Man and Nature

Lake Bunyonyi, Southwest Uganda
 

There exist across the planet instances in which architecture and agriculture scar the land; thus it is sometimes assumed that only pure nature can achieve the greatest heights of beauty. Yet with the appropriate style in the right location, man’s intervention is capable of enhancing nature toward achievement of beauty unsurpassed in the pure wild.

The misty blue of Lake Bunyonyi lies in a sea of rolling hills; the islands within the lake and the land of every shore slope up from the lake to gentle humps. The natural landscape is unusual in its roundness and impressive in its green vitality and mist – but the dominant feature of the beauty is that absolutely every hill of land is quilted in terraced agriculture. Each rectangular terrace section contrasts to its neighbors in texture, shape, and shade of green. Seams between the squares are raised earth, sometimes erupting with small trees and grasses that could not be contained. Crop squares are repeated at irregular intervals across the hills, each time in a unique arrangement within neighboring sections and the undulating landscape. Imagining the panorama without this sculpted landscaping does a disservice to its beauty; the random shades of intense greenery characterizing more wild areas could not compete here with the current harmony of man and nature. Tiny bright streaks of pink, purple, yellow and orange are the skirts of the women bending on the hillsides, working the slanted fields; they are both the artists and the final crowning brushstrokes.