Shared ideals, common resources offer trans-border geography of hope

By Steve Thompson
for Headwaters News

North Americans tend to take for granted the world’s longest unprotected border, which separates Canada and the United States. So the current war of words between leaders of these two nations may come as a surprise to some.

The United States is a "hostile foreign power," thundered a member of the conservative British Columbia cabinet, and Canada should stop supporting the U.S. war against terrorism. Not to be outdone, Montana Sen. Max Baucus evoked Cold War images to blast B.C.’s "Soviet-style" tendencies.

The object of mutual belligerence last month was the Bush administration’s decision to slap a 29 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the United States. It is the most recent flashpoint that reveals the soft underbelly of an increasingly integrated global economy.

Against this charged political backdrop, our two nations are preparing to celebrate in June the 70th anniversary of the world’s first international peace park. Approved by the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park was dedicated on June 18, 1932, by President Hoover and Prime Minister Bennett as a lasting monument to peace and goodwill between the two nations.

"In a world beset by conflict and division, peace is one of the cornerstones of the future. Peace parks are a building block in this process, not only in our region, but potentially in the entire world."

-- Nelson Mandela

The peace park also addresses the need for cooperation and stewardship in a world of shared resources. In the case of Waterton-Glacier, the shared resources are grizzly bears, mountain goats, clean water, stunning vistas and more than 2 million annual visitors, all of which flow back and forth across political lines.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park was the brainchild of Rotary International, led by a cluster of Rotary Clubs in Montana and Alberta.

At the time, Rotary International was focused on establishing institutions of peace to help prevent a repeat of the carnage of World War I. The 1932 Peace Park designation was seen as a means of cementing harmonious relations between old allies while providing a model for nations around the world.

The recent war of words between Canadian and U.S. leaders points to the evolving challenge of maintaining peace in a world where economic trade, instantaneous information exchange, free flows of capital, and multinational terrorist cells have blurred the traditional lines between nation-states.

Peace means much more than the absence of military combat. Today, the concept also must embrace notions of economic fairness, environmental sustainability, and some level of parity between the world’s rich and poor.

So, it may be asked, what is the significance of the worldwide peace park movement, which has spread to five continents since 1932? Is this simply an elitist concept with little applicability to real world problems? And what is there to celebrate on the 70th anniversary of the world’s first peace park, except for Waterton-Glacier itself?

To answer such questions, consider the words of Nelson Mandela, one of the world’s most respected statesmen, who spoke directly to the increasingly important role of peace parks in a troubled world. Mandela spoke last December at an elephant reintroduction ceremony at the new Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which includes portions of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe:

"In the wake of the terrible shock with which the entire world learned of the acts of terrorism in the United States, we faced and continue to face the prospects of conflict on a worldwide scale. ... In a world beset by conflict and division, peace is one of the cornerstones of the future. Peace parks are a building block in this process, not only in our region, but potentially in the entire world."

In his speech, Mandela quotes his friend Anton Rupert, chairman of the Peace Parks Foundation: "Co-existence between man and man, and man and nature is the key to the success of our future."

In essence, Mandela calls for an expanded notion of Wallace Stegner’s "geography of hope," in which wild landscapes – particularly transboundary protected areas – can help reconnect global villagers with a shared natural heritage.

Amidst the angst and turmoil of global commerce, weapons of mass destruction and environmental challenges – the sheer magnitude of all which leaves many people feeling powerless - we do share a core essence that connects us and can restore us.

Rather than shrink into xenophobic nationalism against the forces of change, Mandela admonishes us to reach across borders to create peace and improve harmony with our natural world.

Mandela’s message of hope rang true in my recent correspondence with an aging mountaineer on the other side of the globe, a Muslim from India, who for 10 years has advocated the creation of a Siachen Peace Park high in the Himalayan Mountains of Kashmir on the Pakistani-Indian border.

Thousands of soldiers have died on the frigid Siachen glacier in a decades-old battle between these two nations, a battle whose purpose and meaning continue to elude me years after my six-month sojourn to the Asian subcontinent.

I read of Mr. Ali’s efforts in the Times of India, and I also read of the angry attacks and challenges to his patriotism. After contacting Mr. Ali, he acknowledged the odds against which he labored.

"People keep telling me that this is a bad moment to talk about such a project," he told me. "I've come to the conclusion that there is never going to be a good moment, and we must just keep plugging the idea, hoping that it will catch on somehow, somewhere."

It is the same spirit of inspirational perseverance that Nelson Mandela carries with him today after decades in a South African jail and his eventual ascension to the nation’s presidency.

Applied closer to home, Mandela’s message breathes new life into the very notion of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. It is more than just a symbol of bi-national goodwill or a virtue of cooperative park management.

Rather, it is a touchstone for a new geography of hope, a steady reference point during turbulent and uncertain times. Waterton-Glacier is a real-world barometer against which to measure important aspects of globalization, including the growing impact of a consumer society.

For example, the peace park is Exhibit A in the debate over climate change. Due to global warming – which almost surely has been caused or exacerbated by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – Glacier’s glaciers are turning into puddles. Given current trends, park scientists estimate that the park’s namesake glaciers will all be gone by 2030.

In the course of their glacial studies, park scientists have found an accumulation of pollutants such as mercury and DDT that drifted into the atmosphere from other continents, and which returned to the earth with snowfall on the high peaks of Glacier.

Still, Waterton-Glacier is home to one of the healthiest, most diverse populations of fish and wildlife in North America. These populations, however, could be jeopardized over the long-term by unchecked encroachment by logging roads, open-pit coal mines and haphazard subdivisions on the park’s periphery.

Waterton-Glacier’s world-class wildlife values are why U.S. and Canadian conservationists are working together to expand the peace park into the Canadian Flathead Valley, an area the Calgary Herald recently called "a gaping conservation hole west of the Waterton border" and immediately north of Glacier. (To find out more, go to www.peaceparkplus.net)

An acquaintance of mine likes to refer to the fulcrum of political action as teetering between the forces of hope and the forces of fear. Today, fear seems to be the ruling sentiment, along with its kindred emotions: anger and recrimination. It’s especially difficult for political leaders to share the charity of hope across international borders when fear and cynicism predominate at home.

I, however, have an abiding faith in hope. From a basis of hope, we can best begin to create solutions to difficult issues like global warming, fair trade and international terrorism.

Co-existence between man and man -- and between man and nature -- is indeed the key to the success of our future. International peace parks are tangible and meaningful emblems of that hopeful potential.

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