COP16 – Peace with Nature

The UN recently convened an important global meeting on nature and biodiversity. The meeting (COP16), which took place in Cali, Columbia, was broadly about how humanity can achieve a better living relationship with nature.

The meeting’s theme, “Peace with Nature”, got me thinking.

One beautiful, autumn day last weekend, I went and sat in the forest near my house. It was one of those rather rare days for Scotland: crisp, sunny, and dry, warm enough to sit on a log and just enjoy the golden, red, orange, and yellow colours. As I listened to the wind rustling the fallen and falling leaves, I realised how separated we all are from the rest of nature. I wondered what it would be like to be a mouse for a day, or a bird, or a fly. When the wind turned a bit chilly, I could go inside. We humans focus our energies on keeping much of nature out there – we turn on the heating, shut out the rain, get in our cars and drive to the supermarket. For a few idle minutes out there in the woods, I tried to imagine the radically different priorities and experiences of the earthworms, foxes, beetles, birds, and fish that live ‘out there’. No wonder we humans live as if we are divorced from nature – in some ways that has been one of our greatest successes as a species.

Except that our ‘success’ is reaching its limits.

A migrating swallow is deeply in tune with its dependence on weather conditions and nutrient flows. An early snowfall can kill late fledglings. A late spring frost can kill budding fruit trees. Cocooned inside our trains, cars, and office buildings, ‘nature’ barely enters our sophisticated, human conciousness.

When we don’t notice a thing is there, we don’t respect it. And when we don’t respect it, it’s very easy to abuse. By successfully separating ourselves from the rest of nature, we’ve used, exploited, extracted, and abused whatever we want from minerals and soil, to water and air and everything in between.

We’ve forgotten that we’re a part of nature, in the same way that our hands and feet are a part of our bodies. We might be able to shut the door against the rain outside, but we still need air, water, food, and warmth. And every extension of ourselves also requires nature: what part of society or business can survive and thrive without nature? Nature is us: nature is life.

Being at peace with nature is a good goal. It’s not about ‘saving’, or even ‘healing’ nature. It’s about realising that we are fundamentally a part of nature. It’s about making peace with ourselves.

Authors

Dr Bernice Maxton-Lee

Executive Education Lecturer Climate & Sustainability, University of Edinburgh Business School