For the past 20 years my children and I have enjoyed checking for eagles, hawks and crows in the alder grove on the south side of Metchosin Road heading into Colwood.

It has been a refuge for bears and created a lovely buffer to the desolate landscape of the gravel pit. Now it is an open desert, soon to be filled and plugged up with row houses.

Most people recycle to some degree, profess to care about emissions, climate change, and hotter summers but in actual fact do not change much in their personal lives.

Simple greed has caused the devastation of this cooling green space, leaving it open to heat-absorbing asphalt and concrete. Replacing this natural grove with pretty, non-native ornamental greenery does little to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases.

Johanna Buhr

Metchosin