Learning from Nature is taking our hat in hand with a good dose of humility and realise that we are nothing without Nature.
Would it not make sense to learn about what sustains us, the hand that feeds us?
Yet, as documented in the 2024 WWF Living Planet Report, every indicator that tracks the state of Nature on a global scale shows a decline. With this simple example, our dependency on Nature can be easily demonstrated.
EXAMPLE: HONEY BEES
Do you know that a bee lives less than 40 days, visits at least 1000 flowers and produces less than a teaspoon of honey. For the bee, it's the work of a LIFETIME.
Do you know that honey is one of the few foods on earth that alone can sustain human life?
Do you know that a spoonful of honey is enough to keep a human alive for 24 hours?
Do you know that propolis produced by bees is one of the most powerful natural antibiotics?
Do you know that honey has no expiry date?
Approximately 33% of the food consumed by humans is dependent, either directly or indirectly, on honey bee pollination (this is not taking other pollinators into account).
As the picture says: "If I go, I'm taking you with me".
Did you know?
Bees are one ofthe most important living beings on the Planet..After a debate by scientists at the Royal Geographical Society, the Earthwatch Institutedeclared bees as the most important living beings on the planet. Bees (Clade: Anthophila) populations have been recorded to have shrunk by as much as 30% lower in some regions in recent years. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. Ref: #savebees #savenature #savebiodiversity #Savehumanity #saveearth #educational #awareness #protectbees #conservation #natureconservati
How do we use Nature?
To put it simply, we've won Nature's Lottery with the FREE ecosystem services we are using, often without thought, without care and without being aware of how dependent we are.
There are four main types of ecosystem services stated by the Ecosystem Services Framework:
Provision of Goods: - Ecosystems provide us with essential water resources, a wealth of food for humans and animals, and renewable biomass energy. They supply wood - like timber - for construction, and ingredients for medicines, or household products. In short, our everyday essential items! 🪵
Cultural Services: - Ecosystems provide us with green spaces like lakes and woodlands that enhance our physical and mental health. They boost our wellbeing and our desire for connection with others and the natural world. 🧘♂️
Regulating Services: - Ecosystems regulate our climate, purify our air and water, and support agriculture with soil fertility. Green infrastructure - like micro forests, and hedges - improve urban environments by reducing noise and heat. They give us life! 🏞️
Supporting Services: - Ecosystems sustain life by supporting essential processes that ensure the stability and health of all other planetary functions. In other words: They keep our planet functioning.
These so-called "ecosystems services" underpin all human societies and economies. Protecting and conserving ecosystems is, therefore, essential to ensuring our communities can survive and thrive well into the future.
To put some numbers against the value (in US$) of ecosystems services value in US $, it is estimated that they provided the equivalent of US $125 trillion in services in 2011 - compared to the global GNP in the same year being estimated at US$69 billion per year) Our growing understanding of the true worth of nature is worrying when set against the degradation ecosystems face.
Tipping Points of a vanishing Nature
It's like being a frog, not being aware of sitting in a pot of boiling water. We realise biodiversity is on the decline, are we aware of the dangers of how far it already has gone? What is happening in a system such as biodiversity is that 'While some changes may be small and gradual, their cumulative impacts can trigger a larger, faster change. When cumulative impacts reach a threshold, the change becomes self-perpetuating, resulting in substantial, often abrupt and potentially irreversible change. This is called a tipping point.' 2024 WWF Living Planet Report
According to the 2024 WWF Living Planet Report '... the natural world, a number of tipping points are highly likely if current trends are left to continue, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
These include global tipping points that pose grave threats to humanity and most species, and would damage Earth’s life-support systems and destabilize societies everywhere.Early warning signs indicate that several global tipping points are fast approaching:
In the biosphere, the mass die-off of coral reefs would destroy fisheries and storm protection for hundreds of millions of people living on the coasts.
The Amazon rainforest tipping point would release tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere and disrupt weather patterns around the globe.
In ocean circulation, the collapse of the subpolar gyre, a circular current south of Greenland, would dramatically change weather patterns in Europe and North America.
In the cryosphere (the frozen parts of the planet), the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets would unleash many metres of sea level rise, while large-scale thawing of permafrost would trigger vast emissions of carbon dioxide and methane.
Global tipping points can be hard to comprehend – but we’re already seeing tipping points approaching at local and regional levels, with severe ecological, social and economic consequences:
In western North America, a combination of pine bark beetle infestation and more frequent and ferocious forest fires, both exacerbated by climate change, is pushing pine forests to a tipping point where they will be replaced by shrubland and grassland.
In the Great Barrier Reef, rising sea temperatures coupled with ecosystem degradation have led to mass coral bleaching events in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024. Although the Great Barrier Reef has shown remarkable resilience to date, we will likely lose 70–90% of all coral reefs globally, including the Great Barrier Reef, even if we are able to limit climate warming to 1.5°C.
In the Amazon, deforestation and climate change are leading to reduced rainfall, and a tipping point could be reached where the environmental conditions become unsuitable for tropical rainforest, with devastating consequences for people, biodiversity and the global climate. A tipping point could be on the horizon if just 20–25% of the Amazon rainforest were destroyed – and an estimated 14–17% has already been deforested.
In many cases, the balance is precarious – but tipping points can still be avoided.
We have an opportunity to intervene now to increase ecosystem resilience and reduce the impacts of climate change and other stressors before these tipping points are reached.' Otherwise, is is "so long - and thanks for all the fish - Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy.
"How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing?"
Sir David Attenborough
So why would you care to learn from Nature?
Because we are in the midst of seeding tipping points which, if they happen,
will have severe ecological, social and economic consequences.
It is a precious moment now. "In many cases, the balance is precarious – they can still be avoided. According to the 2024 WWF Living Planet Report, we have an opportunity to intervene now to increase ecosystem resilience and reduce the impacts of climate change and other stressors before these tipping points are reached."
The separation we were taught in Western cultures that supposedly exists between us and Nature just doesn't stand up to how life works:
You are not in Nature, you are Nature.
"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think".
Also check out the KNOWLEDGE BASE, where you will find all references for this section. This is an evolving website, and there is no difference in the reference section - it will grow over time.
EXAMPLE: HONEY BEES
It's like being a frog, not being aware of sitting in a pot of boiling water. We realise biodiversity is on the decline, are we aware of the dangers of how far it already has gone? What is happening in a system such as biodiversity is that 'While some changes may be small and gradual, their cumulative impacts can trigger a larger, faster change. When cumulative impacts reach a threshold, the change becomes self-perpetuating, resulting in substantial, often abrupt and potentially irreversible change. This is called a tipping point.' 2024 WWF Living Planet Report 