Leave this world friendly to future generations

It takes about 1200 years for oaks to grow old (one oak grows, rots, and in its place grew up another oak)! The crusaders had crossed our oaks and floated them to build their cities. Today there are almost no old oaks forests in Europe, so there are no suitable oaks to rebuild the burnt-out Cathedral of Our Lady in Paris.

It takes hundreds of years to form the old simpler trees. We have less than 1% of such old forests in Lithuania, they are almost disappeared.  And all forests around are cut off and replanted woods, where there is no natural nature.

Currently, Lithuania is at a critical point – will we preserve those few areas of the old forests or lose them forever? I love telling about Lithuania as a magical land of fairies where our relationship with nature is almost sacral, flows in our blood, blooms within us.

Nature is the most important space for me, where a man returns to man, where he loses his protective layers, his images, and statuses.

Could it be that, in the near future, we will only remember nature by looking at it on screens, and it will be impossible to go outside because of the cataclysms of the climate and the toxic pollution? 

Scientists unanimously warn that we must take action now because there will be no way back soon. The mind refuses to accept this information because our brains are unable to comprehend problems of such magnitude as climate change.

But if today we begin to look at the forest as ourselves; if we associate our health with the health and well-being of trees; if we promise ourselves today to look at nature not as our own economic medium, but as a living entity worthy of respect and admiration; if we stop believing in the myth that man is above nature, detached from it; then we have hope to leave this world friendly to ourselves and future generations.

© Fortune, 2020