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Many plant and animal species provide material benefits to people in the form of food, medicine, clothing, tools, and other products. Most people recognize this dependence in nonindustrial societies, particularly among preliterate tribal hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and others. Yet many developing nations still derive most of their output from extracting and exploiting wild living resources. Even industrially advanced countries such as Japan secure much of their food from exploiting wild fish stocks, and nearly 5 percent of the American economy has been found to derive from utilizing wild living species.
Recent years have seen an expanded appreciation of the utilitarian value of nature and living diversity—particularly the future benefits that might be obtained from exploiting the genetic, biochemical, and physical properties of plant and animal species, many of them still insufficiently studied. We are beginning to recognize, too, the undiscovered significance of various obscure and unknown species. Only a small fraction of the many plants containing alkaloids, for example, an organic compound possessing anticancer properties, have been tested for their possible medicinal use. It has been estimated that some 25 to 40 percent of the world’s current pharmaceutical products originated in a wild plant or animal species, and much of today’s agricultural production depends on genetic improvement by a dwindling reservoir of wild plants.
Take, for example, two recent illustrations of this medical and agricultural dependence on wild living diversity: drugs derived from a single tropical plant, the rosy periwinkle, used to treat blood-related cancers, and a wild corn important in developing a new strain of domestic corn resistant to blight. Both the wild relative of agricultural corn and the rosy periwinkle nearly became extinct due to deforestation in, respectively, Mexico and Madagascar. These species represent but a small fraction of the many actual and potential medical, agricultural, industrial, and other products people obtain from wild living resources—and rapid advances in molecular biology, genetics, and bioengineering make this exploitation increasingly possible. This expanded utilitarian value of biological diversity suggests the folly of exterminating species just to satisfy short-term and unsustainable demands for timber, wildlife, minerals, and other products.
Beyond these benefits to society at large, people often obtain a great satisfaction from their personal utilitarian experience of nature and living diversity. There is obvious benefit in picking berries, chopping firewood, harvesting wild animals, training dogs, and so on. But an intrinsic pleasure can also be derived from this participation in the movement of energy and material through varying cycles of life. No matter how mechanized and removed industrial society becomes from natural processes, there remains for many people a compelling need to feel connected to the practical utilization of nature and living diversity.
The naturalistic value emphasizes the many satisfactions people obtain from the direct experience of nature and wildlife. This value reflects the pleasure we get from exploring and discovering nature’s complexity and variety. Indeed, the satisfactions people derive from contact with living diversity may be among the most ancient pleasures obtained from interacting with the natural world—particularly the more vivid plants and animals.
Today the naturalistic experience often takes expression through formally organized recreation: birding, fishing, hunting, whalewatching, wildlife tourism, visiting zoos, and the like. People also derive naturalistic satisfaction from wandering the various woods, prairies, beaches, wetlands, and other natural areas. Living diversity is still an unrivaled context for engaging the human spirit of curiosity, exploration, and discovery, in an almost childlike manner, independent of age. A sense of permanence, simplicity, and pleasure often stems from experiencing unspoiled nature, directly observing wildlife, and participating in ancient rhythms.
Various studies have documented the many rewards of the naturalistic experience, among them relaxation, calm, and peace of mind. Additional benefits may include enhanced intellectual growth, creativity, and imagination. As Seilstad suggests: “The surest way to enrich the knowledge pool that will keep the flywheel of cultural evolution turning is to nourish the human spirit of curiosity.” Certainly immersion in nature can heighten a sense of vividness and widen the opportunity of discovery. These physical, emotional, and intellectual benefits have been revealed in studies of the outdoor recreation experience… Summarizing this research, Roger Ulrich concludes: “A consistent finding in well over 100 studies of recreation experiences in wilderness and urban nature areas has been that stress mitigation is one of the most important verbally expressed and perceived benefits.”
The naturalistic experience can also sharpen one’s sensitivity to detail as the senses become more attuned to the moment—instilling a sense of living in time rather than passing through it. Moreover, a sharpened vitality and awareness can derive from a profound involvement in nature. Intellectual stimulation, physical fitness, enhanced creativity—all may result from these encounters with the natural world.
— Stephen R. Kellert,
The Value of Life:
Biological Diversity And Human Society,
Chapter 2 – Values
Filed under: natural philosophy
