Nature, in its boundless magnificence, is the mother of all we have and ever will be. It sustains us, inspires us, and whispers secrets of life and existence in the rustle of leaves and the gurgling of streams. Its gifts are immeasurable, a cornucopia overflowing with treasures that nourish our bodies, minds, and souls. To truly appreciate what nature gives us, we must dive into the depths of its offerings, understanding how it sustains us in every facet of our being.
The Breath of Life: Air and Water
The most fundamental gifts of nature are the very elements that keep us alive – air and water. We inhale the life-giving oxygen produced by countless trees and exhale the carbon dioxide they need to thrive, a symbiotic dance in every breath. This pure air, often taken for granted, is intricately filtered by nature’s green sentinels, ridding it of pollutants and gifting us with the clear skies under which we dream and the sunsets that paint the horizon with awe.
Water, the elixir of life, flows through our veins and quenches our thirst. Nature’s intricate network of rivers, lakes, and oceans not only provides us with drinkable water but also sustains entire ecosystems, teeming with life in their depths. From the snow-capped peaks that feed glacial rivers to the fertile plains nurtured by underground aquifers, nature ensures a constant flow of this precious resource, the very essence of life on Earth.
A Feast for the Senses: Food and Medicine
Nature’s bounty extends beyond mere survival, it lays a banquet before us, a feast for the senses. Lush fields yield an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and grains, bursting with flavour and nourishment. From the juicy sweetness of ripe berries to the earthy goodness of freshly dug potatoes, nature provides us with a diverse palette of tastes and textures that fuel our bodies and tantalize our palates.
This vast culinary tapestry extends beyond the cultivated fields. Herbs and spices, fragrant and potent, whisper of ancient remedies and culinary delights. Mushrooms, hidden treasures of the forest floor, offer umami-rich depth to our dishes. Even the ocean’s bounty, from the delicate flesh of fish to the briny bite of seaweed, testifies to the diversity and deliciousness of nature’s offerings.
Nature’s gifts extend beyond the kitchen, offering a pharmacopoeia of healing solutions. From the soothing balm of aloe vera to the invigorating power of ginseng, plants have provided remedies for centuries. Even modern medicine owes a debt to nature, with countless life-saving drugs derived from natural sources. From the humble willow bark that gave us aspirin to the rosy periwinkle that fights cancer, nature whispers secrets of healing in every leaf and root.
Shelter and Materials: A Roof Over Our Heads
Nature not only provides sustenance but also offers us shelter and the materials to build our homes. From the towering cedars and sturdy oaks that provide timber for construction to the clay and stone that form the walls of our dwellings, nature is the architect’s playground. Even the simplest shelters, woven from leaves and branches, speak to our innate connection with the natural world, a bond forged in survival and nurtured by respect.
Beyond the walls, nature provides an abundance of materials for our tools and instruments. From the reeds that form musical pipes to the fibers that weave our clothes, nature offers us the building blocks of civilization. Each object, crafted from natural materials, whispers a story of the earth, connecting us to the cycle of creation and reminding us of our place within it.
A Haven for the Soul: Recreation and Inspiration
Nature’s gifts extend beyond the tangible, nourishing our souls and igniting our imaginations. The majesty of snow-capped mountains, the calming rhythm of waves on the shore, the endless expanse of a starry night sky – these are experiences that fill our hearts with wonder and remind us of our place in the vast universe.
Nature is a playground for adventure, a canvas for artistic expression, and a sanctuary for peace. Whether we hike through dense forests, kayak on pristine lakes, or simply sit beneath a shady tree and listen to the songbirds, nature offers us moments of respite and connection. It is in these moments, immersed in the beauty and serenity of the natural world, that we find inspiration for art, music, and literature, expressions of the human spirit nurtured by the whispers of the wild.
Beyond the Gifts: Responsibility and Gratitude
Nature’s bounty is not ours to take for granted. We are not merely recipients of its gifts, but also stewards, responsible for its protection and preservation. As we reap the benefits of fertile fields and clean air
Fisheries
Humankind has turned to the rivers and seas for food for at least 40,000 years but probably even longer. Today, amid concern of a global fishery collapse, more than a billion people depend on fish as their primary source of protein, many of them among the global poor. Fisheries also provide livelihoods, both directly and indirectly, for around half a billion. Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass ecosystems provide nurseries for the world’s fisheries, while the open ocean is used for migrating routes and hunting.
Even with the direct importance of the world’s fisheries for food, stewardship has been lacking, allowing many populations to drop precipitously and still permitting ecologically destructive fishing. While the world’s fisheries are primarily threatened by overfishing, including bycatch, marine pollution is also a major problem.
Biodiversity and wildlife abundance
The argument to save the world’s wildlife has often come from an aesthetic point of view. Many conservationists have fought to save species simply because they like a particular species. This is often why more popularly known animals—tigers, elephants, rhinos—receive far more attention than less popular (although just as endangered) wildlife—for example, the redbelly egg frog, the smokey bat, or the bastard quiver tree. But beyond making the world a less lonely, less boring, and less beautiful place—admirable reasons in themselves—many of the services provided by biodiversity are similar to those provided by all of nature. Biodiversity produces food, fibers, wood products; it cleans water, controls agricultural pests, pollinates and dispersers the world plants; and provides recreation, such as birdwatching, gardening, diving, and ecotourism.
In the discussion of biodiversity, however, bioabundance is often ignored. A loss in bioabundance means that species are not just important for their diversity, but for their numbers. While Asian elephants may not go extinct any time soon, their depletion in forests means that the ecosystems lose the elephants’ special ecological talents such as spreading seeds and engineering micro-habitats. The drop in salmon populations in the US has caused the entire freshwater ecosystem to receive less nutrients every year (researchers estimate a nutrient-drop of over 90 percent); this means less food for people, less salmon for predators, and a less rich river overall. Declining nutrients also makes it impossible for the salmon to rebound to optimal populations, creating a vicious circle of bio-decline.
Climate regulation
The natural world helps regulate the Earth’s climate. Ecosystems such as rainforests, peatlands, and mangroves store significant amounts of carbon, while the ocean captures massive amounts of carbon through phytoplankton. While regulating greenhouse gases are imperative in the age of climate change, new research is showing that the world’s ecosystems may also play a role in weather. A recent study found that the Amazon rainforest acted as its own ‘bioreactor’, producing clouds and precipitation through the abundance of plant materials in the forest.
Economy
In the common tension viewed between the economy and the environment—e.g. do we clear-cut a forest or conserve it?—one fact is often neglected: the environment underpins the entire global economy. Without fertile soils, clean drinking water, healthy forests, and a stable climate, the world’s economy would face disaster. By imperiling our environment, we imperil the economy. According to research published in Science, the global worth of total ecosystem services could run between $40-60 trillion a year.
Health
Recent research has found what nature-lovers have long expected: spending time in a green space, such as a park, provides benefits for one’s mental and physical health. Exercising in a park, instead of inside a gym, has shown to provide mental health benefits as a greater sense of well-being. Walking for 20 minutes in a green space has been proven to help children with ADHD improve their concentration, even working as well, or better, than medication. People who live in more natural settings have better overall health, even when research has taken into account economic differences.
Art
Imagine poetry without flowers, painting without landscapes, or film without scenery. Imagine if Shakespeare had no rose to compare Juliet to, or if William Blake had no Tyger to set alight. Imagine if Van Gogh lacked crows to paint or Durer a rhinoceros to cut. What would the Jungle Book be without Baloo or the Wind in the Willows without Mr. Badger? Imagine My Antonia without the red grass of the American prairie or Wuthering Heights without the bleak moors. How would The Lord of the Rings film series appear without the stunning mountain ranges of New Zealand, or Lawrence of Arabia without the desert of North Africa? There is no question that the natural world has provided global arts with some of its greatest subjects. What we lose in nature, we also lose in art.
Spiritual
While some of what nature provides us is measurable, most of what nature gives us is simply beyond measure. Economic measurements are useful; but as with most of what happens in the world, economics is simply incapable of capturing true worth. Science is also a useful measurement regarding the importance of nature, but once again cannot measure what nature means—practically and aesthetically—to each individual.
Perhaps the most difficult gift of nature’s to measure is its ingrained connection to human spirituality. In most of the world’s religions the natural world is rightly revered. In Christianity, Earthly paradise existed in a garden, while Noah, the original conservationist, is commanded by God to save every species. Buddhists believe all life—from the smallest fly to the blue whale—is sacred and worthy of compassion. For Hindus every bit of the natural world is infused with divinity. Muslims believe the natural world was created by Allah and only given to humans as gift to be held in trust. Indigenous cultures worldwide celebrate the natural world as their ‘mother’. But one need not be religious to understand the importance of nature to the human spirit: one only need spend time alone in a shadowy forest, sit on a forgotten beach, touch the spine of a living frog, or watch the quarter moon swing behind mountain silhouettes.
