What are the issues before us - the human race - living on planet earth? Hunger, disease, climate change, homelessness, depression , poverty and lack of access to clean water and air are just a few. While there are numerous and complex issues, many of them are rooted in land use decisions. How we manage our land and the resources associated and dependent upon land directly affect our health and the health of the ecosystem.

The law of the environment is a very simple law. Healthy and diverse ecosystems provide high-quality ecosystem services and goods. Healthy water, soil and air support healthy people and high quality of life. Unhealthy ecosystems collapse and the collapse affects the well-being and health of all life depending on it. Ecosystems evolve, change and adapt, but not all species in our ecosystems are able to change and adapt fast enough to survive.

So how should our land resources be managed? What are key criteria to guide our decisions? How much should be left to individuals to “do the right thing”. When does the market push people into self-protection and self-preservation at the expense of a healthy ecosystem? When does the market make it challenging for the ecosystem to be honored and protected? Why do we see what looks like so much greedy, self-interest lobbying?  Where is the ethic of making decisions based on the goal of what is best for the ecosystem, which in turn is the best for the people and all life in the ecosystem?

We are not outside of the ecosystem. We are active members of its web. What is best for the ecosystem is best for the people and all life in it. We cannot affect one part of the ecosystem without affecting the whole. When we tug on one part of nature we tug on the whole.

Should the ecosystem – the environment  - have a right as an entity? Should counsel in a court of law represent it as we make the decisions that affect it and ultimately all of us living in it? Why does industry seem to have more rights then the ecosystem? Why do we have an International Trade Commission (ITC) who determines whether domestic industry is injured by imports, but doesn’t ask what the cost is to the ecosystems involved? An ITC who investigate challenges to intellectual property but doesn’t recognize the evolving ecosystem as being the ultimate creator and thus owner of genetic and biological diversity. How can we make these decisions when our ecosystems are not treated as entities, with the rights, protections and power of an entity?

To maintain healthy ecosystems we must maintain the biological diversity of our soils, waters and farms. How do farming practices affect this biodiversity and ecosystem health? Is sufficient carbon being added annually to prevent erosion, maintain a complex and diverse soil food web, provide water holding, hydrological health, and viable tilth? Do chemical fertilizers cause ground water population affecting all species that have a relationship with that water? Do chemical fertilizers have a negative affect on the biological diversity of the soil, the microbial and insect life in the soil food web? Do fungicides destroy the huge resource of beneficial fungi, which create aggregates and nutrient cycling? Do pesticide and herbicides create a monoculture, disturbing the diverse balance of species?

I have asked many more questions here than I have answered.

What really concerns me is the health of our planet’s ecosystems. The planet and the life on it are not ours to use up for our own personal gain. The earth is abundant. We must obtain our nourishment and sustain our health from it and leave it as healthy as when we found it. This is our responsibility and my goal.

I value stewardship, I value conscientious living, I value holding respect for all life on the planet.

Especially that life which cannot defend itself in our courts and legislative halls.