The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
This ›withinness‹ has been identified by Weber Nicholsen (2002) as a prerequisite for
contact; no contact is possible if one is not within the same context. Further questions
concerned with experiences of identification with landscape have been discussed
thoroughly by the author. In her book The Love of Nature and the End of the World. The
Unspoken Dimensions of Environmental Concern she explores the emotional and sensorial
significance of the experience of nature, which the next section will turn to.
3.3.3 Of emplacement and emotional involvement
The way we conceptualise nature and the manner in which we manage our relationship with the natural
world reveals a great deal about ›who we are‹. (Nakashima 1998: 22)
In contrast to the aforementioned authors, Weber Nicholsen takes a different view,
looking beyond considerations of ›cultural constructions‹. From a philosophical point
of view, she discusses human relation to the natural world in terms of a »void that is
beyond«. This is specified as an encompassing feeling of belonging to the land that is
saturated with a sense of continuity through time, which she views as an unformed
space that is spiritual rather than material. Instead of conceptualising ›mental models‹
or ›imagined geographies‹, she develops ideas about a »deep receptivity to the nonhuman
world« which is experienced »as a merging with other life« (2002: 23). This relation
evolves in an unspoken way: »We may speak of other human beings or to ourselves
about our encounter with the natural world, but the encounter itself does not
transpire in the medium of language« (2002: 19). She further specifies this encounter:
We can meet nature in its creative vitality only with our direct presence, only by opening our interior
selves to it. [...] When we open to the depths within us, we become receptive to the language of nature.
Nature speaks to us and we hear her. [...] To hear nature speak in this way is not a matter of understanding
the specific cries of the animal or bird. Nor is it a matter of mere superstition or of conventional
symbolism. Rather, in perceiving the creature, we enter into a confluence with a deeper mystery
in which both of us participate (2002: 26f.).
Like Strang, Weber Nicholsen argues that the feelings of attachment and identification
humans experience early in their lives, which give rise to the sense of belonging, become
the basis for later recognition of kinship and form the matrix from which the
self develops. The world of home extends back through family to the ancestors; in
this way the homeland, for which humans feel nostalgic, is saturated with a sense of
continuity through time; i.e. nature enters our experience in childhood in the form of
place. The world of childhood is a place to be, a place to become a self. It is a world
of people, dwellings, fields, birds, streams, trees, hills and clouds. And that world becomes
us, literally. By surrounding us and gathering us inside itself, it gets inside us,
providing the very ground of our being as a felt sense of interiority. We take the world
of childhood in through all our senses, as a place that contains smells, textures,
warmth and coolness as well as sights and sounds. But this vivid world is largely lost