Human beings assign value to places. Whether an ecosystem is noticed, loved, exploited, or destroyed is determined by its own notoriety. Valuation of an anonymous place according to standard metrics is either tricky or irrelevant.

Spring 2020: Under the current restrictions, we each inhabit finite geographies unique to ourselves. Despite spatial separation, we all share many of the same thoughts and concerns as we attempt to reconcile the challenges we face as a society. From my own well-trodden path, I attempt to make sense of our societal condition through sights unique to my own situation.

Prologue:

(For thousands of years a fire burns dynamic and existential. This gift unique to man provides food, warmth, safety, stories, and light.)

Chapter One

Stories are told. They are told around a light: lantern or hearth. The light is in a home. The home is in a forest.

Chapter Two

For want of a light, one becomes lost in the forest. As time and feet stumble forth, a distant light beckons. Around a light, in a home, in a forest, a new story is told.

Chapter Three

As listeners grow old, as the light dims, as the home succumbs to ruin, blighted trees topple and the progeny of their neighbors inherit the sky. The story fades.

Epilogue:

(What remains to be gleaned from old stories? The archaeologist strives to be a storyteller.)

The lands of and around Bears Ears National Monument have an ancient history and devastating present. The conquest for fossil fuels and uranium pollutes and degrades this landscape while those who have always been here try to protect themselves and their home.

Many other uses of public land threaten the pristine features of the landscape.

While charismatic and iconic, feral horses in the West contribute to overgrazing, water scarcity, and compete with native species.

Straight lines are uncommon in nature, and often imply tension. They are largely a human invention.

Keratin is one of the most common animal proteins there is, but when harvested from rhinoceros and pangolins for use in traditional medicine, its value rivals that of gold.

Despite incredible dedication and hard work by conservationists, Namibia still struggles with an epidemic of poaching.