Considering Our Non-Human Relationships
Considering Our Non-Human Relationships
Can we understand ourselves better by thinking more about our ecosystems?
I’m no scientist.
I come to the Ecosystem Member project with a background in journalism, writing and business strategy. My focus is squarely on understanding people and trying to figure out clever ways to connect with them. The goal could be to share information or a story, or simply persuade them to buy into an idea or product.
I do my best to learn about and share in plain language the scientific parts of the more-than-human world to connect people with nature, but I still look at things through a human lens.
And that makes a lot of sense.
From where I sit, we humans tend to understand ourselves through our relationships with other humans. We form an identity - unintentionally or intentionally - that puts us in alignment or opposition with others.
I don’t eat meat, others enjoy hunting and consuming their kill as a hobby.
I prefer to walk and bike, others need to use or prefer an air-conditioned car even for short trips.
I love wine (despite the terrible carbon footprint its transport creates). Others prefer locally-produced craft beer or spirits, or increasingly no or low alcohol lifestyles.
All of these preferences inform and make up my identity, and frame - at least in part - my relationship with other humans. But what if we think about our relationships with non-human living things? What does your relationship look like with the soil? What does your relationship look like with your nearest ocean? What does your relationship look like with the birds you feed from your backyard or patio?
As humans, we exist in many ecosystems. In an ecosystem, all of the species live in symbiosis. Symbiosis is simply the interaction between organisms in close physical proximity.
Under the umbrella of symbiosis, there are four types of relationships: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, and competition.
Mutualism - A relationship between two different species in which both organisms benefit.
Commensalism - A relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits while not harming the other.
Parasitism - A relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits at the expense of the other.
Competition - A relationship between organisms either for resources or social status.
As an example, let’s look at the human relationship with vultures in India. By the mid-1990’s “tens of millions” of vultures disappeared. The culprit? The vultures ingested a painkiller that farmers gave to livestock. As the vultures feasted on the carcasses, they unknowingly ingested the painkiller.
The twist? Research has uncovered that as a result of the vultures going extinct, an extra half a million humans died in the five years at the start of the 2000s. Without the vultures to pick up the animal carcasses, disease spread and pollution grew. Researchers also found that the quality of water declined and because of a lack of competition, dogs feasted on the carcasses and rabies spread more rapidly.
The vultures were providing what is called ecosystem services - direct and indirect benefits for humans that an ecosystem provides, even if we don’t recognize them. And you could say our human relationship with them was one of parasitism, even if totally unrealized for decades. That’s a tough pill to swallow. The vulture was actually doing something to help keep the ecosystem and humans healthy and safe, and we unintentionally drove it to extinction in a huge country.
If we look at human-to-human relationships, we often get immediate feedback from the other human. A slur might illicit a rage-filled response or tears. A punch to the face results in a black eye.
However, our human relationship with time isn’t on the same scale as the more-than-human world. We’ve given nature many black eyes. We just don’t see them.
Our social media posts can destroy ecosystems and harm vulnerable species.
For decades, our sunscreen harmed the very coral reefs and marine life we used it to view.
And as I wrote about a few weeks ago, humans are attempting geoengineering regardless of the potential negative side effects for humans and non-humans.
These relationships aren’t about a competition for resource. They aren’t without harm to other non-humans (and often other humans) in our ecosystem. And as we’ve seen, they are often unintentional, purely because we don’t consider our relationships with these non-human organisms.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.
New research in England found that we can farm in a way that creates fantastic habitats for birds, bees, butterflies and bats among other non-human species.
“An average of 25% more breeding birds were found in areas with more eco-friendly schemes.
'Wildlife boosted by England’s nature-friendly farming schemes, study finds', The Guardian, August 9, 2024
On top of that, nature-friendly farming practices that eschew pesticides can protect endangered species.
But farming is just one area where we can shift our relationship with the more-than-human world. Using tools like non-human personas, we can consider how the life we’re living, the product we’re creating and the services we’re providing might be done in a way that minimizes harm or even benefits non-human species. (Check out our friends at Get Lost Labs’
project for a good example.)This idea, the idea that humans consider themselves as a part of many ecosystems, is the main idea behind Ecosystem Member.
We don’t have to just be defined by our relationships with other humans, but by our relationships with the diversity of the human and more-than-human world. And we don’t have to be scientists to understand these relationships, we can all be engaged observers of the trees and ocean that fill our lungs with air, the bees that pollenate our fields, and yes, even the vultures who feast on scraps.
"Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”
‘Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer