We set ourselves up as arbiters of what is good when often our standards of goodness are driven by narrow interests, by what we want. - Robin Wall Kimmerer

I fear altogether too many scientists hide behind this notion that our objectivity will somehow be compromised by advocacy. I couldn’t disagree more…When we have the privilege of understanding how the living world works, who better than the scientific community to also stand up and tell this story? (The Guardian, 2024)

Naturalists live in a world of wounds that only they can see.

Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught at a council of animals — never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred purpose of another being — the eagle would look down on a different world. The salmon would be crowding up the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky. Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here, each fulfilling their sacred purpose. I would be speaking Potawatomi. We would see what Nanabozho saw. It does not bear too much imagining, for in that direction lies heartbreak.