Personalised ecology and the future of biodiversity

Abstract

The future of biodiversity lies not just in the strategies and mechanisms by which ecosystems and species are practically best protected from anthropogenic pressures. It lies also, and perhaps foremost, in the many billions of decisions that people make that, intentionally or otherwise, shape their impact on nature and the conservation policies and interventions that are implemented. Personalised ecology – the set of direct sensory interactions that each of us has with nature – is one important consideration in understanding the decisions that people make. Indeed, it has long been argued that people’s personalised ecologies have powerful implications, as captured in such concepts as biophilia, extinction of experience and shifting baselines. In this paper, we briefly review the connections between personalised ecology and the future of biodiversity, and the ways in which personalised ecologies might usefully be enhanced to improve that future.

Keywords

• behaviour
• biophilia
• biophobia
• extinction of experience
• shifting baselines