Click the image above to go to an article, not for the faint of heart, about why encounters with real, wild nature are more valuable than those most of us have, which are increasingly sanitized, gentle and unreal:

…Ecologically speaking, this sanctified nature is not nearly enough. “We live more and more in an enchanted illusion of what nature is, which I think is counterproductive to conservation,” says the Cornell University biologist Harry Greene. It’s the back half of that statement—counterproductive to conservation—that contains surprises…

…We have created an imaginary connection with nature because we lack a tangible one, and we carry that connection in spirit because we no longer follow it in body. The sense of the divine that many feel in wild places is less a bond with nature than it is another symptom of the absence of that bond.

Ecologically speaking, this sanctified nature is not nearly enough. “We live more and more in an enchanted illusion of what nature is, which I think is counterproductive to conservation,”…

If the above quotations capture your attention, click here to read the article in its full, meaning-packed original version.