Again the Quebec magazine L’actualitê has an interesting feature article in its April edition dealing with COVID-19 and translated it means what are the steps we can take to ensure we don’t have a year like 2020?
The eighth step is to have better access to nature.
The article mentions how Quebeckers were elbowing for room in the fresh air in the summer of 2020. National parks, beaches and trails were crowded. Although there is some paradox in Quebec as some of the most beautiful spots are inaccessible to so many as they are far removed from centres of population. Privatization of rivers, forests and real estate construction are destroying the “green belts” of Quebec.
It is difficult to create protected geographic areas of Quebec as so many different governmental ministries have conflicting interests. One ministry wants to give logging rights while another wants to crate public access on trails through the forest. Some critics of the grant of logging rights and the profits gained from it are less than what economic benefits from tourism could be. The doctrine of L’allemansträtt is a constiututional right in Sweden to walk and camp on all private property. There is no obligation to reserve camping spots but Quebeckers lack the civility of the Swedes not knowing how to properly treat nature and leave garbage everywhere.
The expropriation laws in Quebec that are some 40 years old set back any tendency to create publicly accessible land as owners are entitled not only to the market value of the land but grant them the theoretical right to profits that would have been made from the land had it not been expropriated.
