The Animal and the Cage
Imagine for a moment that the zoo keeper forgot the Lion’s enclosure open one night. The animal could easily step out and become free. However, its immediate surroundings will still be artificial and ecologically shattered. There will be no way in which this Lion can sustain itself and it will ultimately perish. The Lion can only ever be wild if the space it occupies allows it to be. Therefore, one could argue that space holds the spirit of the wild.
So, if a Lion’s state of being can range from captive to free, then the space it occupies can go from cagy to Wilderness. The idea that space can range in wildness may be more challenging to define, but it doesn’t justify ignoring such intrinsic value altogether.
