Well . . .
 
 
I live in, love, and protect the land where I gew up, the most beautful
place one earth (to me and a lot of people, anyway)  the Adirondack
Mountains.
 
We have many of the problems you mention, and we need more people, not
less.  Why?  So that we can be the voices of the mountain, so that there
will be people here to speak, to care for, to love this wild, wonderful
place.  I plan to adopt as well as bear children, children who will be as
much a part of our ecology as any other species here.
 
Town after town is empty here, people have left, so few are left to speak
for the land, for the lakes, for the trees.  I am needed here, my
children also are needed here.
 
We have some of the most rare species of plants and animals on earth --
black phase timber rattlesnakes, giant otter, plants, bugs, and so many
more.
 
So why do I also deliberately introduce a species from far from here --
bees-- into my wilderness?
 
Because they are needed here -- the ecology changed when the bees came.
 
Now we are becoming like in the U.K., like Japan, where populations have
remained stable over many years, and the people belong there, and care
for, and love their spaces.  We don't need to leave, we need to care
more.  We need to fit in.
 
Change is how you know time has passed -- and we haved changed this
world.  I came to a dump and turned it into a farm.  I found species
after species and moved the rotting cars and lawn out and the children
and the bees as well as native species back in.  Change can be good as
well as bed.
 
It's not so bad, not if we all pick up and speak for our own corners of
this pretty planet.
 
JulieB
 
Beekeeper with hope.