DEAR EDITOR:

Humans, like all life on earth, exist only in the context of biological ecosystems. In the confines of urban life, where the hands of humanity have shaped our environment into steel, asphalt and concrete, we forget this fundamental axiom of life. Our collective societal focus is on economic growth, more jobs, more people, more things as measured by gross domestic product.

A recent report on economics of biodiversity concludes natural ecosystems are essential to existence of humanity and must be first and foremost consideration when contemplating economic development (The Dasgupta Review, www.gov.uk/official-documents).

Not only does humanity depend on services provided by natural ecosystems, but these life-supporting systems are now in a state of rapid decline. This decline is manifested in the loss of biodiversity, fisheries, fertile soils destruction of tropical rainforest and most especially by global climate warming and its manifest adverse consequences.

Most of us as children learned to appreciate “nature.” To enjoy seeing backyard birds, hearing their songs, walking in a park or woods. But fundamental lessons of nature were not being learned, or forgotten, or relegated to be of less importance than “economic” growth. These are not just lessons of aesthetic appreciation, they are, as the Review concludes, fundamental to the life we have become accustomed. The growth of GDP no longer can be the end-all measure of success and wellbeing. The new economic calculus, for quality of life, must be centered on the natural systems on which we depend for our existence. If we are to solve this century’s multitude of threatening environmental issues, an understanding nature and the functioning of nature must be internalized by us all.

Dasgupta writes: Solutions to the pressing environmental problems require that “we (each) develop an affection for nature and its processes. The Review ends with a plea that our education systems should introduce nature studies from the earliest stages of our lives, and revisit them in the years we spend in secondary and tertiary education … if we care about our common future and the common future of our descendants, we should all in part be naturalists.”

The lessons of nature are best taught in natural areas, where the forces of nature shape the landscape. Islands of nature, in the sea of urban development, are indispensable to teach these fundamental lessons of life. We need to hold dear, even sacred, these bits of nature, not just for recreation, aesthetics and pleasure but for the fundamental life’s lessons that they can teach. It is here in these bits of the natural world where the natural processes are permitted to govern with minimal human intervention. It is here where the lessons of nature can be learned and, more importantly, where affection for nature is nurtured.

LAUREN SCHROEDER

Poland