Neo-animists, like myself, tend to look toward Paul Shepard as a guide-light in the darkness: “The nomadic Bedouin does not dote on scenery, paint landscapes, or compile a non-utilitarian natural history....His life is so profoundly in transaction with nature that there is no place for abstraction or esthetics or a 'nature philosophy' which can be separated from the rest of his life...”

There is at least a day's worth in that quote, but I'm here to focus on one question: what is the value of nature, of wilderness?
Folk from both sides, assign the wild-places with an ECONOMIC value. Sierra Club spokespeople are arguing against expansion of the Alton Coal enterprise near Brice Canyon because of it's negative effect on a million visitor a year tourist INDUSTRY centered around the park.

The coal-people promise more jobs and a more sustainable economic base. I don't know enough of the facts to lean either way, but both sides want support based on the ability to create MONEY.

Back to Mr. Shepard. Is the only UTILATARIAN value of wilderness in economics? For my part, for what little it is worth, I'm probably wrong, but I think the true value of these place far exceeds the small circle of economics.

My food, (deer, elk and antelope meat, as well as brook trout fillets, berries and the occasional wild onion) and water, (from developed natural springs that are piped into my town and the undeveloped ones I wander into) come from the mountains I travel.

But, more than those physical needs are the mental health issues resolved by escaping to the forest, desert and high places. I'd go crazy, dead crazy, dead and crazy without these places. Is there any value in that?

Beyond even mental health are the spiritual lessons I've learned in the sacred places I've explored. My “witness”, my “testimony”, is open-sky and the beauty of the Earth. Has that any worth?

Chief Seattle said: “Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.”

Sacredness, memory, experience...worthless?