The importance of protecting biodiversity

Very often, to underline the importance of safeguarding our environment and ultimately the entire biosphere, we resort to demonstrating certain benefits that an environment less exploited and modified by human action brings. Indisputable arguments are gradually presented to illustrate the effects of ecosystem degradation on our health, of climatic alteration on our societies and on our safety, of the decreased biodiversity on the buffering and recycling capacity of the environment and so on up to financial topics, where the economic productivity of environments with high anthropic impact is compared to that of others less subject to the action of man. Each of these arguments has its merits, despite the complexity and sometimes the fragility of the corresponding analyzes depending on the value of the parameters and models used; however, I think maybe more attention should be paid to a point of immediate understanding and easy communicationwhich rests on a value usually not taken seriously enough when it comes to environmental preservation.

To introduce this particular type of value connected to the preservation of biodiversity and environmental integrity, it is advisable to start from the experience that each of us can have, in observing what we commonly define as nature and the landscape that surrounds us. In general, we tend to appreciate ecosystems rich in different species and varied in terms of morphology, such as the landscape of an alpine lake nestled in a boreal forest, while in contrast we shy away from monotonous and lifeless habitats, such as an expanse of asphalt in a parking lot. In other words, we have an innate preference, which we tend to consider aesthetic, precisely for those environments which, rightly or wrongly, appear to us to contain a large number of species and what I would define as a harmonious and varied landscape movement. Indeed, precisely when we refer to the naive conception of “natural” in a positive sense, we tend to instinctively refer to precisely this type of ecosystem that we prefer to others, regardless of the fact that our life in them could be much more difficult than the routine in a boring and homogeneous expanse of identical terraced houses or apartments in the real Chinese communist style. Although many think that this preference constitutes a form of cultural biasperhaps born in the romantic age with the myth of the noble savage and uncontaminated nature, the reality is different: a recent article published in Science, for example, quantitatively evaluating the homogeneity of the environments frequented by six different species of Homo, has concluded that the most advanced and young, including ours, show a tendency to prefer variegated and spatially different habitats for their existence, or, in usual terms, to prefer varied landscapes over more monotonous ones.

This tendency, combined with innate exploratory propensities, constitutes one of the traits that scientists believe underlie our ancestors’ propensity to invade and colonize every corner of the globe, abandoning Africa: the potential associated with environmental diversity has been a propellant that has favored migration, adaptation and differentiation of the first cultures. This recent work is in good agreement with the studies of a discipline called “evolutionary aesthetics”, which seek to trace the innate bases of our aesthetic preferences and to link them to traits that have proved to be adaptive for the evolution of our species. In a famous experiment about twenty years ago, children of different nations were asked to select their favorite landscape from a series of standardized photos. Savannah landscapes broken up by trees, with water, with both open and forested areas, with trees with branches at a suitable height for climbing and foraging, with features that encourage exploration such as a trail or a river curving out of sight, with animals clearly visible or impliedly present, and with some clouds. As the authors of the original study concluded, these are all characteristics that are often present in artistic calendars or in the design of public parks, underscoring the presence of a well-rooted and instinctive aesthetic tendency for diverse and biodiverse ecosystems.

Now, if it is true, as the data seem to suggest, that the presence of this type of preferences probably has an evolutionary reason, it is clear that the protection of the environment and biodiversity, in a word, the enhancement of ecosystems in opposition to their degradation anthropic, it has an aesthetic value worthy of protection no less than works of art, urban planning or architecture of great perceived value. That is, in addition to all the precise advantages that the conservation of certain ecosystems have for the survival of our species in good conditions, there is a more immediate and readily perceived value, as studies on children show: the intrinsic beauty that they disclose to our eyes a coral reef, a boreal forest, an alpine glacier and every single one of those iconic sights we’ve all come to know, if only through television. If we protect a painting by Picasso, we don’t see why we shouldn’t keep a beach intact and protect the variety of species that frequent it; if we admire a Monet, we shouldn’t consider Monviso less worthy of admiration; and so, in an infinite series of examples, it should be clear why one of the primary engines that should feed our effort to protect the environment should be the sense of beauty that emanates from the multitude of living things and landscapes of our planet. This sense is wired into our brains and into our instincts: its rediscovery, and education to consider the value towards which it is oriented, are the task of culture and politics, without waiting for scientific research to explain to us what damages result from ‘ignore the natural call of the beautiful.