SAGE – Green Cities
Biophilia
word count = 1,328 (including bibliography and cross references)
Introduction
Do humans have a genetic predisposition towards natural environments? Over the
past three decades, a growing body of scholars have responded to the global decline in
biodiversity (resulting from human activities e.g. land clearing for agriculture,
pollution etc.) by searching for evidence of such a trait. Scholars from diverse
disciplines such as psychology, biology, geography, philosophy, planning and
economics have advanced an argument that humans are inherently ‘ecocentric’
animals – that is we are drawn to natural environments. This entry considers these
arguments.
The meaning(s) of biophilia
Biophilia refers to a purportedly instinctive drive that impels humans to favor certain
aspects of natural environments. While the term has been attributed to psychologist
and philosopher Erich Fromm – who referred to ‘a psychological affinity for life’ – it
was renowned entomologist E.O. Wilson who popularized (and slightly modified) the
term in his widely cited book of the same name. Wilson has defined biophilia as ‘an
innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes’ suggesting that from infancy
humans are attracted to living things ‘like moths to a porch light’. Moreover, animals
seem to have played a pivotal role in human evolution; interactions with animals
appear to have shaped our cognitive capabilities.
Joined by social ecologist Stephen Kellert, Wilson sparked an efflorescence of
research into whether there might be a genetic underpinning for human attitudes
towards nature. They and others have since argued that because humans have evolved
within ‘nature’ (here meaning biotic environments), and since the human mind is an
evolutionary construct, humans may be genetically driven to value or seek out (some)
natural environments.
Biophilia research
Numerous studies investigating this ‘biophilia hypothesis’ have tended to confirm
Wilson and Kellert’s assertions. Empirically grounded evidence suggests that humans
are intrinsically drawn to at least some types of natural environments, supporting the
idea that we may have a genetically inherited predisposition towards life. Many
studies have shown for example that people with a view of – or access to – natural
environments recover faster from illness and surgery, are better able to resist mental
illness, are more affable, are better socially adjusted, can manage their life affairs
better, can concentrate longer on difficult tasks, recover faster from exposure to stress,
and become ill less often than their counterparts who lack access to nature.
Seeking a genetic explanation for these observations some anthropologists,
geographers, biologists and psychologists among others, have argued that a preference
for the natural environments in which early humans evolved may have become
encoded into our genes. Termed the ‘savannah hypothesis’ this explanation suggests
that early humans (hominids) thrived within habitats that were free from predators and
which offered them the greatest prospects of finding food and shelter, thus increasing
survival rates and concomitantly the chances of reproducing, subsequently conferring
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a preference for such environments upon their offspring. These preferences are said to
have been inherited by modern humans, genetically encoded into our cognitive
capabilities, thus enabling us to recognize such environments as ‘beneficial’ and
predisposing us towards them.
Contestations and disputes
But it appears there are some limitations to the biophilia hypothesis, not the least of
which is the fact that humans seem to have a greater propensity for environmental
harm rather than protection – evidenced by numerous global environmental problems.
First, evidence from paleontologists suggests that early hominids thrived within a
range of habitats throughout the long evolution to modern humans – including forests
and woodlands, somewhat undermining the savannah hypothesis.
Second, even if humans are predisposed towards some elements of the natural
environment as proponents of biophilia assert (e.g. park-like landscapes consisting of
calm water, grasslands and scattered copses of trees with hilly outcrops), this does not
mean that humans are predisposed to valuing all life. For instance many people fear
animals like spiders and snakes or have an aversion to densely vegetated areas. It may
also mean that we value the environment as a resource to be exploited rather than
conserved. Third, research from animal geography has shown that human behaviours
towards animals are characterized by both antimony and affection. There has been a
long history of human exploitation of plants and animals including widespread acts of
cruelty.
Fourth, such explanations may paradoxically entrench and continue a
longstanding philosophical schism that separates humans from nature. By casting
urban environments as bad, harmful or even ‘unnatural’ such explanations unwittingly
posit urban areas as being outside nature and unnatural. But as the dominant habitat of
humanity, cities would also seem to confer an adaptive advantage – in cities we can
easily access food, shelter, health care etc. and thus prosper – the burgeoning human
population attests to this. And cities themselves are rarely ‘dead zones’ they
oftentimes harbor a wide variety of non-human organisms, some of which prosper
better than their wildland conspecifics (due to an abundance of food and reduced
predation).
Finally, genetic explanations for human behavior towards ‘natural environments’
tend to discount the equally important role of learning and culture – researchers have
found it difficult to prove that an affinity for natural places is genetically ‘hardwired’
rather than learned, and their findings thus remain inconclusive. Worse still, assertions
that humans are instinctively driven to ‘explore, hunt and garden’ may naturalize
behaviors such as colonialism, exploitation and oppression, legitimizing them as
simply ‘human nature’.
Application to built environment research and practice
Some scholars have recently suggested that there is a need to modify built
environments to increase the presence of greenery and animals so as to remedy
contemporary urban diseases such as obesity, stress, coronary heart disease, anxiety
and depression. Increased access to urban greenspace, they argue, will result in
healthier urban populations. Other scholars have begun to radically reconceptualize
the long-standing dualism between city and nature. Critically interrogating the notion
that cities are ‘dead zones’, they point to the myriad urban ecologies that exist within
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human life-worlds. Their work has profoundly disrupted the binary of wild nature and
cultured humanity to reformulate a more nuanced understanding of the role of humans
in nature. Cities have been recast as the habitat of humanity and as inherently natural
– not artificial entities. This is not to say that urban environments do not harm non-
human species and their biogeochemical requisites – for they do in numerous ways
(e.g. chemical pollutants like endocrine disruptors, acidification of waterbodies,
widespread erosion etc). But any biophilic explanation for human behaviors must also
recognize that as the dominant habitat of humanity, cities should be taken seriously as
‘ecological’ not just socio-cultural entities.
Dr Jason Byrne
School of Environment
Griffith University, Australia
Further reading (Bibliography)
Burgess, J., Harrisson, C.M. and Limb, M. “People, parks and the urban green: a
study of popular meanings and values for open spaces in the city”. Urban
Studies (v. 25, 1988)
Byrne, J. & Wolch, J. “Urban habitats / nature,” in Thrift, N. & Kitchin, R. (eds.)
International Encyclopedia of Urban Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009
Joye, Y. “Architectural lessons from environmental psychology: the case of biophilic
architecture”. Review of General Psychology (v. 11, 2007)
Kellert, S.R. and Wilson, E.O. (eds.) The Biophilia Hypothesis. Washington, D.C.:
Island Press, 1993
Kellert, S.R. Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development,
Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997
Maller, C., Townsend, M., Pryor, A., Brown, P. and St. Leger, L. “Healthy nature
healthy people: ‘contact with nature’ as an upstream health promotion
intervention for populations”. Health Promotion International (v. 21/1, 2005)
Merchant, C. Radical Ecology: The Search for a More Livable World. New York:
Routledge, 1992
Shephard, P. Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence.
Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1978
Tuan, Y-F, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. New Haven, Ct.: Yale
University Press, 2004
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia, Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1984
Wolch, J. and Emal, J. (eds.) Animal Geographies: Place, Politics and Identity in the
Nature-Culture Borderlands. London: Verso, 1998.
Cross references
Biodiversity
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Environmental Planning
Greening Suburbia
Habitat Conservation and Restoration
Madsar Eco-city
Natural Capital
Parks, Greenways and Open Space
Sustainable Development
Urban Forests
