The article doesn't claim that 'nature finds lovely balances if we just get out of the way'. It says >> Over time, Clements’ more sweeping theories were picked

The article doesn't claim that 'nature finds lovely balances if we just get out of the way'. It says >> Over time, Clements’ more sweeping theories were picked apart by fellow botanists. The stable, permanent climax communities he had theorised proved elusive: field studies continued to find ecosystems passing through unpredictable cycles of collapse, regeneration, divergence and stasis. Today, this deterministic version of succession theory is seen as widely debunked. But Clements’ vision endured in the popular imagination – sometimes to the frustration of ecologists. ... >> To harness the full environmental possibilities offered by the great abandonment will require changing our conception of humanity’s relationship to nature, and understanding how our species can benefit ecosystems as well as harm them. It will also require human intention: neglect alone is not enough