Just like periphyton, corals and alligators, humans have shaped the landscape and been shaped by it. The distinction that most historians make between natural history and cultural history is, in my view, false and alienating. This falsehood makes it possible for Floridians to travel from air conditioned houses to an airconditioned care to an airconditioned office, ignoring the reality of where we are and who we are. One of my goals in writing Home Waters is to erase that distinction. i don;'t accept the idea that a place touched by humankind is no longer wilderness- has been somehow sullied and doesn't deserve our car. I think we need a new definition of wilderness.