Nature: Love, Fear & Loathing
Charlotte Akers
From ecophobia to biophilia: we need to integrate ecophilia into education in order to bridge the unnatural divide between humans and our living world. Adapted from Ruyu Hung’s research at the National Chaiyi University, Taiwan: Educating for Ecophilia through Nature (Hung 2010)
‘Ecophilia’: the love of nature where all living and non-living beings are developed in accord, interdependently and organically.
‘Ecophilia’ means the closeness and positive coexistence between human beings and nature. This affiliation with nature has largely been ignored in current education systems in many societies. Hung argues that Ecophilia as an aim of education could evoke reflection upon how people interact with nature and could foster the much-needed reconciliation between humans and nature,
Many authors have pointed out that human alienation from nature is a deep-seated crux of the environmental crisis. The fostering of this human/nature separation is what Hung calls ecophobia.
Ecophobia results in the human alienation from nature as well as the ideology of human domination over nature. This leads to the hostility between human beings and nature.
It would appear that one of the main remedies to many of our current crises, is to repair the relationship between humans and nature.
Where Do We Begin?
The repairing of this relationship should start in our education systems, and how we teach our children and each other about the natural world and our role within it.
David Sobel (1996) points out that when children learn environmental education in schools, they do not learn how to contact with nature positively, instead, they learn to fear and keep distance from the natural world because frightening natural disasters and environmental crises are often taken as representative of nature. In other words, children learn ‘ecophobia’—the aversion of nature—rather than ‘ecophilia’—the love of nature (Hung, 2008).
In Hung’s research, she finds that many of the textbooks popularly used in schools in Taiwan pay the most attention to environmental awareness and knowledge, less to environmental ethics, and least to the action skills and practical experiences.
Consequently, many of the children that do know about the importance of environmental conservation, know so because they are told by parents and teachers, not because they feel the need internally due to some personal experiences.
This disconnected approach may educate us on environmental systems, but in a mechanistic way that further detaches us psychologically, cognitively, spiritually and emotionally from humanity’s inherent role within nature.
Sobel (1996) argued that environmental education characterised by abstraction could further foster ecophobia rather than ecophilia, since pupils feel impotent and helpless when learning about nature as a detached entity consisting of natural disasters, resource depletion, environmental crises, and rapid species extinction
We are taught to fear the ‘other’: when we separate ourselves from nature we are prone to fear it and to feel unable to reconnect with it, leading to hopelessness.
Evolutionary Roots of Ecophilia
Hung’s concept of ecophilia is closely linked to the concept of biophilia, defined by E. O. Wilson in his 1984 publication as ‘the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes’. As a biologist who spent years in nature study, Wilson attempted to show the harmonious relationship between human and nature.
By the term ‘innate’, biophilia is arguably a part of human nature and co-evolves through generations: we not only have a human tendency of affiliation with nature, but we share our genetic basis with other natural beings.
An important element of biophilia is this idea that it is an evolutionary process to have an inherent inclination and affiliation with life and living systems around us (Wilson 1993). This is because this connection leads us to care for and conserve life, as well as hold an awe and veneration for all forms of life.
Following this concept, we are biologically predisposed to care for and conserve forms of life which directly benefit human thriving and flourishing. For forms of life which can cause harm, sickness and death, we are inherently inclined to treat them with awe and veneration. What is important here is that, whether it is care or awe or both, biophilia is linked to the development of an ethical conservation of nature as we aim to sustain biodiversity.
In comparison, when we begin to exploit life for human flourishing, or begin to destroy, manipulate, and hold dominion over life we fear, we are not working in tandem with nature to develop healthy, diverse ecosystems.
The most harmful part of ongoing environmental crises is the loss of biodiversity.
Hung closes her opening argument with the following point: Whether the term biophilia or ecophilia is adopted, what cannot be denied is the significance of nature in human life.
Sobel, D. (1996) Beyond ecophobia. Great Barrington, MA: Orion Society.
Wilson, E. O. (1993) Biophilia and the conservation ethics, in Stephen R. Kellert & E. O. Wilson (Eds.) The Biophilia Hypothesis. Pp. 31-41. Washington, D. C.: Island Press.
