[URBAN NOTE] "Why our ravines are the city below Toronto"

[rfmcdonald]

I've been paying more attention to Toronto's natural environment lately. Donovan Vincent's Toronto Star article, the first in a series on ravines, takes a look at these features' role as some of the last enclaves of nature in the city.

It’s a scorching hot summer day and Jason Ramsay-Brown is standing atop an elevated lookout, peering at the expansive green valley, wildflower meadows and giant maples, oaks and pines that make up the Vista Trail in Toronto’s Rouge Park.

It’s the natural habitat for a man who built on childhood experiences to make himself one of the top ravine experts in the city.

The trail is just east of Meadowvale Rd., near the Toronto Zoo. Here the air is clean, and the only sounds are the warm breeze blowing through the leaves of towering trees, and the chirping of birds that are among the 1,700 species of plants and animals in the area.

As Ramsay-Brown walks along the 1.6-kilometre trail with a Toronto Star reporter and photographer, he points to the dog-strangling vine, an invasive plant that looks pleasant enough but can be deadly if you’re a caterpillar. Then the staghorn sumac, a flowering plant with a red cone.

“If you think about it, to have something like this within kilometres of the downtown core with this much biodiversity is pretty remarkable,” says Ramsay-Brown, 42, whose thick beard and greying ponytail give him a granola look akin to a younger Jerry Garcia, the late Grateful Dead guitarist.