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6 stouffville suntribune saturday feb 3 2007 fstoujjvlue mmm suntribune 6290 main st stouffvileonl4a7z5 wwwyorkregioncom publisher ian proiidfoot editor in chief debora kelly business manager robert lazurko director interactive media technology john futhey director advertising distribution barry black director circulation systems lynn pashko marketingpartnerships director debra weller york region printing general manager bob dean letters to the editor small fixes can go long way re fatality leads to ninth line stud ies feb 13 after reading the article i was quite upset with mr bannons accusations of residents speeding through the com munity and of council proposing three studies regarding the safety of the roads at musselmans lake come on council the unsafe road conditions at the lake have been going on for years is this your way of delay ing again i drive this road a minimum of twice daily at this time of year most times at night or early morning very seldom do i see a resident driving too fast or in an unsafe manner the resi dents know the poor condition of the road around the lake and drive with caution as for the three studies mr bannon suggests such as traffic volume and origin of traffic lets spend that money on common sense safety items i real ize the road needs some drastic repairs but there are issues that can be addressed while we wait first is the lack of street lighting on the east side of the lake and the north end of ninth line any lights that are present are old not working facing the wrong way or hidden by trees i offer to mr bannon andor mayor wayne emmerson to take a drive around the lake at night to see the immediate need for proper street lights second it is not the residents who are involved in the bad accidents it is drivers from out of the area as in the dec 10 fatality it would not matter how many safety features you had- some drivers simply do not pay atten tion or drive safely as was this case to address the issue of making the road safer for outoftowners lets put up warning signs at both ends of ninth line i agree with mr mcneil in his letter to the editor of jan 20 a couple of speed humps placed strategically will cer tainly slow down the traffic i also offer my time for the commit tee mr bannon is proposing to discuss safety issues on the roads around our lake lets not throw more of our hard- earned tax dollars to consultants and waste more time when common sense safety initiatives can be installed immediately to improve safety around the lake bonnie jackson musselmans lake agricultural policy strictly for the birds h ow do you feed 9 billion people its a daunting question but one we need to ask ourselves if we hope to feed humani ty without severely degrading the earths natural systems it may be hard to believe but when i was born in 1936 there were a little more than 2 billion people in the world in my lifetime that has more than doubled today united nations popula tion estimates show between now and 2050 another 29 billion souls will be added to our little planet thats a lot of mouths to feed but feeding them is just part of the chal lenge current intensive agricultural practices have unwanted side effects from pesticide use and fer tilizer runoff for example that can harm wildlife pollute water and otherwise damage the natural sys tems for our health and wellbeing too so the question really is how do we sustainably feed 9 billion peo ple a new report published in the journal science provides us with some indication as part of a comprehensive study researchers at the university of reading in england looked at bird population trends to develop a threatbased risk assessment model that will predict the impact of agricultural practices on biodi versity and ecosystem services birds are especially relevant for such a study because they can be very sensitive to agricultural prac tices populations of wild birds in the united kingdom have plum meted by nearly half since 1970 and the government has committed to reversing the decline by 2020 unfortunately according to the assessment in science government policies designed to help the birds dont go far enough and unless they are changed bird populations will continue to decline researchers developed their crystal ball assessment model by examining three basic needs for all birds they all need a place to nest david suzuki they need a place to forage for food and they need to be able to find food in their forage areas the model also takes into account how vulnerable specific bird species are to changes in any of these areas some birds for example will only nest in a few specific types of bushes if those bushes disappear so do the birds to test their model the researchers examined the major factors in which agriculture in the uk has changed and intensified over the past 40 years these include switching from spring to fall sowing increasing chemical fertilizer use the loss of wild natural areas increasing drainage of the land and increasing intensity of grassland manage ment when they plugged these changes into their assessment model and looked at what it pre dicted would occur to 57 bird species the results strongly corre lated with actual historical data in both their matrix and in reali ty bird populations fell as these agricultural changes became more common across the country next researchers used their model to look at the future of 62 bird species much attention in the uk has been paid to the impor tance of conserving hedgerows to protect birds indeed hedgerows are important nesting habitat however when researchers used their model to predict the future of these species it came out as rather bleak most of them continued to decline even if hedgerow conserva tion measures were successful it turns out that the birds future depends much on what happens in the fields not just the hedgerows so changing farming practices will be essential to their survival predicting the future of species using this kind of analysis is never going to be perfect but its an important and useful tool as the researchers point out unless the footprint of agriculture is carefully managed through sustainable development both agricultural sys tems and remaining natural ecosys tems will suffer further degradation increasing the proportion of the worlds species threatened with extinction and further limiting the ecosystem services they are capable of providing in other words status quo isnt really a healthy option for humani ty or the rest of nature so wed bet ter use every tool at our disposal take the suzuki challenge at david suzukiorg letters policy the suntribune welcomes your letters all submissions must be less than 400 words and must include a daytime telephone number name and address the suntribuncrcscrvcs the right to publish or not publish and to edit for clarity and space letters to the editor the suntribune stouffvflle on l4a7z5 jmasonyrngcom editorial editor jim mason jmasonyrmgcom interactive media 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