Wild Nature and Love

Last winter, I was hiking with a friend in some woods near Boston. The surroundings were beautiful; snow-laden trees coupled with a bruising cold. And yet, I felt restive.

‘There are no wolves or mountain lions east of the Mississippi,’ I remarked to him. ‘When you look at the amount of the protected land in the Eastern United States, does that not make you sad?’ He was perplexed. ‘But why do we need them?’

That was not the response I expected. Sure, ecologically, I could make a case for the necessity of an apex predator in an ecosystem. Yet, if you leave the science aside for a moment, it was hard to articulate why I cared so much.

This failure of articulation is rooted in the idea that I’ve never successfully pinned down why I enjoy the wild places. Why do I love to watch the soaring flight of a vulture or track the movement of a squirrel as it hops from branch to branch? I just do. In fact, it seems impossible to not find such moments stimulating.

There are plenty of utilitarian reasons to conserve the natural world, but they seem inadequate. In my mind, the conservation of the natural world and its inhabitants is an end in itself, their value is intrinsic. This is how it tends to be with activities, people or places that you deeply love. You treasure them because they exist; you don’t know how not to love them. We place reason on a pedestal but when it comes to love, the rational arguments we put forward are layered on to reinforce an emotion that cares little for the utilitarian.

I realized that afternoon that it is difficult to explain the attraction of watching wildlife to someone who doesn’t intuitively share this idea. The truth is that it is a personal response, often rooted in a good first experience.

Often, I have been asked what I enjoy most about visiting Indian forests. I always discuss the initial moments of the morning game drive, the journey from the hotel or guest house to the forest gate. It is typically about 6am and the sky is rapidly turning grey as dawn breaks. The dawn chorus has begun; the call of the nightjar and the soft hooting of owls fade away to be replaced by the crow of the jungle fowl. Trees emerge out of the gloom, their shapes solidifying as the sky lightens. If a tiger or leopard is about, you may hear the harsh bark of a langur sentry, or the piercing alarm call of a chital, notes of panic discernible in their cry. Renewal is all around you and it mixes with your own anticipation for the new day. To put it simply, you feel good.

This reflection was inspired by an interview given by a conservation biologist named Michael Soule. It resonated with me deeply, but like him, I love wild nature. How does this emotion translate into the conservation movement? I’m not sure, as the experience of living with wild nature is not always pleasant. Try telling a family whose crops have been ransacked by a herd of elephants that the animals have intrinsic value. Yet, the language of ecology, interdependence, and economic benefit should not be the only way we frame the impetus for conservation. As Michael Soule says, ‘we protect what we love.’ If love for wild nature can be organically kindled in more people, we might retreat at a faster rate from the precipice on which we are perched.