I attended the dedication ceremony of the William H. Seward statue to remember his vision to purchase Alaska. Thinking of Abraham Lincoln, it was altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, I think it is important to keep in mind the essence, to me, of Chief Seattle’s teaching. How can we own the Earth? How can we own our mother? He reportedly said, “Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it. The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth.”
We humans have a long history of trying to control the use of our shared Mother Earth, how and by whom. What is our relatively short-term collective future going to be?
Bruce Conant,
Auke Bay