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Improving Human Habitat

While land preservation programs have justifiably focused on the habitat needs of wildlife, little attention has been given to the kinds of habitat essential to humans. The environmental benefits of green spaces in and around cities may be critical to human health. But the effects on the human psyche of interacting with the natural world could prove even more important.

Anthropological and psychological evidence suggests a primal need in humans to connect with nature. Harvard's preeminent biologist Edward O. Wilson calls it the "biophilia hypothesis." The theory holds that the human need for association with the natural world goes beyond mere attraction or appreciation of nature's utilitarian values. Biophilia implies that we are inextricably linked with nature; that as we evolved in close association with nature, we developed an unshakable, biologically based emotional dependence on the living world.⁹⁵

"This proposition suggests that human identity and personal fulfillment somehow depend on our relationship to nature," says Yale Environmental Studies professor Stephen Kellert. Because the natural world influences our emotional, cognitive, aesthetic, and even spiritual development, Kellert says, losing touch with nature exposes us to a "deprived and diminished existence."

One symptom of such a loss is stress. Kellert writes that "a consistent finding in well over 100 studies of recreation experiences in wilderness and urban nature areas" has been reduction in stress.⁹⁶ Because stress is a factor in many human illnesses, scientists are now beginning to explore whether exposure to nature can reduce disease and improve recovery. Environmental psychologist Roger Ulrich found that surgery patients with hospital windows overlooking natural scenes recovered more quickly and required less medication than matched patients whose only view was a brick wall.⁹⁷

The biophilia hypothesis and stress research would argue for the need to protect natural areas as human habitat, including green spaces within cities that are safe for humans to use. But accomplishing that goal may require a change in the mind-set of environmentalists. At a Sierra Club round table on race, justice, and the environment, Earth Island Institute president Carl Anthony lamented that "the traditional environmental movement distances itself from the cities, denying that they are part of the environment." Anthony and other leaders of the environmental justice movement have been pushing for more environmental attention to the needs of humans in urban areas.⁹⁸ According to the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors, 80% of Americans will live in or near cities by the year 2000.⁹⁹ If natural areas are not protected within that context, many people will be deprived of a most basic human need.