Consider this…

Consider a creature that lives with us on this earth. I will call her ‘she’, for convenience, though she may not be female. Your lives are intricately interwoven with hers, and you will interact with her and others of her kind every day of your lives from the moment the cord was cut and you drew your first breath. For every one of you there may be sixty or more of her kin, but there is no need for concern for they are benign, or indifferent toward you. Her kind inhabit every continent on this planet except Antarctica, but they were there once, when the world was younger.

            She was born, she lives and grows, she mates and bears young. She breathes and eats and excretes her waste, and finally she will die and her body will return to the earth from whence it came, as will yours. She and you are the same, and made of the same stellar stuff that made everything on this planet. Don’t think that this creature is some insignificant miniature being scuttling around under your feet. She is not. Some of her kind are the largest beings ever to have lived, so far as we know, though there may be others on some far distant alien world. But you will pay her no more mind than to the breeze brushing your face as you sit there and listen to this.

            She is benevolent, this creature, for her arms nurture thousands of other beings, who would not survive without her, and for some their only home will be in her embrace and no other.

She does us no harm, and yet, though the existence of her kind is vital to our own, we slaughter them in millions every day. Their numbers are falling, and when one day they are finally gone, we shall have cause to regret, for our lives will be all but impossible without them. But put aside all I have said and consider this. How sad it would be not to have this creature share the earth with us, for she is beautiful, magnificent, and an evolutionary marvel. Those are reasons enough to keep her and her kind.

            You may wonder where you can see her. Just look up. She is the tree you are sitting under.