Nature and Humans: Are They Interdependent?
Humanity’s relationship with the natural world is not as reciprocal as it may seem.
There is no true interdependence between humans and nature (that is, all that exists in a mutable and self-regulating way, including both living and non-living elements). While humans depend on nature for survival, nature as a whole does not depend on humans or any other single species. The idea of interdependence between humans and nature is frequently used in legal arguments, but from a scientific standpoint, it seems more like a self-centered illusion cultivated by a portion of humanity. There are no scientific or ecological grounds demonstrating real interdependence between nature and a particular species. It is possible to claim that humans depend on nature, but the reverse does not seem to be true. The human species has existed for a short period in comparison to all life on Earth. Fossil and archaeological evidence show that humans are a small, recent part of nature and therefore not essential to it.
In other words, there is no “saving nature” because it is not nature that is in danger.
In Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, Bruno Latour argues that humans, once separated from nature by modernity, now see themselves as guardians and saviors of the planet. This new awareness leads to symbolic and political claims that nature depends on human actions for its preservation and the establishment, for humans, of a unique and direct responsibility for the Earth’s future. Historically, this perspective is rooted in Western Christian thought, which conceives humanity as having dominion over nature in an anthropocentric worldview that justified the exploitation of the natural world. Culturally and socially this idea of mutual dependence is powerful, shaping environmental policies and legal discourses even in the absence of scientific support.
We are currently experiencing a mass extinction event driven by the ongoing climate crisis—this is without doubt true. However, there have been five previous mass extinctions, including an estimated reduction of species by 95% during the Permian period, about 250 million years ago. The time scales are admittedly different, making it difficult to compare extinctions taking place today with those that occurred during other mass extinction events.
However, there does not appear to be a reasonable scientific argument to support the idea that nature as a whole is in danger. This is not what climate scientists are saying. Instead the concern is an abrupt change in global dynamics that has resulted—and will continue to result—in changes to species composition worldwide. Many species will not adapt to new environmental conditions, and these changes could make human life impossible.
It is important to emphasize, however, that this does not in any way deny the dangers of human-driven global environmental collapse. Meaningfully assessing our current climate crisis is not about denying the phenomenon itself but rather understanding the human condition in a more realistic way. This entails recognizing the need to radically change the way natural elements are used as resources for the “development” of the human species.
In other words, there is no “saving nature” because it is not nature that is in danger. Rather, the goal must be to try to keep nature in a condition amenable for the life of the human species and many others already reduced in population and clearly heading toward permanent extinction. When certain species or characteristics of current biomes are analyzed individually, the influence of human decisions on accelerated local processes of biodiversity loss, species extinction, and even ecosystem destabilization becomes clear. However, nature as a whole continues to modify itself, change, and remain alive in other forms.
Honestly acknowledging that humans are not essential to the functioning of nature could have important implications for modern legal systems.
I do not mean to say that these changes are not regrettable—all extinctions are a tragedy—but I want to emphasize that nature as a whole is not in danger. The issue is the survival of we humans, as we depend on the natural world functioning within its current, relatively narrow parameters. The belief that nature and humans are interdependent seems to be more a product of human vanity or a distortion of reality than a realistic assessment of the facts. In Brazil, Indigenous peoples, Caiçara populations, Quilombolas, and all the diverse forms of human life that remain linked to the land offer a more reasonable way of understanding our relationship with nature.
Humans are a small part, no more or less important than any other species. We are and we exist as part of nature, and nothing is guaranteed to us. The sky can fall on our heads at any moment.
Honestly acknowledging that humans are not essential to the functioning of nature could have important implications for modern legal systems. This is not a negotiation between equals in which points and demands from both sides are considered to reach a reasonable agreement. In reality humanity must ultimately adapt and submit to nonnegotiable limits, many of which have already been reached. The limits of natural cycles impose hard boundaries on human action. There are no economic or technological means to expand these limits. They are nonnegotiable.
In other words, what matters to humans—their needs, their ideas of progress and development, and so on—may not fit within natural cycles established and adjusted over extremely long periods of time. Finding ways to align human demands and needs with these cycles is necessary for the survival of humans themselves. The economy must submit to ecology, not the other way around.
