Following the launch of the State of Nature report, I am keen to stimulate a debate about what else we need to do to live in harmony with nature. Over the next few weeks, people from differing perspectives will propose their One Big Thing for Nature. Today, I am delighted to welcome Richard Mabey, FRSL. Richard is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture.How not to save the worldI'm appallled by the concept of One Big Thing for Nature. Nature isn't North Korea. It doesn't work according to On Big Ideology. It isn't threatened by One Overaching Enemy. It won't be 'saved' by One Totalitarian Solution. I resent also the assumtpion that it is in our gift to 'save' it. What a great job we did of that in the 19th-20th centuries! The hubristic assumption that we are cleverer than nature is what got us in this mess originally. The natural world is infinitely complex and dynamic, declining in parts flourishing in others. We can only help it if we recognise all the myriad ecological networks we are involved in as individuals and institutions, try to behave in them as homeostatically as all their other citizens, and endeavour TO DO NO HARM. That is not One Big Thing, but tens of millions of little things, which is what nature itself is.
Do you agree with Richard Mabey? And what would be your One Big Thing for Nature?
It would be great to hear your views.
Richard, I do agree with the concept you have placed here.
The easiest thing for us to do is nothing and let nature get on with it successfully, but to do that we would have to disappear. So the answer is somewhere in the middle and the big danger is we can't make man (whoever he or she is) amend and change activities in synch. One person / business / country's view of nature will conflict with whatever another one is trying to do. I wrote to my M.P last year about the buzzard proposal. A nice letter back telling me how "conservation measures" had increased the buzzard population and how well certain birds (including the pheasant) were doing; a total lack of understanding from my viewpoint, presumably an accepted view from his position.
The main thing about Big Things for Nature is the discussion but how that is implemented is unfortunately another discussion. Lots of little things is the way forward.
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