Where Do Humans Fit Into Nature?

Picture the Earth in your head. Where do humans belong in that picture? Are people standing “on top” of the planet, controlling nature and free to take whatever they want from it? Or are they part of the Earth, living inside a system that supports all life—including ours? The answer is extremely important, because how we see our relationship with nature shapes how we treat it.

For many years, most people have acted as if the world was here to merely serve humans (Figure 1). We cut down forests and destroyed grasslands to make space for farms and cities. Rivers were dammed to produce energy. Oceans were fished heavily to feed growing populations. At first, that way of thinking seemed to work, and life became easier and more comfortable. People started to live longer, and some got rich.

But over time, this way of thinking has caused serious harm. By pushing nature too far, we have damaged the very systems that support our lives [1]. The climate is changing in dangerous ways, and many species are struggling or disappearing. The Earth system we are part of is deteriorating and becoming unstable. This shows up as unusually big storms, fires, water shortages, and outbreaks of new infectious diseases. Continuing down the same path will only make things worse.

Many Indigenous Peoples and other traditional cultures have long understood something that modern societies often forget: humans are not above nature—we are part of it. Earth system science tells us the same thing: nature is not here to serve us; instead, we have a responsibility to care for it for the sake of all living things. To have a healthy future, we must live within nature’s limits and the safe boundaries of a healthy planet, not to continue to harm it (Figure 1). This means we need to halt and reverse the loss of nature.

Getting the Picture Right

Some people think that protecting nature will disrupt human society and ruin their way of life. They worry it will mean giving up the comforts they are used to or the technologies that make daily life easy. Others worry about the economy and argue that we cannot afford to protect the Earth because people would lose jobs or face higher prices for food, energy, and housing.

But these arguments mix up the priorities. Our health, our societies, and the economy all depend on the Earth system working properly [2]. In reality, the relationship works like a chain: the Earth system supports people, people form societies, and societies create economies.

If you think it through step by step, this is easy to see. The Earth existed just fine for billions of years before humans came along. So, we know the Earth system does not depend on people—it is the other way around. Modern humans first evolved about 300,000 years ago, long before cities, governments, or modern societies existed. Our industrial economy is even newer—only a few hundred years old. The economy was invented by people, and humans lived in societies for thousands of years without it. The economy cannot exist without people. It exists to serve people.

Put simply, without a healthy Earth system, there can be no people; without people, there is no society; and without society, there is no economy. That sequence matters. Our health and future depend on the Earth system working properly.

Nature positive: stop harming, then start repairing

To change direction, the first thing we must do is to stop making things worse. Then we must repair the damage that has already been done. This way of thinking—halting and reversing the loss of nature—is called Nature Positive [3].

The order of these actions matters: we must first stop harming nature, and only then can we truly help it recover. Think of it this way: imagine a construction site where workers are digging a deep hole with a backhoe. They suddenly realize the hole is in the wrong place and decide to fix the mistake. But instead of stopping the backhoe, other workers start throwing shovelfuls of dirt back into the hole. As long as the backhoe keeps digging, the new dirt makes almost no difference, and the hole keeps getting deeper.

We are already in a hole, so the first step is to stop digging. This is why protecting what remains of nature—from small green patches in cities to large wild landscapes and every patch of undisturbed nature in between—is the most important step.

Wild areas where nature still functions on its own are called primary ecosystems. These beautiful wilderness areas include the Amazon rainforest, the Congo Basin, and the Canadian boreal forest, as well as large, relatively untouched areas of the ocean, all of which have existed largely unharmed by humans for thousands of years. In primary ecosystems, plants, animals, rivers, soils, and weather interact in complex ways, keeping the ecosystems remarkably stable.

Because we do not fully understand primary ecosystems, we cannot recreate them once they are lost. Restoration efforts, like returning a polluted river to its natural state, aim to rebuild all the relationships that make an ecosystem function, but we can only use the best knowledge we have about how nature works. Destroying a primary ecosystem is like burning a library before we have read all the books—the knowledge stored there disappears forever. That is why stopping the loss of nature must come first. Restoration cannot succeed if destruction continues at the same time.

Damage to nature does not just affect plants and animals—it also affects human health. Many of the diseases that cause major outbreaks in humans are zoonotic, meaning they spread from animals to people. When natural habitats are destroyed, wildlife becomes stressed and is pushed into closer contact with humans, increasing the chances that viruses spread between species [4]. Healthy, intact ecosystems help reduce these risks and also support human wellbeing in other ways, from clean air and water to the mental health benefits of spending time in nature.

What Can Be Done in Your Area?

If the goal is to halt and reverse the loss of nature, where can kids like you begin? The answer depends on where you are.

Today, the world can be divided into three conditions, depending on how much people have changed it (Figure 2) [5]. About 17% of Earth’s land and nearby ocean areas have been heavily changed by human activity, such as cities and industrial farms. At the other end of the scale, around 26% of the planet is still made up of large wild areas, primary ecosystems, and remote parts of the ocean, where humans have not had significant impact. Between these two extremes are shared landscapes, where there are both primary ecosystems and landscapes that humans have transformed. These shared lands make up about 56% of the world.

Large Wild Areas

We all share responsibility for saving the world’s large wild areas. In these primary ecosystems, the goal is simple: stop destroying them. There are no roads in these places, and they are often home to traditional Indigenous Peoples who know how to live in them without doing harm. Wild areas may feel far away from our everyday lives, but they play a huge role in keeping the Earth system running. Primary ecosystems help keep Earth stable by storing carbon, generating rainfall, and supporting many animal species. Many of the world’s major rivers begin in these intact ecosystems.

Shared Lands

In rural areas, people often live and work in or near shared landscapes, where there is still lots of nature around. These areas can have a lot in common with large wild areas and might include protected national parks as well as places where natural resources are obtained through logging, mining, drilling, or damming rivers.

Creating and connecting protected areas within these shared landscapes makes a big difference [6]. National or state parks can be linked by natural “corridors” that let animals move safely from one protected area to another. These interconnected networks give species secure places to mate and raise their young. Clean, free-flowing streams and rivers can also serve as corridors connecting ecosystems.

In addition, people living in shared areas can focus on making their activities less harmful to nature. For example, in unprotected forests, people could harvest fewer trees at a time and leave older trees standing, or they could minimize road building. Mining can be done carefully by limiting how much land is disturbed, cleaning up waste, and protecting the landscape around mines. River health can be improved by removing dams and reducing pollution. Livestock like cows, sheep, and goats can be limited, to give their grazing lands a chance to recover.

Cities and Farms

Cities and farms are the places where most people live and where much of our food is produced. Nature has been highly impacted in these areas. The challenge in cities and farms is to cause as little harm to nature as possible. The first step is to protect any remaining patches of primary ecosystems. Restoring streams and the native plants that live along their banks is important and can be fun too. If you live in these areas, you could join efforts to help restore streams by letting them wind naturally instead of running straight like gutters. You could also help preserve native plants around roadways, or if you live in North America, you can plant native plants such as milkweed to support Monarch butterflies.

If your family lives on a farm, you could try to use fertilizers and pesticides more carefully, especially keeping them out of streams and wetlands. When these chemicals are overused, they can harm freshwater species and eventually reach the ocean where they can harm marine life too [7]. If you have a backyard, replace the lawn with native plants and watch with wonder as birds and insects return. Keep housecats under control because they kill millions of beautiful wild birds and other small animals every year [8]. If you live in an apartment, work in a community garden, which can provide shelter and food for bees, butterflies, and birds. Some buildings might even permit rooftop pollinator gardens. Help your community to establish native plant corridors along roads or waterways so that species can move safely through urban areas. And, no matter where you live, you can raise your voice for protection of large wild areas!

A Nature Positive Future

Nature Positive gives us a clear way to think about our place in the world. Human health and the health of nature are tightly connected, and we are responsible for keeping the natural world healthy. Since we are part of the same system, if nature is under stress, people will be under stress too. This way of seeing the world is not new—it is common in Indigenous traditions and many ancient ways of thinking [3].

One powerful action everyone can take, no matter where you live, is to spend time in nature. Go out into your yard or to a park and watch a butterfly drift through the air. Listen to birds singing. Notice how trees fall in a forest and new ones grow, how plants and animals change with the seasons. Time spent in healthy nature is good for us. It can help us feel calmer, less overwhelmed, and more connected to the natural world.

The Nature Positive viewpoint helps us to replace feelings of powerlessness and fear with hope and action. Even if we live far from rainforests, coral reefs, or endangered animals, we can help stop the loss of nature, work to repair the damage that has already been done, and make the future brighter for nature and for humans!

Glossary

Earth System: ↑ The interconnected parts of Earth—air, water, land, and living things—that work together to make life possible.

Indigenous Peoples: ↑ Groups of people whose ancestors lived in a place long before modern nations formed, often maintaining deep cultural, spiritual, and practical connections to the land.

Human Society: ↑ Organized groups of people who live together, share rules and traditions, and cooperate to meet needs such as food, safety, and care.

Economy: ↑ The system people use to produce, trade, and share goods and services, including how jobs are created and how money is earned and spent.

Primary Ecosystems: ↑ Large natural areas that have experienced little human disturbance, where plants, animals, soils, and water interact in long-lasting, stable ways.

Restoration: ↑ Actions that help damaged natural areas recover, such as replanting native vegetation, cleaning polluted water, or allowing ecosystems to return to more natural conditions.

Zoonotic: ↑ Describes diseases that can spread from animals to humans, often when natural habitats are disturbed and people and wildlife come into closer contact.

Native: ↑ Describes plants or animals that naturally live in a place and evolved there over long periods of time, without being introduced from somewhere else by human transport.

Conflict of Interest

HL is president of Harvey Locke Conservation Inc., a for-profit consultancy.

The remaining author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Dr. Susan Debad for providing a first draft and continued collaborative input as co-author. We would like to thank the co-authors of the original manuscript: Dan Laffoley, Leroy Little Bear, Fuwen Wei, Krithi K. Karanth, Lydia Zemke, Robyn Seetal, and F. Richard Hauer. HL’s company Harvey Locke Conservation Inc. received funding from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative which was funded through Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Grant No. GBMF7544.01. RKP was funded by the United States National Science Foundation (No. DEB-1716698, No. EF2133763) and Burroughs Wellcome Fund. CP is supported by a Frontiers Planet Prize awarded by the Frontiers Foundation.

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