Sadly, for a large number of people I think the pinnacle of "being out there in nature" is hiking up a catastrophically sheep-grazed hill to gaze at a lot of other similarly bare hills, so perhaps the two quotes aren't as dissonant as one might think...

A real puzzle then! What happens if you try and delete the unwanted vertex (circled red below) post-merge?

My guess would be that either the brown polygon has an additional vertex along the edge that touches the yellow one, or the two leftmost vertices on the shared edge aren't perfectly aligned. You should be able to fix by going into vertex tool and deleting the unwanted vertices from the merged shape.

Bribr - swipe right to match with a morally bankrupt government official near you.

I see genetic modification has finally given us the basil-mato we've been dreaming of.

Thanks! This one was actually filmed with a handheld gimbal.