Aesthetics, Biodiversity, and Ecosystems

What is it about?

Biodiversity loss is a major ecological crisis, but communicating its complexity remains a challenge because biodiversity and its decline may be too abstract for the general public to fully grasp. Urbanization also distances people from direct contact with nature, making it difficult to generate broad support for biodiversity protection. Many biologists, naturalists, and philosophers argue that the aesthetic value of biodiversity may be a strong reason to protect it, because beauty and other aesthetic qualities can have a compelling impact on humans. Aesthetic experiences can create psychological and affective responses, and aesthetic values have historically played a central role in motivating environmental conservation. However, protecting biodiversity everywhere introduces new complexities to the role of aesthetics in environmentalism. The authors argue that there is a mismatch between “real” and “apparent” biodiversity because human perception provides only a limited view of biological diversity. Biodiversity is also dynamic, and nature exists as a web of interactive systems in which organisms and their environment affect each other. Therefore, people's direct perception and aesthetic experience of biological variation differ from scientifically assessed biodiversity.

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Photo by Palle Knudsen on Unsplash

Photo by Palle Knudsen on Unsplash