By all means involve them in planning the park's future. But do them the favour of treating their concerns honestly. Credit the students with enough interest and intelligence to explore the issue in all its complexity. Restoring the park will not be easy, quick, or inexpensive. It will take knowledge, planning, and money.
Tree planting is more likely to be a final step than a first one.
Along the way, restoration planners will discover that many of the practices that have degraded the park have entrenched constituencies who will defend them vigorously. Well informed students could be a powerful political ally in efforts to secure government and private money for this huge task. A Dalhousie ecologist who specializes in species invasions, Ricciardi eviscerates the myriad myths promoted by the Friends at their web site . Moving the debate in that direction would be a worthy task for interested students to set themselves upon. Copyright 2001 by Parker Barss Donham.