"Nature does not need our help. We are not supposed to be getting involved tending it like a garden." So are the words of Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, a group that contests the National Park Service's efforts to replant seedlings in the wake of the wildfires from 2020 and 2021 in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
The Parks Service this fall announced plans for the seedling-planting project, saying it was concerned that the natural process might not be sufficient due to the unprecedented number of reproductive trees that were destroyed.
I tend to side with the Parks Service. Humankind is affecting our planet. When we, as humans, cause harm, we should try to repair that harm. Left to themselves, the forests might go through cycles of regrowth in a productive manner. But the forests are not being left to themselves. Our actions are hurting them.
You could look at this from a biblical approach, noting God instructed man to "have dominion over the fish of the seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
The John Muir spokesperson compared the earth to a garden. "We are not supposed to be getting involved tending it like a garden," he said. Of interest, when Adam and Eve were created, their first heritage was a garden, the Garden of Eden, and they were told to till the land and to take care of it. It became a commandment to garden it. Humankind has always been gardeners for this planet. It has been a trust from the Lord to care for this world -- and that includes taking care of the trees in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
(Index -- Climate change info)
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