| The natural world performs many unacknowledged and undervalued services for humankind. These services, such as water purification and storage, air quality management, food chain management, production of raw materials, both renewable and nonrenewable, along with a host of others, are routinely exploited with little or no consideration for the source. Taking a river canyon's riparian habitat out of service to use for water storage seems benign until one begins to understand the magnitude of the trade-off involved. Although strangely beautiful in some instances, the form of our plundering stands as some of the most noticeable formal contrasts we inflict on the landscape. For more info: Assessing the Value of Nature, GM's Rainforest Racket, Glut of Mercury Raises Fear, Faking the News |
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