The broken hill fights back

Every new road cutting through a hill removes what nature nurtured there for very long, in human or practical terms often forever. The edge of this Kouga cutting has gradually and laboriously been explored and invaded by returning offspring and relatives of the destroyed ones, the plants of yesterday that died prematurely.

If bulldozing actions are kept to a necessary minimum by people that care for the environment, pretty places will remain. These places teach people about a good life filled with natural things around all the people of all past generations. They also teach us about the many faces nature can offer us in the future, given the chance.

Take these gravity-defying succulent specimens for instance. Spectacular euphorbias, crassulas and other lesser-known cliff dwelling types have roughed it here for long to colonise bare, destroyed surfaces. Such sights inspire athletes, those people that move boundaries of the impossible, setting records and making humans more capable. If all the other species that complete the biodiversity picture can live and give us shelter, food, medicine, pleasure and ideas, the win-win situation includes the people, the world stays beautiful and viable for us all.

Leave the Moon and Mars for the human pioneers of our time, the latter-day Columbuses and Captain Scotts that push boundaries, dreaming about the latest extreme experiences possible… or not. That’s part of our bigger world too, so cheer them on for doing their thing. And return if they can, to tell us all about it.

The universe is expanding, and our tiny part of it too, through continued human effort. But don’t allow the earth to be changed to a greater resemblance of those two heavenly bodies. They’re not as heavenly as you may think. For then we all shall have too little of everything.