Nature
Nature has a great place among many cultures and societies. Beyond the fact that we require trees and other plants to turn the carbon dioxide we exhale back into the oxygen that allows us to live, there are also many other positive effects of the presence of plant life within the world and environment that we live in on a day to day basis. But how much of our environment is made up of these natural environments? And what are some of the specific benefits of having such a thing?
Woodland, defined as an area in which many trees grow, makes up around 13% of the UK land mass, 3.24 million hectares, with that consisting of 19% of the Scottish land mass, 15% of Wales, 10% of England, and 9% in Northern Island. While there is an effort being made to conserve and restore woodland and other natural areas by several organizations in the UK, the effects of the industrial age and industrialization itself have left Great Britain a changed land in the aftermath of it. There has been a decrease in biodiversity in many different parts of the country and while there is much agriculture, this controlled nature is not the same as simply allowing growth and the natural world to have a footing where is once held power. Biodiversity in the UK was reportedly at only 50.3% remained in the September of 2020, paling in comparison to many countries in the world.
Species in nature as well as the existence of plants and other elements of the ecosystem create a balance that, over time, has been disturbed by continuous human influence. While there is much land being used to grow, it is not in the way that it once was. Cultivating food for farming uses a lot of lands as well which creates a large decrease in biodiversity. While there are some landscapes we could consider ‘untouched’, there has for a long time been an element of human influence that has affected many places labeled in such a way.
While this world is largely populated by people, we do forget sometimes that we cannot create, invent or fabricate all of the solutions. The world naturally has a balance and in our search for convenience and unnecessary solutions, we are likely disturbing many of these pre-existing corrections to the way that we have negatively affected the world.
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