The forest does not forget, though many who walk within it choose to. I have watched centuries pass in the turning of leaves, in the quiet patience of roots that split stone and reclaim what was taken. You ask me what it means to protect nature—but protection is not conquest, nor is it dominance. It is listening. It is restraint.
There is a balance, fragile yet enduring, between growth and decay. Even rot has its place, feeding the soil so that life may rise again. But what we face now—this cor