There Is No First World

The Great Ecosystems Are Like Complex Tapestries - A Million Complicated Threads, Interwoven, Make Up The Whole Picture. Nature Can Cope With Small Rents In The Fabric; It Can Even, After A Time, Cope With Major Disasters Like Floods, Fires, And Earthquakes. What Nature Cannot Cope With Is The Steady Undermining Of Its Fabric By The Activities Of Man.

Remember That The Animals And Plants Have No M.p. They Can Write To; They Can't Perform Sit-down Strikes Or, Indeed, Strikes Of Any Sort; They Have Nobody To Speak For Them Except Us, The Human Beings Who Share The World With Them But Do Not Own It.

Among The Myrtles The Mantids Moved, Lightly, Carefully, Swaying Slightly, The Quintessence Of Evil. They Were Lank And Green, With Chinless Faces And Monstrous Globular Eyes, Frosty Gold, With An Expression Of Intense, Predatory Madness In Them. The Crooked Arms, With Their Fringes Of Sharp Teeth, Would Be Raised In Mock Supplication To The Insect World, So Humble, So Fervent, Trembling Slightly When A Butterfly Flew Too Close.

Erosion, Desertification, And Pollution Have Become Our Lot. It Is A Weird Form Of Suicide, For We Are Bleeding Our Planet To Death.

Gradually The Magic Of The Island [corfu] Settled Over Us As Gently And Clingingly As Pollen.