Today I read “The Race to Save the Frogs” by Jennifer S. Holland in the April National Geographic.   Her article describes the horrendous impact the fungal disease chytrid  is having on the world’s amphibians, killing off entire species.  Holland quotes Lee Berger, who discovered the fungus, “The impact of chytridiomycosis on frogs is the most spectacular loss of vertebrate biodiversity due to disease in recorded history.”  I would not be writing this piece were this her only focus.  It’s true, horribly true, and one more blow to those of us who love the earth.

But she also describes how concerned people from around the globe have created safe havens, where threatened species can live safely due to the efforts of groups like “Amphibian Ark.”  There they can breed until such time as the disease has run its course or people have figured out a practical cure.  This is what prompted my blog today.

Those of us who look at our world from a Pagan sensibility, that it is a living and sacred place with value far above that we humans place on it, live in a world of pain.  For our society is deeply dedicated to the opposite set of values. It is easy to despair.  I often do.

But the people who are in the forefront of this salvation effort do so from love of the world, and especially I imagine, a love of frogs.  They exemplify humankind at its best.  Ecologist Aldo Leopold, l author of A Sand County Almanac,  once observed that if the last person had died while passenger pigeons still lived, no pigeon would have cared.  But when the last passenger pigeon died, plenty of people did.  “ere,” Leopold observed, “was something new under the sun.”  That one form of life cared about another for other than selfish reasons.

Changing a toxic society to one that can live sustainably in its environment is not easy.  In the past the ones that have remained sustainable have been either lucky (ancient Egypt) or managed to put their economic activities within a larger moral and spiritual context that moderated the destructive power of human ingenuity. (i.e. Indians of the Northwest coast.)  That seems to be what we need to transit from the occasional person who loves the earth so much to be a steward, as these people are, to a society that voluntarily limits its power out of regard for the existence of others, human and non human alike.  It is not an easy task, but one our future is dependent upon.

I think one of the greatest gifts we Pagans can give to society and the world is to add our moral and spiritual weight to this undertaking.