What is Nature Anyway?

At the "Being Stewards: On Nature & Philosophy" event, the first activity was to see what each person around the table classified as "nature" and "not nature." Sound easy?

This was the blurb for the event. How could I resist?

Curious to discuss nature, environmental ethics, and sustainability with philosophers?

Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be (better) stewards of nature and our shared future.

Framing Nature

As we sat around our tables trying to sort photos into piles of “nature”, “not nature” and “not sure”, it soon became clear that everyone had a different view, and those views were strongly held. On one table, they couldn’t even agree on the first photo.

On our table, we were doing ok until we got to what looked like rubbish surrounded by bushland. We weren’t sure if it was a landfill or illegal dumping. Was that photo nature or not? Some thought it was nature? Some were adamant that the rubbish meant that it wasn’t.

Did it depend on what the rubbish was?

Is what some people dump in the wheelie bin, and I put into my worm farm, rubbish or not?

Is leaf litter rubbish? On my grass-loving neighbours’ verges, fallen leaves are rubbish and go in the bin. On my verge, it is nature making its own biodiverse habitat and mulch and they stay there, held in by the lower-growing plants.

Where is Nature?

Another exercise was for each of us to describe a place that was special to us, where we felt connected with nature. For most, it was a place they visited in the wilderness, or on a beach, away from urban areas and day-to-day life. This is what I call “nature over there” that people visit and campaign to be protected and cared for by governments.

For me, my special nature place is our garden that we share with wildlife of all sorts, and the verge which is effectively a mini-park outside the front fence. This is “nature all around us”. As I said in a recent Linkedin post: about Mars Incorporated BETTER CITIES FOR PETS™ initiative and urban greening.

What if instead of encouraging people to have more pets, we encourage them to become stewards of the urban greenspace and all the wildlife that depends on it. Create wildlife gardens, and native verge gardens lining the streets supporting the street trees and all the life housed in those green corridors. Enjoy the action around the birdbath, the visits from lizards and butterflies and native bees. We don't have to own animals to care for them or benefit from their company.

Is Nature Over There or Nature All Around Us?

Neither is more right than the other. They are different perspectives and approaches. However, when we assume that nature, protecting nature, and connecting with nature, are simple universal concepts that everyone shares, we keep talking past each other and get frustrated that other people don’t see what we see.

We don’t usually ask this question of ourselves and yet it underpins our behaviour. It also affects our decisions on what we do to address big issues like climate change and biodiversity loss, what groups we feel an affinity towards, and what actions we consider useful or trivial.

Views of nature are complicated, different for everyone, and often leads to silos in environmental organisations and movements.

Siloed approach

So what do you do when you’re concerned about the sustainability of our place on the earth? Do you nurture and enjoy biodiversity in your backyard as a personal project? Do you visit parks and advocate for more public greenspace in your city? Do you campaign for laws to protect oceans and forests?

We find our tribes that fit our outlook, discipline, or profession.

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Continuum Approach

Another approach is to see it as a continuum, where each of us is at a different and shifting point in the way we see nature. This will vary in context and time.

With this approach, it’s all connected and while your priorities might shift, you see them all as important and necessary.

In this view, ideas like local action, global connections, make more sense. The connections and relationships between these ideas and places make them complementary rather than competing. It’s the world of messy complex problems and the equally complex solutions and networks needed to address them.

Street Trees and Verge Gardens

You might have noticed that I put street trees and verge gardens on their own, apart from the private garden, but not as far away as other urban greenspace. Their special status is because they bridge that gap between the private actions and the public, and the gap between the private individual and wider society.

They are the place of citizen gardening, where the connections in our communities and between councils and residents are nurtured over a joint concern with the urban nature all around us.

But only if you see them as part of the continuum. Otherwise they are just another bubble in our fragmented efforts to address the complex issues we face.

Nature, Economic Systems, and Money?

I also had an interesting chat with Jim Williams at the event - chats with Jim are always thought-provoking. He talked about how he thinks money and modern economies affects our ideas about nature. But that’s something to explore another day.

We will be visiting Jim’s verge garden next weekend. This is a verge garden of an acreage block. You can read about Jim’s approach to nature and the garden’s beginnings here and progress here.

“Some 32 months ago, we commenced the transformation of our nature strip from a misused and neglected wasteland into a wonderful “native” nature strip. The intent was for the land to be used by nature and to walk the walk.”
Jim Williams, 2024.

How Do You See Nature?

This post has only touched on a few points of a very big topic.

Please use the comments to explore your view of nature. Has this article affected it?

Thanks to the Philosophy in the Community Committee of the Australasian Association of Philosophy for putting on this event.