If I was an angel, whenever my mood was getting low, I would fly down to earth to drift through the flowers and butterflies and smile at the furry animals.When my angelic harmony was restored, I would fly back to my cloud feeling happy and grateful that nature on earth had helped my mental wellbeing.
However, I am not an angel. I am a human, a material being in a material world. We humans are part of nature, it is all around us and inside us. Nature is not an optional extra. Most of nature is too tiny for us to see without a microscope but every living thing we see is carrying with it a vast community of microlife. The air around us is full of tiny living things like spores of fungi, algae and bacteria.Rivers, ponds and even raindrops are teeming with microlife. Soil is a complex system of bacteria, fungi and tiny creatures. With every breath we take or things we eat thousands of spores of fungi and algae, bacteria and countless other tiny living things go into our bodies. Tiny life is moving into us an out of us all the time. We need this life inside us to survive. Bacteria help us get nutrition from our food and even send chemicals to our brains to keep our moods happy.Without tiny life in our lungs, we could not efficiently use oxygen. Scientists say there are as many bacteria cells in our bodies as human cells.
We protect ourselves from harmful microlife with personal hygiene, food hygiene, cooking and medicine. If there is biodiversity, a rich variety of many living things in balance and harmony, most people will be fine most of the time.A problem can arise when nature is destroyed, the balance is broken and vast quantities of one life form fill the vacuum. Our immune systems find it hard to cope with such new conditions.
It is exciting to travel to faraway places to see special animals, birds or flowers,but nature is more than that. It is in the garden, park, the roadside and cracks in the pavement. Nature is all around us and inside us. Nature is everywhere and I hope, always.
Steve Jones
Image by Charles Sinclair.
SVBG is a not for profit organisation dependant on volunteers, grants and donations. Without funding we cannot operate and many of our biodiversity projects will cease.
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