Zipline economics: when nature can't pay for itself

CarloDipersiohas been called every name in the book: 'old fogey;''chief of the fun police;''killjoy.'

For the record, the Cape Cod resident sayshe doesn't hate children.

• Zipline approved by Vancouver Park Board

But he does have a problem with aziplineand its accompanying traffic going into thenearbyHeritage Museum and Gardens aspacesupposedly devoted to the preservation of history, artand rhododendrons.

But how do you say that without sounding like a drag?

"They make you feel like an old crank," saysDipersio.

Location, location, location

He lives across the continent from B.C., but Dipersio's dilemma will sound familiar to opponents of a zipline which recently received approval for Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Park.

It's not ziplinesin and of themselves that botherpeople; it'sthelocation, which raises the inevitable question: why isn't naturea draw enough?

Queen Elizabeth Park was fashioned out of an old industrial rock quarry at Vancouver's highest point.

The park offers a postcard view of the Lower Mainland. Six million people visit each year, touring paths which wind through waterways, gardens and flower beds.

According to a staff report, Greenheart Internationalapproached the parks board with a plan to constructa temporary190-metre-long ziplinein celebration of the park's 75th anniversary.

The company's Facebook page saysconstruction starts this week.

Naturally, the parkboard gets a cut of the action: as much as 40 per cent of the gate if the proceeds top $400,000.

"Staff recommend this temporaryevent as it is very low impact, provides an additional activity for visitors to Queen Elizabeth Park, (and) will raise the profile of the park," the report concludes.

Who can say no?

And therein lies thelure of zipline economics: in an era when public parks are struggling for cash, who can say no to the promise of guaranteed visitors and income?

From Rwanda to Peru, Greenheart has built an international reputation for building canopy walkways and ziplinesabovesome of the planet's most sacred parks and protected areas.

"This network is focused on creating draw card attractions that allow both visitors and the local community the chance to experience and benefit from conserving nature," the company's website says.

That's a worthy goal, but why can'tpeople enjoythe plants, birds and animals that give a park its reputation without the ability to soar above them?

That concern has caused residents to band together in communities ranging from Cape Cod to Queensland, where environmentalists feara proposed ziplinein a national parkwould intrude on a rare koala habitat.

And what about the essential role a place like Queen Elizabeth Park plays in a community?

As a place of meditation andtranquility. A place to spend five minutes away from the constant throb of the city nearby.

A humanitarian legacy

It was that contemplativequality that drew Celia Brauer, along with others, to fight for a plaque byone of the park's old quarry walls honouringRaoul Wallenberg.

The Swedish diplomat and businessman rescued 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. He died aprisoner in the Soviet Union in 1947. Wallenbergbecame the first person to receive Canadian citizenship posthumously.

Braueris part of a group known as the second generation: children ofHolocaust survivors. She says Queen Elizabeth Park made a perfect location for amemorial to Wallenberg'shumanitarian legacy.

They chose a quiet spot close to a pond and waterfallwhere Jews celebrate Tashlich, a custom at the start of Rosh Hashanah where the faithful gather by a body of water to cast away their sins.

It sits under the zipline's path.

"A zipline is absolutely the antithesis of what should be there," says Brauer. "There areplaces to do what they want to do, and this is not the place."

Not that life sits still at that spot. It's a hidden treasure, a place to steal a moment ofsolitude before returning to the park's populationof children, parents,tourists, brides and grooms.

Of course,it's hard to make that point without sounding like an old stick in the mud in a city recently dubbed by the Economist as "mind-numbingly boring".

But sometimes things look different on the ground.