I own some land, 50 acres, in northern Uvalde County, the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau. On it there’s a small, one room cabin. From the backside of that cabin, where I like to sit in the late afternoon, is a view of a large hill dominated by a limestone escarpment, with typical Hill Country brush climbing its flanks and an occasional Common Raven patrolling the sky. It’s one of my favorite places.
But on a recent trip I noticed a healthy and growing Ashe Juniper right in the middle of my view and I realized that the tree would only continue to expand its footprint across the landscape I cherished. So I began thinking about cutting it down.
As a naturalist I immediately thought about the ethics of cutting this tree down to improve my view. Is it right for me to alter nature here for such a selfish reason? Of course, I’m sitting behind a 12×12 cabin with electricity so that is probably a question I have already answered, at least implicitly.
When I’m out on that land I think of myself as being “in nature” but this space has clearly been changed from what it was three hundred years ago. Just by being here I’m altering it. My car sits beneath a Cedar Elm at the front of the cabin. Am I really “in nature”? What does the word “nature” even mean?
When writing or speaking, I want to be precise in my meaning. But sometimes, whether through laziness or maybe the simple difficulty of expression, there are words that are ambiguous, that seem to change every time they pass from one person to another like in a game of “Telephone.” It seems to me that “nature” is one such word.
That doesn’t mean I don’t use the word. I use it all the time. If someone asks, “What do you like to do?” I usually reply something like, “Spend as much time as possible in nature.” As if that will mean the same thing to them as to me!
Using a clumsy bit of inductive reasoning, it seems obvious that humans are part of nature as are beavers. Now a beaver dam is also a part but does that mean that everything humans make is part of nature as well? Intuitively, my car does not seem to be part of nature but an atlatl might be. A potato certainly is but probably not if that potato has had some flounder DNA spliced into its genome. A park has nature in it but that does not include the restrooms, the swing sets or the concrete sidewalks.
It seems to me that whether something is part of nature or not depends on the degrees of separation between that object and the materials, life forms, processes and relationships of the non-human world. So, for me, anything that has more than one degree of separation from the non-human world is not part of nature. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just that it’s not natural.
So a wheel made of stone might be part of nature as it represents one degree of separation. Wheat that has been artificially selected to have larger seeds would also exhibit one degree of separation. But if that wheel is made into a mill to grind the wheat, then the flour produced is not part of nature. It is part of non-natural human culture.
My quantification of the degrees of separation may seem arbitrary but there is a reason. It’s based on the fact that many animals construct tools or create habitats and they and their creations remain part of nature. Human animals should be allowed the same adaptive, tool-making opportunities. However, only humans make tools to make other tools. This technological evolution has replaced biological evolution as the foundation of our survival and expansion. So as far as human culture goes, any item made by another item is not part of nature.
What I have come to realize is that my meaning for the word “nature” is this: that set of objects and processes in the world that have no more than one degree of separation from the non-human world. This may not be someone else’s definition but that is their work to do. And, again, this is not a value judgment. It is a way to communicate something distinct and important about the world that we live in. It allows me to distinguish between those parts of human culture that are not natural and those parts that can and should be considered part of the natural world. Clearly the former contains the vast majority of our culture.
My other conclusion is that nature can be broadly connected or it can be discrete. There are pieces of nature in a city park or in the potted plant on your apartment balcony. Just not as many pieces as in Olympic National Forest. That doesn’t make those smaller collections less valuable or less important. Nature is something to cherish, whatever its extent. Finding a logging road in a mountain forest doesn’t diminish the majesty around you.
Reflecting on my original question, when I’m on my land I am in nature, but it is not pure. It is a mix of natural and un-natural worlds. And that’s okay.
But I left the Ashe Juniper.
Gary Poole was president of the Alamo Area Chapter of Texas Master Naturalists in 2021. He has worked as an engineer, geologist, radio technician, and teacher. He has kept beehives and surveyed caves. His favorite place in the world is Mexico, though any of Latin America will do fine. He is a father of two daughters.