Who Will Speak for the Trees?
Who will speak for the trees? Or the rivers? The prairies and forests? No one did for too long. Yet it is beginning to happen! It’s really refreshing to learn about all the groups, small town governments and countries that are pushing to give legal rights to Nature. We have for too long assumed that we can own and wipe out natural settings because it increases our wealth or status or happiness. Who cares about the streams and rivers we change? Or the trees we cut down? Or the prairies we cover with corn fields? The answer to that question is changing, though. Not long ago, our species looked upon the natural areas surrounding us as only resources to be put to human use. Certainly that was how it was when I was a child. But by the time I was in high school in the early 60’s, the concept of an ecosystem had started to creep into biology lessons. We were learning (perhaps yet again) that there were relationships between other living beings. Things were not separate. Everything...