The 53 in my user ID is the year of my birth. Yes, I'm older than the Ice Age and yes--I have not outgrown Nature, herps, bugs and other pursuits begun when the world and I were young together.



When I was about ten, there was a fine and vital marsh near my house on Long Island. I found all manner of turtles, water snakes, amphibs and the full spectrum of marsh flora. One day I went to explore and it was gone. Truly, just....gone. In its place was a mountain of fresh dirt. I was in shock. I felt as I would have if a family member had died. I was too sad to cry, numb with the reality that this was even possible in a few days--I had just been there last week.



Why had people killed a living marsh? In 1963 marshes were considered "wasteland", and this one was put to much better use, and I am not making this up, as a flat place to pile up piles of Bluestone used in paving cheap side streets. That's what the local road department did with their new flat dirt-covered acreage, they piled up Bluestone for easy access--the grave marker for all the life entombed under tons of backfill. It stayed that way until I left decades later.



Since then I've seen many places fall under the blade of the bulldozer. I'm grateful to have spent so many years in Arizona, where only about 15% of the state's area can be bought or sold--the rest is one kind of Federal or State land or another, although plenty of that gets impacted via land use permits, especially mining. So much of the West is wild--airline passengers must notice that flying West, once you get past Kansas, you stop seeing roads everywhere and fly over vast trackless spaces that still belong to mountain lions, bears and coyotes. There was so much true wilderness in AZ, I didn't have to look very hard to find places where I could camp for weeks without seeing another human face.



It's a shock to see our familiar places so undone, after all the time we've spent understanding the vitality, the rich diverse lives all stratified and balanced and achieved...all lost, all their struggles and triumph come to nothing before a greater power.



And yet, after we've given the individual creatures that perished their moment in our hearts, it remains that the West is still largely open, with more space for wildlife than for us. And, a growing number of people who own large tracts prefer to preserve the land rather than sell to developers. Can this mean there will still be land to appreciate if our culture ever decides to appreciate it?



Until then, I hope you find your next El Dorado soon. Perhaps in a few years, at the edges of this development, under the plywood scraps, car hoods and old refrigerators.

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