The City of Ottawa has been warned by scientists, several times
and in several studies, that TFD fragments the eco-system in the
South March Highlands (SMH) and dramatically reduces the ability
of the SMH to withstand change. This warning is a well-
considered and inevitable scientific conclusion, backed by years
of research, that sadly cannot be scientifically quantified.
Questions like: How much further change can the SMH take? How
much change is introduced by urban development? How long will
the Conservation Forest survive, etc simply cannot be
quantified. So does that make the unmeasurable any less
important to decision-making? Robert McNamara was Secretary of
Defense during the Vietnam War and was obsessed with making
decisions based on only what could be measured. He also had a
predilection to prefer only information that fit into his
metric-based world view. This led to increasingly absurd
decisions by the US Government for many years until they finally
withdrew from the Vietnam conflict. Sociologist Da