In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterfilies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
Around the nicest green meads, where the deer were playing in the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches; and if the bark of one of the trees was cracked, there grass and long creeping plants grew in the crevices.
But in the place of the once a mighty Amazon rainforest would likely be an extensive grassland region interspersed with occasional Woodlands similar to the climate of eastern central Africa like the Serengeti.
A 2001 study on Chicago found that buildings with high levels of vegetation had 48 percent fewer property crimes and 56 percent fewer violent crimes compared to buildings with low amounts of vegetation.
They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies.
Ferns can even thrive on a photosynthetic income that's inadequate for the small offspring of many tall trees, and thus the humble fern coexists with the tall timber above by competing on its own terms.
The only sounds were the soft whisper of the breeze as it blew through the long grasses, still green in the early spring, and the distant thunder of the water cascading over Victoria Falls into the frothy pools below.
Here the trees, laden heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering more damage than during the highest winds of winter, when the boughs are especially disencumbered to do battle with the storm.
But I saw it shining down among the trees a little farther off; so on and on I struggled, through the thick bushes and over logs, till I came within the sound of a stream which ran through the swamp.
It used to be common in springtime to see herds swimming across a fjord to reach the lush grass of an untouched island, the herders and their dogs following in kayaks or rowing boats.