The retreat of the wilderness under the barrage of motorized tourists is no local thing; Hudson Bay, Alaska, Mexico, South Africa are giving way, South America and Siberia are next.
— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, p. 166
What Columbus began, then, what Pizarro and Cortes and Coronado perpetuated, is not isolated in the past. We see a continuance in the present of this brutal, avaricious behavior, a profound abuse of the place during the course of centuries of demand for material wealth.
— Barry Lopez, The Rediscovery of North America, p. 10-11
One of our deepest frustrations as a culture, I think, must be that we have made so extreme an investment in mining the continent, created such as infrastructure of nearly endless jobs predicated on the removal and distribution of trees, water, minerals, fish, plants, and oil, that we cannot imagine stopping.
— Barry Lopez, The Rediscovery of North America, p. 44-45
This is the opposite of the last assignment, and perhaps easier. Find a place that looks heavily altered, damaged or polluted. Describe what you see, hear and smell. Remember that this is a descriptive assignment, not an editorial. Resist the urge to add comments and opinions. Stay in the neutral mode. Let your details (specific, interesting nouns) do the heavy lifting.
ALTERNATE OPTION
Go for a swim. Describe what you see, especially what you see underwater. How much of the original coastline is left? What fishes live there? Is there a healthy reef?
A FOCUS FOR LAND JOURNAL #3
Avoid
Overuse of sentences joined with the conjunction and.
Include
Sentences joined with subordinate conjunctions like when, before, after, while, whenever, since, because, although, etc.