On April 15, 2019, the Nôtre-Dame Cathedral in Paris burned. I was shocked as I watched on television how the flames mercilessly devoured thick oak beams, causing the collapse of the roof. Brave firefighters prevented the destruction of the whole structure. French citizens and tourists alike cried without solace on the streets of Paris. The morning after, the tragedy was on page one of newspapers all around the world. Within 48 hours, French billionaires had pledged hundreds of millions of euros for the cathedral's reconstruction, and President Emmanuel Macron committed to rebuild it within five years.

"In the Retezat Mountains in Romania, I walked through pine forests and meadows so wild and untouched that they are among the only places left in Europe that are home to bears, wolves, and lynxes living together."

The wooden beams that supported the roof came from oaks in the Middle Ages, so large that the like could not be found in France anymore. Over the centuries, people have logged the ancient forests where those old trees grew, all throughout Europe, until now they remain standing in only a few places, like the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, or the Bialowieza Forest straddling Poland and Belarus.

"Why is the world not feeling the same tragic sense of loss about our natural cathedrals? We were all touched by Nôtre-Dame -- myself included -- because nobody expects our historic symbols to vanish."

I have been to both places. In the Retezat Mountains in Romania, I walked through pine forests and meadows so wild and untouched that they are among the only places left in Europe that are home to bears, wolves, and lynxes living together. I felt like I was walking in the magical Rivendell Forest, expecting an elf to appear at any moment. In Bialowieza, I marveled among oak trees a hundred feet tall, old enough to have shaded some of the last remaining wild European bison -- those depicted in European cave paintings from 30,000 years ago. These last wild places are few, far apart, and disappearing under the weight of the ax. But no billionaires have promised hundreds of millions of dollars to save the last old forests in Europe (notwithstanding the heroic efforts of a handful of dedicated individuals). Governments are not acting effectively to stop these natural massacres, either. Why not?

"Shouldn't the natural world be ... part of our identity, revered destinations, sacred sites? The truth is, we need forests more than we need cathedrals."

Why is the world not feeling the same tragic sense of loss about our natural cathedrals? We were all touched by Nôtre-Dame -- myself included -- because nobody expects our historic symbols to vanish. Nôtre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the ruins of the Parthenon, to name a few: They are part of our immutable cultural landscape. We all expect them to be there. But only when these icons are at risk do most people realize that they are more than just stones and wood. These places are part of our identity as a civilization. They are global tourist destinations and, for many, sites of sacred devotion. Shouldn't the natural world be all of that, too: part of our identity, revered destinations, sacred sites?

"Everything humanity worries about, everything we count on, is built upon a healthy natural world. A degraded environment is a hotbed of all the problems affecting humanity."

The truth is, we need forests more than we need cathedrals. Without the natural world, there is no good food to eat, no safe water to drink, no oxygen to breathe, not even rain in many places. Everything humanity worries about, everything we count on, is built upon a healthy natural world. A degraded environment is a hotbed of all the problems affecting humanity. My friend Lee White, minister of environment of Gabon, told me that the Congo Basin forest in West Africa produces much of the rain that waters the highlands of Ethiopia, on the other side of the continent. If the Congo forest were destroyed, no more water -- or food -- in Ethiopia. Thats 125 million people as of 2019, probably double that by 2050. In addition, those highlands provide the water for half of the Nile. Enter Sudan and Egypt, with an additional 138 million people, and growing. We have already seen the consequences of a region without water and food: riots, instability, collapse of governments, and massive migration to wealthier countries.

"We have already seen the consequences of a region without water and food: riots, instability, collapse of governments, and massive migration to wealthier countries."

Stability and prosperity in northeastern Africa starts with a wild forest in Gabon and Congo, thanks to the work of large trees also absorb massive amounts of our carbon pollution, of forest elephants and lowland gorillas that eat their large fruit and defecate their seeds a distance away, of insects and worms and fungi that degrade the dead stuff and turn it into nutrients that will be driven up the trees using sunlight and the water that they themselves helped to produce. A miraculous web of interactions so complex that we could never re-create it.

"The wild is here in all its baroque glory because it's what has worked throughout the history of life on our planet. Every interaction that didn't really work isn't here anymore. Only what fits in the giant puzzle remains."

The wild is here in all its baroque glory because it's what has worked throughout the history of life on our planet. Every interaction that didn't really work isn't here anymore. Only what fits in the giant puzzle remains. The irony is that the fate of all the species on which our very existence depends is in our hands. And we are squeezing them off the planet at a rate second only to the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. We have become the asteroid. But we still can save ourselves and our natural world.

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Excerpt from The Nature of Nature: Why We Need the Wild. Copyright © 2020 by Enric Sala.