CONSERVATION

Forest and Bird, Issue 51, 1 February 1939, Page 14

CONSERVATION

(By Edward J. Meeman)

EARTH-MAN’S ETERNAL HOME

A CHAT ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIFE

(Condensed from “The Rotarian,” Sept., 1938.)

IT took Nature billions of years to prepare the earth as a home for man. When the work was completed, it was seen to be good. The earth contained every opportunity and every challenge that man should desire. The safe land and the perilous sea; rugged mountains and fertile plains; and everywhere that climax of Nature’s scene, the age-old forest, ever renewing and enriching itself. In a few thousand years, man has laid waste the earth. America, a scene of especial variety and richness, man has needed but a few centuries to despoil. It was said formerly that man was but a puny thing against the great relentless power of Nature. To-day man is not puny in his power over Nature. In the country, he has laid low the forests and left gaunt gullies in their place and the good soil washes to the sea; in the cities, hard brick and concrete cover the gentle earth; between the cities, vast junk heaps are piled up from the misuse which man has made of the wealth and beauty which were his legacy from Nature. No, man is not puny in power. He is puny only in wisdom. His growth in power has outrun his growth in wisdom. He has befouled his own nest. A befouled nest drops to earth and by the beneficent processes of Nature, soon becomes clean, soft earth again. But foul sores and giant scars made by man on the face of the earth can never be entirely healed. Man is destroying his eternal home.

“Let’s have a road here.” The shoulder of a mountain is dynamited. Concrete is laid down. That mountain can never be the same again. It is forever scarred, and must remain so through all the millions or billions of years that man will dwell here. Was the road needed? Perhaps. But what if it were not needed? Then what a crime!

“Let’s straighten this stream.” The giant steam shovel is brought in. The winding stream, flowing clear over rocks between trees and grass, becomes a foul muddy canal with

caving banks. The fish which gleamed in its clear waters are no more.

“Let’s build a factory here; the river will make a convenient sewer.” The dark black waste is poured in and the stench rises.

“Let’s cut down this forest; it will make shacks for our slaves in the cities.” And having cut down part, we toss away a careless cigarette and the rest of it is gone. Gone beyond repair, because with the trees has gone the humus, which is to the earth as precious and as destructible and irreplaceable as the fine-tex-tured cheek of a beautiful woman.

“Let’s drain this swamp; it will make a nice farm to raise some food for our fat bellies.” The sun heats down and what was cool, rich ooze, breeding and sustaining manifold life, bakes and cracks into desolate chips. Where are the reeds and the lilies? Where shall abide the turtle, the goose, the crane, the swan?

Let man turn within and find eternal life, and the conscience, and grace which say: “I live not to-day for myself and my own times alone; I live and act and refrain for all men and all time; I will save the beautiful earth for the uncounted men and the uncounted years that come after me.”

Then we shall begin to conserve and restore. We shall recognise that this primeval forest is the veritable Garden of Eden, which we abandoned in our folly, and to which we return. For it was with primeval forest that God covered the earth before He said: It is finished and it is good. It was the final boon that He gave to His children; but we destroyed it as a child breaks his toys. We shall set aside the primeval forest where yet it remains, but we must not be content with that. We must restore. We must carefully plant all the varied growths that made up this primeval forest and patiently wait until Nature restores something near to the likeness of what we did not appreciate. It will take centuries; but we must know the amplitude of time.

We must never set explosive or drill to earth

without knowing: “This is forever,” and asking, “Have we the right?” Awakened and enlightened man shall turn to his junk heaps, those excreta of civilisation, and by his chemistry convert them into the materials for articles of human use, or else into good clean earth again. He will cleanse his streams and see them sparkling in the sunshine, again fit for man and fish to disport in. Even the self-cleansing

ocean will not be a dump—he will love it too much so to insult it. The beach, where life began and to-day returns in the final flower of cosmic consciousness, to contemplate the beauty of the universe, will gleam white in the sunshine of a redeemed earth. This same sunshine, touching the trunks of the trees rising behind, turns to gold the columns of what was man’s first and will be his last templethe Eternal Forest.