The Old Testament contains in many places, but especially in the book of Job, one of the most far-reaching defenses ever written of wilderness, of nature free from the hand of man. The argument gets at the heart of what the loss of nature will mean to us….God seems to be insisting that we are not the center of the universe, that he is quite happy if it rains where there are no people – that God is quite happy with places where there are no people, a radical departure from our most ingrained notions.
