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One way to maintain biophilia and nature conservation is environmental education

Have you ever heard of biophilia? The term, which may seem strange, was popularized by American ecologist Edward O. Wilson in his book of the same name published in 1984. “Biophilia” comes from the Greek BIOS, which means life and philia, which means love, affection, or need for satisfaction. Literally, biophilia is the love of life. But what is the concept behind this term? What is biophilia?

The first to use it was the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, to describe the psychological orientation of attraction to all that is alive and vital.

Biophilia is a term that comprises a scientific perspective, of attraction to nature as an evolutionary principle, but it also has a strong philosophical character. Like this?

The term was initially used in psychoanalytic theories that opposed it to the attraction to death. Even being used from different perspectives, theories agree that biophilia is a sign of physical and mental health. Several studies prove the benefits of living with nature for human health.

Biophilia as an evolutionary process

In his work, Edward O. Wilson discusses the emotional connection that human beings have with other living organisms and with nature. The term designates this emotional attachment and instinctual desire to affiliate with other forms of life, which according to Wilson, is in our genes and has become hereditary. For the author, biophilia is inscribed in the brain itself, expressing tens of thousands of years of evolutionary experience. In his hypothesis, human beings unconsciously look for these connections throughout life.

An example of biophilia is the attraction of adult mammals (especially humans) to the faces of young mammals, which awaken an instinct for protection. The large eyes and small features of any young mammal elicit an emotional response that helps increase survival rates for all mammals.

Likewise, the hypothesis helps explain why people care for and sometimes risk their lives to save domestic and wild animals, and keep plants and flowers around their homes. Flowers often indicate a potential source of food. A good part of the fruit starts its development as a flower. For our ancestors, it was crucial to identify, detect and remember plants that would later provide food. In other words, our natural love for nature helps sustain life.

However, biophilia is impacted by the personal, social and cultural experiences in which the subject is inserted, and lives since early childhood. In this sense, even if biophilia is a genetic trend, there is a need to reinforce the contact with nature so that this connection is perpetuated. she lacks a input constant from the natural environment, that is, a rich and diversified set of exploratory experiences in a natural environment, which reinforces the connections with nature.

We relate to the environment around us in different ways and with different intensities. There are city dwellers who avoid natural landscapes and rural dwellers who do not set foot in the city at all. This sense of habitat is formed from familiar circumstances of daily life together with our instinctual root. Simply put, we learn to love what is familiar to us: we tend to relate to what we know well and has become habitual.

Connection with nature

In urban environments, it is not so easy to find space for biophilia to awaken in people. Compared to previous cultures, today's technology allows for a greater distance from nature than ever before. Technological advances, more time spent inside buildings and cars, and fewer activities that encourage biophilia and respect for the environment. These points promote the reinforcement of the disconnect between human beings and nature.

To what extent do our biological prospects and health now depend on the capacity for biophilia? It is important that we understand how biophilia is awakened, how it thrives, what it requires of us and how it is being used.

Unprecedented violence, pollution and environmental degradation demonstrate the need to strengthen the bond with nature. To save species and habitats, we need to reconnect with her emotionally. The idea is that humans won't fight to save something they can't connect to.

Paths: environmental education, architecture

The social ecologist Stephen Kellert asserts the need to update innate biophilic tendencies towards learning in a natural context. These activities must contemplate the multidimensionality of human functions - the need for knowledge, the aesthetic appeal, the reinforcement of affectivity and the expansion of creativity and imagination. Kellert considers that only the nature lived directly contributes to the full psychosomatic development of an environmental conscience.

In this context, urban society increasingly opts for forms of symbolic contact with the natural environment in which the child configures representations of a purely virtual nature, knowing what a tree is because he saw it in pictures or on TV, without ever having actually touched it. and felt one. This process of extinction of real experience seems to flow in parallel with the extinction of biodiversity.

Through educational processes, children can be involved with nature, walking in natural environments, observing living beings closely. When stimulated, the child's mind opens up to bonds with non-human life forms. Exploration and recreation in parks, beaches, zoos, botanical gardens and museums is fundamental to this process. In this way, the child acquires knowledge along with pleasant emotions.

Direct contact with living things (blackberries, strawberries, insects, birds and mammals) and physical (air, soil, water, rocks) affects the child in ways that symbolic experience cannot replace. The more we understand other forms of life, the more we will learn about them, and the greater the value placed on them.

In architecture, one strategy that seeks to reconnect people with the natural environment is biophilic design. It is a complement to green architecture, which reduces the environmental impact of the built world. An example would be the inclusion of more green spaces in the city, more classes that revolve around nature, and the execution of smart design for greener cities that integrate ecosystems in a biophilic design. Each species is a unique creation, a masterpiece of nature.

Preserving the environment is not a matter of “liking nature or not”, but rather of survival and the search for balance with the planet. If we don't save species and environments, we might not be able to save ourselves. We depend more on nature than we can imagine. We have several reasons to cultivate biophilia and propagate respect for nature. Do we want a civilization that will move towards a more intimate relationship with the natural world or that will continue to separate and isolate itself from the nature of which it is a part?