Section I of this article defines the contours of the natural resource damage cause of action by explaining who sues, on whose behalf they sue, and for what they sue. It is in this section that I take issue with the environmentalists' claim that trees should have standing and the economists' claim that the right at stake is a property right. Section II explores the nature of the human connection to the environment, how that connection is affected by natural resource damage loss, and why it is legitimate to compensate for the loss of that connection. Analysis of the subjective injury suggests that the law must limit compensation for the subjective harm associated with natural resource loss to those instances in which entire ecosystems are destroyed or in which individual resources cannot be replaced. I develop this hypothesis in Section III and argue that the natural resource damage regime, as currently administered, inappropriately allows recovery for the subjective harm people experience whenever a single natural resource is injured. This broad construction of the right at issue is inconsistent with a natural resource management system that contemplates and even encourages use and destruction of individual resources. Section IV explains how Contingent Valuation ("CV"), a damage assessment methodology that relies on questions like the one posed at the outset of this article, can appropriately capture people's sense of subjective loss stemming from natural resource damage.