If someone had asked me that question three years ago I would have probably laughed in their face. Asking me that question then would have been as inane as asking me the best breath of air I had ever taken. Unfortunately I can now answer both of those questions (I would of course say that my best breath of air has not been taken in DC). My answer to the real question though, is pertinent not because of its rarity or its “thrilling” quality, but my clarity in remembrance. I was probably about ten years old and I was sitting in a willow tree. I was watching the insects on the bark, when I heard something in the branch next to me. I looked over and saw a woodpecker (I’m pretty sure it was a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker). I must have watched it for at least twenty minutes until it flew away.
Clearly saving “nature” is something that must happen as humans, being primates and not androids, rely upon it for our survival. The debate is most likely in degree. Do we want quaintly tamed and thoroughly domesticated fields (not that I have anything against fields, my parents did name me after one after all) with a hedgerow thrown in for good measure? Is that what gets to count for nature? Many areas of the world with histories of ungulate domestication look like this, and the people there survive just fine. However I would say that survival for just one species (humans) does not outclass the many species that would be there and thriving if not for our ridiculous need for dominance of space. I mean really it’s quite rude. “Hi, yes, I’m a human; I’m coming in and cutting everything down, or plowing it to oblivion. Once I do this I might repopulate it with those creatures that remind me of my deforested homeland…Or I might just a put up a shopping mall, hard to tell at this point. “
Of course we are learning the hard way that this sort of life on a large scale does not translate well. We are suffering with global climate change, desertification, pollution, and extinction after extinction of species. If that’s the best we can do, well you can find me in northern Canada. I’ll be chilling out on the Tundra in my deck chair and watching the permafrost melt.
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