"As a species, we live neither as free and independent individ­uals, nor as completely integrated social organisms like the bees. Rather, we live tribally; and our tribal behaviour is all too often far below the standard of the best among us. Intelligent we may be as individuals; but as social collectives we behave churlishly and with ignorance. I think that our inability to live in harmony with each other and with the Earth comes from this disparity — from the gap between the power of our human collectives to act, and the feeble intelligence that directs that action.

 As individual humans, or as small groups hunting and gath­ering, we once lived in symbiosis with our planet. When we began using fire, tools, and agriculture, we became more dependent upon each other socially, and also more powerful and numerous. We had the potential to sustain our own envi­ronment at the expense of the Earth; to break our contract with Gaia. At first the breaches were mild, just the wearing of cloth­ing and the building of houses. Then we began to herd our food prey, cattle, and to grow our favourite food plants. But right up until the beginning of this century none of this, nor the indus­trial civilizations that had evolved, were significant in them­selves to the Earth. The danger lay in the potential for further growth and development. Now the consequences of that growth in our numbers and development of our capacity to dis­place the rest of planetary life, threaten both us and our planet."

James Lovelock, (1991)

‘an apprehension of transcendent landscape has profound implications for how we live, for then their exploitation, like  our exploitation of each other, becomes sacrilegious as well as immoral… through an appreciation of the imaginative power of landscape, we come face to face with the living reality that is the ground and source of our being…’

Alex Wright Face to Faith The Guardian

In the Preface for the 1930 edition of the CPRE Survey of Cornwall:

Although the ultimate object of this Survey is to protect the Natural Beauty of the Duchy, for my own part as a Cornishman I had rather preserve the old Independent Character of its sons …
…but at least let me implore the reader beyond Tamar to help us in protecting our noble Coast from defacement by the Philistine. It used to be ours the priceless if barren inheritance of a little clan. Let those whom we welcome to share our love of it help us to preserve the primitive beauty of this delectable Duchy as a national Possession.

The defenders of Penwith will continue to fight all attempts to ravage and disfigure this most precious part of Cornwall, however influential our opponents and however skilful in disguising their plans as economic blessings. We will fight simply because the penalty of failure is too awful to contemplate, and because the reward of victory is simply that our descendants may in centuries to come look forth over this favoured western land from Trencrom or Chapel Cam Brea, and see that some part at least of creation is still good.

 "The Battle for Penwith" by P.A.S. POOL, M.A., F.S.A. - Reprinted from the Cornish Review 1970 (final paragraph).