Nature Affinity, Nature-Centrism and Our Human Endeavor

Grizzly bear mother and cub.

Nature is a significant and irreplaceable part of being human and a Nature-centric paradigm is a foundational need for us as individuals and our society.

(Excerpts from Augeri, 2025, 2009)

© Dave Augeri, Ph.D.

In 1862, during a time in history when the central paradigm of human society was domination and elimination of Nature, Henry David Thoreau proffered: “In wildness is the preservation of the world” (Thoreau 1862). This concept has never been more cogent for society than today and Thoreau could very well have also said: 'in wildness is the preservation of humanity'.

For more than 99% of our existence the human condition has been rooted in the natural world. Our co-evolution with the rest of Nature has been an essential influence on our physiological, emotional, and psychological development and is considered embedded in the human genome (Lumsden and Wilson 1981, 1985). The instinctive bond and deep affiliation humans have with Nature is not an aesthetic. Nor is it a personal or sociological aspiration. It is deeply fixed in our biology (Kellert 1993, Wilson 1993, Urlich 1993, Lumsden and Wilson 1981). It is possible, therefore, that destruction of and disconnecting from the environment can lead to a type of ‘nature-deficit disorder’ (Louv 2005) and the deprivation of human and societal health and well-being. Yet, the vast and diverse qualities of Nature provide humans and society with the essential means to heal, rejuvenate, and function on higher, healthier and more productive levels.

Society’s integration with Nature is within our grasp. It is also an essential element of the human endeavor. In fact, our fundamental traits shaped by Nature over our entire evolutionary development and that ensured our survival remain in our genetic, physical, and emotional composition (Augeri, 2009; Lumsden & Wilson, 1981, 1984, 1985). These traits continue to dictate our indispensable need for Nature today (Augeri, 2025; 2009; Heerwagen & Orians, 1993, Sagan & Margulis, 1993, Rolston, 1993; Ulrich 1993; Wilson, 1984).

Juvenile orangutan in tropical forest of Borneo. © Dave Augeri

Our coevolution with the rest of Nature has been a foundational influence on our development as a species and a society. It has shaped our physiological, emotional, psychological, mental, social, and spiritual development as well as our interpersonal relationships, behaviors and even our economies, politics, and governing, among other aspects of our human enterprise (Augeri, 2025, 2009; Kellert & Wilson, 1993). Putting aside the essential life support, ecosystem services, products and other benefits biodiversity, ecosystems and the biosphere give us, the vast and diverse qualities of Nature also provide humans and society with the essential means to heal, rejuvenate, and function on higher, healthier, and more intelligent and successful levels. However, the destruction of and our disconnecting from the natural world not only risk our existence as a species, but this is also causing the deprivation of human health, wellbeing, productivity and success today (Augeri, 2025, 2009). 

The significant majority of human history has involved an intimate dependence on and coevolution with Nature. Our brains, bodies, emotions, relationships, cultures, and societies evolved in a biocentric world (Lumsden & Wilson, 1981, Wilson, 1984).  Pristine Nature — ‘wilderness’ — is an essential element of the human condition (Augeri, 2009). The significant role wilderness has played in more than 99% of human evolution secures Nature’s affect in human development and advancement, which has been reliant on sound mental-emotional-cognitive functioning (Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Wilson, 1984).  Technology is incapable of replacing Nature’s services and we remain wholly dependent on a healthy biosphere for our existence. In addition, Kellert and Wilson (1993) along with their coauthors demonstrate that as a direct consequence of our evolutionary development, connecting with Nature is restorative and humans are healthier and more productive when in direct contact with Nature. Nature not only heals our bodies and minds, but it has also been a fundamental element in fostering positive human emotion, cognitive function, productivity and relationships, all of which have been crucial for our survival, advancement, and prosperity (Kellert & Wilson, 1993).

There is widespread evidence supporting the positive correlation between Nature and our physical and mental health (Frumkin, 2001; Kellert & Wilson, 1993). For example, plants and nonhuman animals have been central in human evolution. They provide medicine, food, shelter, security, refuge, service, work, companionship, healing, therapy, and tools, among other essential needs. Important physiological benefits plants, nonhuman animals and Nature provide humans also include reducing circulating stress hormones, heart rates, blood pressure and anxieties while directly increasing fresh oxygen, gains in cognitive performance, and a stronger sense of calm (Ulrich, 1993).

Other positive physiological responses in us to nonhuman animals and plants include: reduced psychological stress, reduced taxing on the sympathetic nervous system, diminished anxiety, decreased need for medications, and higher survival rates along with faster and more efficacious healing and recuperative processes from heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses (Kellert & Wilson, 1984) . All of these among other positive effects from Nature have been critical for human survival. Furthermore, they lead to both direct and indirect emotional and psychological benefits, which feedback to enhanced physical, mental and emotional health, and they facilitate and directly correlate with higher cognition, performance, productivity, and success.

Our emotional attachment to Nature is also an integral part of the human endeavor (Heerwagen & Orians, 1993; Wilson, 1984). The restorative influences of Nature often exceed aesthetic values and induce strong positive shifts in emotive states. Urlich (1981) demonstrated that consistent exposure to natural landscapes fostered greater psychological restoration, higher reductions in negative emotions like fear and aggression, and more positively toned emotional conditions compared to individuals consistently exposed to urban environments. Evidence also indicates that higher-order cognitive functioning results from exposure to Nature and is evolutionarily based in our need for emotional and cognitive recuperative healing. Essentially, exposure to positive aspects of Nature and non-human species leads to reductions in stress, anxiety, mental and physical fatigue, the debilitating symptoms of ADD/ADHD, autism, depression and other illnesses. As such, it helps increase higher-order cognition, which provides more resourceful and creative skills and thinking. The results have given us adaptive advantages to survive, reproduce, evolve to higher orders, and prosper.

Studies also show trees and other plants produce beneficial chemicals that, when we breathe them in, increase the number and activity of white blood cells in our bodies. These cells are commonly known as “natural killer cells” or “NK” cells, which kill tumor- and virus-infected cells in the human body while also boosting our immune system. Such biochemical health benefits help reduce emotional/mental stress and anxiety while also relaxing the mind and body and creating a sense of calm.

Thus, Nature provides essential medicine for the body, mind, and spirit. Being in Nature changes our body chemistry and sense of well-being, makes us healthier and, in effect, makes us more whole and our entire being happier and more productive. Pristine Nature provides a vital function in sustaining and healing positive mental, emotional, psychological, and physiological health, which are linked to healthy organic chemical and biological processes within us. Connecting with the “essence” of Nature, therefore, is restorative and humans are more productive and healthier when in direct contact with and embedding Nature into our daily lives.

However, the stresses of urbanization are impactful and the incidents of physical and psychological illnesses are increasing with our detachment from and destruction of Nature (Augeri, 2025; Frumkin, 2001; Louv, 2005). Joye (2007) notes that our attraction to and integration with natural forms and particular healthy landscape configurations can reduce such stress and illnesses and have positive effects on human function. However, our contact with these elements is reduced in urban life and our detachment from and damage to Nature in modern society can have notable adverse effects on us. It is likely, therefore, that modern humans are experiencing “nature deficit” (Louv, 2005), which is increasing with exponential development, urbanization, crowding, and environmental destruction.

Nature completes the human condition. Many of the problems today are the result of removing ourselves from Nature as well as from the excessive loss of Nature around us through its destruction. For example, just integrating Nature-centric architecture into our lives and society provides an opportunity for specific structural elements to correspond with a particular set of innate human affinities with the natural world. Joye (2007) notes:

“…architectural imitation of natural elements and habitats that promoted fitness (e.g., vegetative structures) can lead to the autonomous and quick onset of positive affective reactions, which can lead to positively toned feelings and stress reduction.

...such imitations can be realized according to different levels of abstraction, ranging from literal imitations to the application of more abstract geometric features of natural objects (e.g., fractal geometry) and structural features of ancestral habitats. Applying fractal geometry to architecture could be a particularly successful creative strategy, because it is not directly restricted by stylistic conventions and thus does not exclude the expression of cultural or local tastes.”

Thus, as shown in Kellert and Wilson (1993) and Augeri (2025, 2009), research demonstrates that our integration with Nature in various simple and inexpensive forms can facilitate a path toward greater health, productivity, success, and happiness. This can include simple low or no cost enhancements, such as incorporating more plants, gardens, or green spaces around and in our homes and offices; increasing physical contact with animals; horticultural and animal therapies; and spending more time outdoors in fresh air, among trees and plants, and in open green spaces with scattered trees and/or near clean water bodies, streams and rivers. City planners could also reclaim and incorporate more green spaces, riparian areas, lakes, ponds, coastal zones, and estuaries at relatively modest costs. In general, the costs of not improving the public’s physical and mental health via such simple steps are significant deficits in human wellbeing and far exceed the financial or perceived political expenses.

Changi airport, Singapore. © Timothy Hursely

Nature-centrism is a key to our prosperity on every level. However, our detachment from and loss of healthy ecosystems have increased physical, mental, emotional, and psychological stresses and illnesses across societies throughout the world (Frumkin, 2001; Louv, 2005). While environmental destruction creates significant socio-economic, geopolitical and other problems, it has become self-evident that the most serious deficit in the modern world is not economic; rather, it is ecological.

Given that the stresses and extraordinary pace of the modern world are particularly abnormal in an evolutionary context and that human development has been critically reliant on Nature, it is likely that modern humans have not had sufficient time to evolve and adapt in the absence of Nature. Modern industrial and technological influences constitute less than 0.07% of our human evolution and are, essentially, biologically non-influential. In essence, we are too young to have lost this evolutionarily-based dependency that has been with us for over 99% of our existence (Augeri, 2009). In fact, despite urbanization in modern society, our attraction to Nature and to specific nonhuman animals, plants, natural forms, clean water bodies, and healthy landscape configurations (e.g., pristine forests, savannahs, etc.) remains innate -- even just viewing these in photos or through windows reduces stress and has positive effects on human function, health, productivity, and happiness (Augeri, 2009; Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Joye, 2007). However, our contact with these elements has become significantly reduced and our detachment from and the loss of Nature around us is having notable adverse effects on every aspect of human wellbeing (Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Louv 2007) and, subsequently, our society.

Nature not only provides essential resources for society and medicine for the body and mind, it imbues the individual with emotional and spiritual health. Good emotional and mental health are major components in fostering a strong spirit, i.e., a combination of resilience, patience, optimism, and associated qualities that give us strength to survive and to be more productive. Given restorative properties of Nature have been crucial for our survival (Urlich, 1993) and that mental health has been essential, humans have required and sought specific qualities in Nature to heal and strengthen their spiritual wellbeing (Augeri, 2009). 

Animal masked dancer at Jakar Tschechu festival in Bumthang, Bhutan. © Jiali Chen.

It is suggested that the mythic qualities humans ascribe to Nature were developed to foster a strong mental-emotional condition (Wilson, 1996). Such qualities were likely used to give individuals the mental strength and fortitude to not only survive, but to be more productive, successful, and ascend to higher ranks in their group and society. Thus, over time humans have tended to seek power from mythical qualities in wilderness as a means to imbue spiritual strength.  For many cultures, this religious-type of reverence and value held for pristine Nature is significant and, aside from subsistence, indigenous cultures continue to seek wilderness for spiritual strength today as much as for practical reasons. Science has also improved our understanding that the potency humans ascribe to spiritual strength derived from Nature has energetic foundations at sub-atomic levels and is enhanced in pristine environmental conditions (McTaggart, 2008), i.e., wilderness.

Embedding ourselves in Nature and integrating it into our daily lives and societal systems thus provides humanity with strong and healthy spiritual foundations and values, which have been essential for human productivity and advancement beyond the individual. Throughout our evolution, individual survival and prosperity have also depended on the health and capacity of his/her group and community. Many Indigenous cultures continue to seek spiritual strength in pristine Nature for the sake of their community more than for the individual. Consequently, one of the deepest human needs for Nature has perhaps been seeking humility in respect for community (Nash, 1982).

In Nature lay powerful interconnections that sustain life for all organisms on Earth. For society, scientists are pursuing unlimited clean energy sources that could power the needs of every nation on Earth from one common clean source, and within which exist fundamental answers to life and evidence of the infinite interconnections and interdependencies among all organisms (Haisch et al., 1994; Haisch, 1999; McTaggart, 2008). For example, many studies in physics are generating increasing evidence and understanding of energetic bonds at subatomic levels between elementary particles on opposite sides of Earth and beyond, along with their direct effects on, and dynamic interrelationships and codependences with, each other (Puthoff, 1989; Haisch et al., 1994; Haisch, 1999; McTaggart, 2008). The implications are significant, including for geopolitics, socio-economics, socio-politics, governing, and our interdependence with and loss of other species, biodiversity and Nature as a whole.

Consequently, nature affinity, Nature-centrism and our human endeavor are fundamentally interconnected. Integrating society with pristine Nature, therefore, truly completes the human condition. In fact, Nature is a key for human happiness (Augeri 2009). Many of the problems in today’s world are the result of the excessive loss of Nature around us and from disconnecting ourselves from this core foundation that makes us whole (Augeri, 2025, 2009). Reverence for the environment by Indigenous cultures in daily contact with Nature stems from both a respect for its intrinsic value and a natural understanding of our critical interdependency and the significant practical need for sound ecological sustainability and conservation. In essence, Indigenous cultures have known throughout their existence and science is validating that experiencing the positive aspects of Nature that correlate with our success as a species nurtures our body, mind (Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Kellert, 1993) and societal systems (Augeri, 2025, 2009). A healthy physical and mental condition invariably leads to a more restful, peaceful, stronger, and healthy body, spirit and higher cognition. In effect, wisely integrating ouselves and our society with Nature with 100% ecological sustainability fosters greater health, happiness and productivity for the individual, which naturally lead to higher productivity, successs and prosperity for society. 

Inner Mongolian girl laughing with camel. © Han Chengli

Nature is unquestionably a significant and irreplaceable part of our composition and a Nature-centric paradigm is a foundational need for us as individuals and our society. Achieving happiness, success, and prosperity, therefore, can be facilitated by embedding ourselves with Nature, even in an urban setting.  In effect, our success, prosperity, and happiness ‘quotients’ can be raised —substantially in some cases — by wisely integrating positive features of Nature into our daily lives (Augeri, 2025, 2009; Joye, 2007; Kellert & Wilson 1993) as well as in our social, education, governing, political, business, industrial, and economic systems.

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