Losing diversity and beauty - a metapersonal quandary

Sam has been reading a book which loosely classes people into three categories in terms of empathy and connectedness to others. The first category is kind of based in self, everything pretty much stems from the individual's own concern for their immediate personal needs etc... the next is interpersonal basically they have empathy for other people then there's this category, I think it was meta-personal. I think from what she described it encompasses that feeling of connection we have (or some of us have) for other living things.... or even places. 

I haven't read the book, I'm not familiar with the theory but I sure tend to feel a sense of loss when the environment I love is heartlessly reduced to a pile of rubble, broken trees and rotting folliage!

There is a beautiful native Gardenia I pass every day on my way to work. I noticed it a couple of years ago in the scrub beside Darwin International Airport. It's the only one I've ever seen. For most of the year it's a fairly nondescript woody shrub... but in the wet season and when it's flowering the foliage is full and thick and green and the flowers have the sweetest scent! Two years ago the location of the tree kept it well hidden but since work started on Osgood drive, the developers have crept closer and closer. Now the tree is in the direct path of a huge pile of clay fill which is being dumped in a pile right beside the remaining woodland. I can't bear to see this tree destroyed but I know that I must! I can't turn my back on a place I love! 

Already trucks have come so close to the tree that they've scraped bark off while dumping earth on the ground beside it. I am worried this beautiful plant may only have days left. 

I am hoping the tree will survive to flower once more this year so I can share just how beautiful it is.