Naturalists, nature lovers/protectors/conservationists, ecologists, all these people, myself included, have in common the concern for nature. Concern, as in the interest and care that we have for it but also the concern when we worry and feel preoccupied. Fifty years ago, Robert Hainard began the foreword to his book Expansion et Nature by talking about them and went on to question the reason for their anguish.

Today, these reasons are mainly focused on the fear of catastrophes, famines, and an uninhabitable planet. We must protect nature for the water, food, and air it provides us. It is essential to our survival and that of future generations. A relevant and essential argument, but is that all? Is this the real cause of our attraction to the natural world? of our fear of its disappearance?

The little thought exercise briefly suggested by Hainard helps to understand the question. Let us imagine that tomorrow a set of innovations, technologies, are discovered that solve all the problems caused by the exploitation of nature. How would we feel?

Let’s imagine that climate change was suddenly resolved, along with water and food supply for every human being, that all pollution was eliminated and all epidemics were eradicated. That cutting down forests, eradicating species, concreting over waterways or building industries no longer had any negative consequences on the survival, comfort and health of any person on Earth. What would we think then, those of us who promote the protection of nature to avoid our loss?

Logically, we should be relieved because there would be no more reason to worry. Our goal would have been achieved. We would all be safe and sound and that’s all we wanted, right?

Or like me, do you end up feeling a bit uneasy? We can only rejoice at the end of all these issues and, in the process, put an end to the ideas that would have us believe that if we are for nature, we are against humans. But for all that, isn’t there still a certain amount of disappointment and dismay? Would we really be relieved that the exploitation of nature could continue without collateral damage?

Well no. In our eyes, the situation would have gotten worse. So what? Have we lied about our motivations from the beginning? Probably. But lied to whom?

Above all, to ourselves more than to the rest of the world. This thought experiment shows us to what extent we have convinced ourselves that the only reason to protect nature lies in the services it provides us. When deep down, what drives us, what touches us in front of a vast wild landscape, an ancient forest, to the sound of a stag’s bellow or a flight of Honney buzzards, is not at all their usefulness but their beauty. We don’t say: “Wow, this forest is good for my survival!”, but: “This forest is beautiful!”. And it goes beyond visual beauty alone. It is a feeling that is difficult to identify, that we struggle to put into words, that moves us as much as it fascinates us, soothes us, fills us with admiration and a certain humility.

So why not just say that from the beginning?

For anyone who shares this interest in nature, we know how rhetorical the question is. Why not assert our love of wild nature in the face of its destruction? Because we will be laughed at, because it weighs nothing, it is useless, it brings nothing. Preventing the construction of housing, roads, industries for the beauty of a marsh, a newt, an egret? Our personal outpourings have no place in these utilitarian and accounting negotiations. Progress and growth are underway and our personal aspirations obviously weigh nothing.

And that’s where the lie begins. In the absence of being able to truly admit what matters to us in nature, we clumsily comply with the rules of the game: utilitarian and accounting.

“Nature provides us with essential services.” If that is not enough, scientists will be called upon to show that each species plays a role in the stability of ecosystems. And the final argument is that now that the problems have reached a global scale, we will call for the survival of our species, of our civilization.

And after that? Well, it is difficult to do more. We find ourselves in this frustrating position of the one who has cried wolf too much, of the one who has made all the threats available to him without carrying out a single one : we are obviously still alive and still have air, water and food (for the luckiest among us). In the game of negotiations, we no longer have any assets. We have lost.

And yet these threats are very real. We now know the facts, the figures and the solutions. So many people are already suffering the consequences. So much so that our initial motivations, the most authentic and profound (“nature touches me”), seem insignificant in comparison.

Without even realizing it, we have been caught in our own game. What really motivates us to protect nature cannot be invoked because it is naive. So we go towards utilitarian arguments which, first, are neglected because they clash with greater economic priorities, and second, cause us to devalue what really motivates us in the first place. We have tried to play by rules that are not ours and in a way, for us, the dice are loaded, always against us.

So what is left for us, those who care about nature? One simple thing: play by our rules based on what we know and what we feel. And this comes down to two needs.

First: nature is necessary for our survival. It is obvious, it is a fact. We know the main problems and the solutions. They are certainly not implemented, but we can easily understand their objective. We will always need a minimum of nature, such as fields, trees and livestock, if only to feed ourselves.

Second need: nature is beautiful, it moves us, touches us. Here it is more vague, difficult to explain and generalize. It seems subjective, personal, and it surely is. This is the cause of this persistent unease at the end of our thought experiment. For the naturalists that we are, nature and especially wild nature amazes us and it is so obvious to us that we feel it as universal, necessary for all.

Here lies the crux of the problem, the question at the heart of what we feel: is there a universal need for nature, present in everyone, but which is not about services or survival, and independent of personal opinions? a fundamental necessity that would explain this attachment to wild nature that we observe to varying degrees in everyone, and so strong in naturalists?

Well the answer is yes and it comes from Robert Hainard who tried to make us understand the reasons throughout his life. We need nature not for its usefulness but for its otherness.

What does that mean?

By definition, we call “nature” everything that is not human. It is everything that we have not created. It is what is most different from us. We will never be able to understand it from the inside and it will therefore always remain partly mysterious. Which makes it this inexhaustible source of fascination, wonder and inspiration. The other side of this argument is that we cannot fully flourish in a purely human world.

You are admiring a sunset. An even more beautiful sunset that you observe in a virtual reality headset, that you know is created with computer-generated images, will not have the same effect, even though from a purely visual point of view it is better. Because you know that it is on demand, that it can be modified at will, without limit, that there is someone behind it, an intention that you understand, a fabrication that you perceive. It makes too much sense, it is too understandable, too predictable, too human in a way, to arouse the same feeling of wonder and plenitude.

Despite all our imagination, our cultural diversity and our creations, a human life in an only human environment, necessarily ends up going round in circles, stagnating and becoming impoverished. It will be truncated in an essential part. Robert Hainard would say that we cannot feed on our own substance. This leads to a loss of meaning, to this deep, general malaise, the one we don’t want to see, the one we can’t see.