“I’ve got my theories. My theory is that a vigorous, free, outdoors life is good for people. It fills them with cheer and high spirits, leading to health and a long life.”
—Edward Abbey
Wilderness complements and completes civilization.
I might say that the existence of wilderness is also a compliment to civilization. Any society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name of civilization.
A completely man-made environment would not be a civilization at all but merely another kind of culture, in the anthropological sense of that word, merely another village, though it be of global dimensions…
In any case, the beauty and existence of the natural world should be sufficient justification in itself for saving it all. If this argument fails to interest the exploitative and cannot convince the indifferent, then we must appeal to deeper emotions than the ecophilosophical.