Ash Said It® Daily

Win-win scenarios abound in the natural world — examples of elegant multispecies interactions that have resulted from millennia of evolutionary patterns and behaviors, explains anthropologist and ecologist Philip A. Loring. Somewhere along the way, however, perhaps in our efforts to conserve and protect the resources found in nature, we humans have completely removed ourselves from it, relegating our species to spectator status on the outside of this harmonious connectivity looking in. It is time for a new approach to sustainability and stewardship. “It is indeed possible to coexist with the rest of the natural world, to restore the damage we’ve caused. We do this not through self-quarantine, by leaving nature alone. We achieve this by integrating our lives and destinies with those of the species, landscapes and seascapes around us,” Loring writes in his thought-provoking new book, Finding Our Niche: Toward a Restorative Human Ecology, a Silver Medal winner in the 2020 Nautilus Book Awards. Loring compellingl