John Milton wrote that we '...should allow some of the earth to go it's own way'. Meaning, of course, that some natural places of wilderness and wildlife must be left in a natural and untrammeled state, free from our human-induced need to change what is already quite perfect. Large scale evolutionary and ecological processes need time and space to continue their own remarkable portrayals of how a healthy land sustains itself. What places, what wildlife, what botany will be left to provide (as Aldo Leopold called for) a 'base datum of normality' if we allow all our treasures of intact wilderness to covered by the workings of commerce? The ephemeral nature of the wild is how sweetly and quietly it continues to inform our spirit, to call to us, and beseech us to remember our identity as 'stewards of the earth'.
