The Shoreline Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... No, it's not Great Whites ravishing the beach this time, it's...sea walls, sand bags, and jetties. In this episode from The Nature of Things series, host David Suzuki takes viewers on a fairly depressing tour of yet another man-made eco-disaster: the widespread destruction of beach lands and coastal flora and fauna as a result of on-going attempts by commercial developers and others to prevent Ma Nature from simply doing Her stuff. Suzuki tells us that erosion is the eternal dance between waves, wind, and land, and that the process of constant coastal wearing away and building up is the way in which nature ultimately maintains beaches. This is, of course, slim consolation to the builders of beach front condos (or to the Army Corp. of Engineers, for that matter) who continue to do fierce, costly (and frequently futile) battles with the ineluctably slipping sands and rolling tides. Suzuki and a gang of expert witnesses (particularly curmudgeonly coastal engineer Orrin Pilkey) are very effective in explaining the results of these on-going battles in terms of their often irreparable damage to fragile coastal ecosystems. Pilkey's antidote for these problems is wonderfully simple, although probably not very realistic: clear out and leave the shore to the waves (there's still a lot of good land in Montana). Despite a sometimes annoying tendency to jump from case study to case study and to wander a bit in focus, The Shoreline Doesn't Stop Here Anymore is a generally informative, well-produced, and engaging presentation. Coastal erosion is certainly not one of the more widely covered environmental issues currently on video, and this work would provide a good introduction to the topic for general library collections and schools (grades 7 and up). (G. Handman)