In The History of the Countryside (1986), the great botanist Oliver Rackham describes four ways in which 'landscape is lost': through the loss of beauty, the loss of freedom, the loss of wildlife and vegetation, and the loss of meaning. I admire the way that aesthetics, human experience, ecology and semantics are given parity in his list. Of these losses the last is hardest to measure. But it is clear that there is now less need to know in detail the terrains beyond our towns and cities, unless our relationships with them are in some way professionally or recreationally specialized.
— from Landmarks, by Robert Macfarlane
Every once in a while, I like to confound myself by thinking about nature.