While reading one of JRR Tolkien's major works, be it The Hobbit, The Silmarillion or The Lord of the Rings, one cannot help but notice the amount of attention given to nature. There are numerous details provided to describe each location, each character, even each tree. Tolkien didn't pretend to be an environmentalist, but by spending so much time in his books explaining the importance of nature, it's hard to say he wasn't concerned about it. Regarding the fantasy world recreated by Tolkien, Sherry Turkle argues: “The question is whether this prepares us to live in a complex world, where we have to be able to work in a structure where there are no rules and where we have to be really attentive to cultures of others and to the ways of seeing things of others” (qtd. in Grossman 4). Lev Grossman counters this point when he says, “If The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy, it is ultimately a fantasy about growing up and putting aside childish things” (5). Grossman believes LOTR is a fantasy, but unlike Turkle, he thinks the reader benefits from a lesson in growth and sacrifice. Tolkien placed great value on the relationship between characters and nature: from elves protecting the forest to hobbits cultivating the land and living off the land. He emphasized responsible stewardship and the importance of working with nature, rather than against it. Lucas P. Niiler agrees with this point when he says: “In particular, Tolkien's work demonstrates one form that an ethic of this kind can take: stewardship of the land, as modeled by Bombadil and later practiced by hobbits ” (284). Management is evident in how each of the characters relates to their home in LOTR. For example, the Hobbits live in the Shire, a little, q... half of......paper buzz, and he wanted to save it by destroying the Ring. Through these examples, and the ones I have given above, we can see that Tolkien truly cared about the environment. Works Cited Bowman, Mary R. "The Story Was Already Written: Narrative Theory in the Lord of the Rings." Narration 14.3 (2006): 272-293. Grossman, Lev. "Feeding on fantasy." Time 02 December 2002: 1-5.Niiler, Lucas P. "Green Reading: Tolkien, Leopold, and the Land Ethics." Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts (1999): 276-285. Reeder, Ike. “The Silence of the Trees: Environmental Agency and the Politics of Power in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.” (nd): 107-115.Tolkien, JRR The Letters of JRR Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston, New York: Houchton Mifflin 2000).---. The Lord of the Rings. (Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1994).