"When our forebears commenced their exploitation of this continent, they believed its animate resources were infinite and inexhaustible. The vulnerability of the living fabric that clothes the world — the intricacy and fragility of its all-too-finite parts — was beyond their comprehension. So it can at least be said in their defense that they were mostly ignorant of the inevitable results of their dreadful depredations.
"We who are alive today can claim no such exculpation for our biocidal actions and their dire consequences. Modern humanity now has every opportunity to be aware of the complexity and interrelationships of the living world. If ignorance is to serve now as an excuse, then it can only be willful, murderous ignorance.
"The hideous results of five centuries of death dealing on this continent are not to be gainsaid, but there are at least some indications that we at last are developing the will, and the conscience, to look beyond our own immediate gratification and desires. Belatedly, some part of humankind is trying to rejoin the community of living beings from which we have for so long been alienating ourselves — and of which we have for so long been the mortal enemy.
"Evidence of such a return to sanity is not yet to be looked for in attitudes and actions of exploiters who dominate the human world. Rather, the emerging signs of sanity are seen in individuals who, revolted by the frightful excesses to which we have subjected animate creation, are beginning to reject the killer beast that humanity has become.
"Banding together with ever-increasing potency, they are challenging the vested interests' self-granted license to continue plundering and savaging the living world for policy, profit, and pleasure. Although they are being furiously opposed by the old order, they may be slowly gaining ground.
"My own hopes for a revival and continuance of life on Earth now turn to this newfound resolution to reassert our indivisibility with life, recognize the obligations incumbent upon us as the most powerful and deadly species ever to exist, and begin making amends for the havoc we have wrought. If we preserve in this new way, we may succeed in making humans humane . . . at last."
