“The earth functions like a living being, and the biosphere, the world community of life-forms, changes its environment as it is changed by it.
“The redwood tree does not evolve as a separate species; rather the forest as a whole evolves, the interwoven lives of redwood and tanoak, huckleberry and salal, the mycorrhizal fungi in the soil below and the lichens in the canopy where the marbled murrelets nest.
“None of these creatures adapts alone, in isolation from each other–they coevolve as Forest-Being, in an interdependent dance that balances competition and cooperation.
“Individuals and species survive when their activities benefit the whole as well as the parts.”
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