The closing of Raft Cove Provincial Park in the face of a huge gathering of counter-culture campers isn鈥檛 about discrimination, it鈥檚 about numbers. And it was the right thing to do.
The World Rainbow Gathering started last week at the remote park in the northwest corner of Vancouver Island and was planned to last until Sept. 6. Attendance was expected to peak at 2,000 people around Aug. 20. Residents of the region near the park became concerned about a crowd that size in the small, primitive park and protested to authorities.
sa国际传媒 Parks closed the park after consulting with the RCMP, the Vancouver Island Health Authority, local government, First Nations and the forest industry.
Adherents of the loosely affiliated Rainbow Family hold informal outdoor gatherings where they celebrate peace, love and being in harmony with nature and other human beings.
Who can argue with those concepts? But those concepts aren鈥檛 the issue. Two thousand people 鈥� or even 200 鈥� camping in a park with two pit toilets, eight designated camping sites and no reliable source of drinking water would not be in harmony with the environment. No matter how well-intentioned the participants, that number of people in that park would put an unacceptable strain on nature, as well as putting humans at risk.
One of government鈥檚 roles is to protect our natural public spaces. It鈥檚 a duty that sometimes takes a back seat to other interests, but in this case, government got it right.
