When I was a kid, I was fascinated by anything in the outdoors that was not created by humans. That is to say, anything that I perceived to be of a natural origin. Trees, flowers, bugs, birds, fish, mammals, lakes, rivers, you name it. If it was a part of nature, it had my attention. I just felt more comfortable around wild plants and creatures than around people, buildings, and streets.
Many decades later, and after many interactions and conversations with my fellow humans, I have come to believe that we all have a love for nature, and a desire to be closely connected to the natural world, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. It makes sense, after all, since we all are a part of the natural world. Indeed, we came from it, even though we have, over the eons, increasingly considered our human community, Homo sapiens, to be be separate from, and superior to, the natural community. We've gone to great lengths to support this assertion: We have intelligence and opposable thumbs, as few other creatures in nature do. We've created better forms of shelter, controlled indoor climates, we grow our own food, we invent high tech gizmos, design medicines to stay healthy. In fact, in the short time humans have existed, we have spread to every single land mass on Earth and dominated every one of its species, effectively conquering the natural world and its scary wilderness threats. And so on...
Well, back to me...I'm sure my child brain didn't notice anything wrong with this human vs nature thinking, but perhaps that seed was germinating in the form of my early attraction to the outdoors. As the years went by, I did start to think that somehow things were amiss. With my plunge into studies of geology and biology, and the increasing development of ecological science, it became obvious to me that humans were changing the world in significant, and negative ways. But, I also learned to admire the human capacity to become aware of mistakes made and to turn its creative abilities to work toward correcting such errors.
In following blogs, I will focus on some issues within the natural world that I believe are serious, but which can be corrected in large part, not by causing sudden comprehensive changes in government policy or legislation--these can appear overwhelming and take time, though to be sure such change does need continual pushing. No, the issues I'm referring to can be corrected by each one of us focusing on the little piece of the Earth where we reside.
So, I welcome you to RestoraFlora, and the stories I hope to provide that will inspire you to action where YOU make the difference. Stay tuned!!
Love where you're going with this!