As much a force of nature as the wildlands he studies, Janzen works tirelessly at everything, whether teaching at Penn or reclaiming the wild in Guanacaste. One of the innovative concepts cited by the Inamori Foundation was Janzen's recipe for using a wild area without taming it. What he did was simply give it a presence. It isn't cultivated and doesn't produce the traditional alfalfa, cows, or rice. The problem with big wilderness areas is that they don't seem to have an owner or presence.
People come along and take what they want and do what they like.
It's like having a vacant lot next to your house. You'll wash your car there and let the kids run all over it. However, if the lot next door has a house and a family, you'll respect it and keep the kids off the yard. An ecosystem includes that biodiversity plus the water, air, dirt, and rocks that surround it. One ecosystem service we're looking at now is called carbon fixation.