Back To Nature

We tend to think of development as an inexorable, irreversible force. The bulldozer, like an unstoppable Pac-Man (to use an antiquated metaphor), is set on gobbling up all the woods, farmlands, and dunes. A few parcels will escape that fate, thanks to public and private preservation efforts, and from time to time nature will reclaim land with houses built by folly too close to the sea. But basically development is a road of no return.

Or is it?

Consider a recent case on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha's Vineyard. According to a story last week in The New York Times, the owners of a waterfront house agreed to sell the property to a land trust at a discounted price rather than on the open market. The trust then proceeded to raze or relocate the buildings on the land and to restore an unimpeded water view that the island's residents had previously enjoyed.

Perhaps we are being too fatalistic when we mourn the loss to private development of choice features of the natural landscape that once seemed public assets. Let's keep alive the hope that someday similarly enlightened owners of land we cherish here may see its value to the community as a whole and act selflessly.

Mother Nature isn't the only force that can reclaim our vistas and waterfronts. The better side of human nature can achieve the same end.