The wooded path where old-leaf underfoot softness pampers stroller feet in cool, quiet shade is becoming too uncommon or inaccessible in South Africa. To walk for some distance in nature's domain where vehicle noise rarely reaches is a privilege shared by fewer and fewer. Although many yearn for city lights, this is a part of secular heaven not to be allowed to slip away.

Such a path, often near water, in one of the remaining indigenous forests the country still proudly possesses, too easily fill up with commerce and noise from masses that don't notice or respect. Other places, not quite the same, although the soul might be convinced, are manmade parks and gardens. Even exotic plantations can please until harvested, just when they become pleasant and the beginnings of an ecology is destroyed.

The comparatively rare stretches of tree-covered up-country land are good for people and should feature on lists of things to be protected. The conservation option shouts in every pretty landscape when real estate prospects or industrial projects are in the offing. These dwindling patches serve sanity in better fashion than that old time rock and roll that blows the mind and soothes the soul.

All human endeavours, industrial and conservation alike, are after all aimed at the benefit of mankind. So, strike a better balance between board room and hiking sentiments.