actively promotes bird tourism, which brings over one million dollars a year to the New Jersey economy. 

Toronto wants tourists.  Bird tourists are wonderful.  By training and inclination, they are ecologically sensitive.  They go to bed early in B & Bs and get up before dawn, walking quietly into bird-watching areas with their binoculars and cameras.  They rarely leave behind Big Mac containers or beer bottles.

Toronto Island can attract such tourists with quaint restaurants, B & Bs, hiking trails with signs that identify plants, trees, and wildlife, good wine (could there be a Toronto Island winery?) and lots and lots of birds.  The island is almost a smaller version of Prince Edward County, without cars, in the harbour of Canada’s largest city.

The land now occupied by the island is public land, zoned for park and recreation.  If the airport were not there, what kind of recreation that does not involve motor vehicles could make use of concrete and low buildings?  What uses would be consistent with reclaimed beaches and an expanded bird sanctuary, which are already there? 

Allan Sparrow Community Park should be part of this vision.  Toronto’s beautiful island is a public resource for everyone.  Let’s be vigilant so that it doesn’t get sold off to high-rise developers.

Brenda Roman