“Biophilia” (from the Greek, “love for life”) is the innate life and survival instinct, which resides in the genes of all human beings, it is a biological function that leads to having an interest in all forms of life, to feeling part of nature, protecting its biodiversity and then aspiring to build a relationship with it. Biophilia is the search of an ecological habitat where one can live happily in contact with nature and animals.
To invoke biophilia means to combat apathy, human lack of ecological awareness (often of cultural origin) and indifference to the destruction of our own Habitat. We need to reconnect with our internal resilience, in order to be able to stand before the marvellous spectacle of Gaia’s wilderness, whose spirituality is described in a beautifully humble way by St. Francis of Assisi and by the documentary on Taut’Batoo’ tribe, a population that lives in an isle of Philippines and that is a living demonstration that human nature isn’t violent.
We also should not forget that Gaia’s traces are fixed in human genome, as we are all born and grew up in its womb, both from a phylogenetic point of view as a biological species and from an ontogenetic perspective as individuals, so that we are genetically predisposed to learn from the experiences we have had with Gaia.
“Learning by experience” means give meaning to our life in relationship to others life.
That is what nature has taught us. We will never stop repeating that biophilia is innate and is taught to us by Nature in a maieutic way, which will eventually make us ecologically aware and responsible, psychologically able to feel emotions and have dreams to live and realize. All of what has been said so far is not at all a utopic landscape figment of our imagination, but rather our own physiology, a fact that many want to ignore so that the current era is likely to be remembered by future generations as a real “ecological dark age”.
Biophilia entails complex ecological systems, integrated and physiologically interconnected; therefore we can affirm that Gaia endows all its creatures without discrimination with the skills necessary to achieve their own bio psychosocial wellbeing.
Gaia loves greatly all human beings, but our plant blindness, resulting from our indifference to nature and toxic agricultural policies, prevents us from perceiving this attachment.
The biologist Edward Wilson, father of sociobiology and Emeritus Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, describes human innate tendency to concentrate our interest on life and vital processes as an emotional inspiration towards other living beings, with which we share evolution and survival as common physiological archetypes.
The concept of biophilia therefore endorses the belief that human beings have an innate preference for natural environments but unfortunately this has been lost following metropolis incessant urbanization and reckless and excessive exploitation of fossil non-renewable energies.
Biophilia is love for life, for nature and for all living creatures; then it also concerns the human need to have relations with other beings and thus pertains to the world of emotions. Nature is a complex and delicate world and once we grasp its innate harmony, then what in neuroscientific terms is called “biophilic instinct” activates. It even has a regenerative action on the human psyche.
Humans have the natural inclination to identify with the living and to evolutionary adaptation for survival, which is common to all species; nonetheless, over the centuries, people have long considered nature merely as a source of exploitable resources and consequently have treated it as merely inanimate matter.
Quite the opposite, the Earth is alive and has its own vital functions for evolution and survival, resulting from millions of years of biosphere’s (consisting of air, water and soil) transformation.
The chemical elements indispensable for the evolution of the species formed as the effect of the Big Bang, and as such we can find them in the essential amino acids and DNA nitrogenous bases, with their fixation being the result of atmospheric nitrogen assimilation by the bacterium rhizobium that lives in symbiosis with plants’ roots.
The biosphere has a mechanism of self regulation according to its vital antientropic function, then since Gaia aspires to unite all human beings in the harmony and joy of a common ecologically sustainable life project we believe that it really should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Biophilia is a source of environmental ethic’s inspiration based on the social relationships among living creatures, such as humans’ innate tendency to be moved at the sight of a sunset or a rainbow and dolphins’ curiosity for people.
Only those who are able to empathize with Gaia can do scientific research on Nature as they certainly have developed mirror neurons to perceive its life. Empathy for nature is the emotional resonance with all that is living and not only human, like plants and animals; by implication biophilia is the innate predisposition to empathize with nature and includes human compassion for all creatures.
Unfortunately, it has inevitably adapted to western culture and became “biophobia”, that is the control and exploitation of nature, resulting in the loss of every child’s natural biological tendency to live in connection with Nature according to nine ethical values, fostered by Gaia and important for all human’s characters and personalities’ development.
- Gaia helps children develop the ability to recognize and appreciate order, harmony and balance, characteristics that stimulate curiosity, imagination and inclination to study and research.
- Gaia helps children develop safety, independence, autonomy (all of which are Gaia’s characteristics) and yearning for knowledge and exploration.
- Gaia helps to develop emotional attachment to pets and aptitude to exchange affection, friendship and loyalty.
- Gaia helps children develop kindness and respect for the natural world and learn to share its moral and spiritual values.
- Gaia helps children learn how to explore and discover nature developing their ability to adapt to unpredictable natural events.
- Gaia helps the child recognize dangerous situations and either accommodate or avoid them.
- Gaia helps the child develop critical and problem solving skills and learn how to appreciate nature’s biodiversity.
- Gaia helps the child consider nature a source of bio-psycho-social gratification.
- Gaia shows how to identify biophobia and ecophobia and treat it with biophilia and ecophilia.
Based on these assumptions, we can say that nature has a fundamental function of people’s psychological regeneration, since it reduces stress and depression up to the complete recovery of the individual psycho-physical well-being.
According to the neurosciences, the ecological environment "oikos" is the most familiar to us, our house in the deepest, most intimate and domestic sense where humans can really feel comfortable in both their mind and body (so that we can talk about embodied minds), especially where a pristine natural environment has not been significantly altered by human activities (in the so called wilderness).
According to our neuro-scientific studies, here biophilia best shows off its important role: sensory perceptions transmitted to the limbic system are processed by the insula, which sends to the prefrontal cortex a synthesis of those perceptions that becoming conscious produce oceanic feelings of regeneration, humanity and joy of life in harmony with natural rhythms.
This biophilia can spread like an emotional contagion through an empathic, invigorating and long-lasting relationship with Gaia, which makes us say “thank goodness that Gaia is here”.
Gaia’s beneficial effect on our psyche is so deep and fundamental that the human impulse to self damage through immersion in frenzied economic growth and unrestricted industrialization’s flow is inexplicable. The only reason could be that people forgot about biophilia and so developed indifference to its call, even though it is fundamental for us to re-tune with it.
Biophilia, besides being love for life, is also the safest and healthiest way to revive our innate ecological awareness (ecological mindfulness), which inspires human gratefulness to Nature and satisfies our need to relate to other living beings, as source of vital energy.
Medical research has shown that when hospitalised patients looking outside their room’s window can see the green of trees this sight already hastens their recovery reducing post-operative and surgical complications and also painkillers and antidepressants’ doses.
Then biophilia also entails the experience of nature and so "learning by experience", for example when we become aware of the powerful therapeutic effects of nature on our body and psyche or if we learn to decode plants’ ways of communication and information exchange, such as the emission of fragrances and chemicals just like human communication through words and symbols.
For instance, in response to attacks by parasites they emit particular chemicals to alert other neighbouring plants or attract those specific harmful pests’ predators.
Studies carried out at the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology at the University of Karlsruhe also found out that "plants not only refer that they have been injured but they also reveal precisely who injured them".
2000 “communicational scents” have been identified for at least 900 plant families (just to mention a few: the aromas of lemon, menthol, camphor, eucalyptol, sage, mint, rosemary and many others). Most of them are included in the group of substances called "terpenes", that are volatile biomolecules, through which plants communicate with humans.
These chemical messengers are therefore equivalent to human word messages that use letters as symbols and as such constitute a vocabulary of at least 40,000 "vegetable terms".
Terpenes are also used by plants to protect themselves from being burnt by sunrays but also to attract insects and other animals when they need them.
It has been shown that terpenes emitted by plants also act as anti-stress on our neuro-vegetative system and stress hormones, so that the air breathed in forests contains anti cancerogenic and immunostimulating terpenes and that whole foods and plant based diet is very healthy for the same reason. Terpenes have a positive effect on blood pressure and heart rate too.
Mushrooms communicate with each other via terpenes and so they show their gametes the way to the most suitable sexual partner.
From physiology we learn that our organs are in communication with each other and our brain and that every single body cell communicates with the far and neighbouring ones: plant communication proves that "Nature intelligence" does exist and has something in common with human consciousness.
Solar energy that feed us comes from the leaves and roots of plants that fix it to the ground realising the miracle of life and developing Gaia’s spiritual life through smells, petals, flowers, fruits and seeds.
Almost all diseases, not only infectious and autoimmune ones, but also arteriosclerosis, cancer and depression, can be attributed to immunological factors, and the immune system (which is able to perceive, communicate and act like a sense organ) is a kind of WHO for our health.
Contact with nature inspires a sense of calm and serenity that regulates the heartbeat, modulates blood pressure, reduces aggression, increases energy and stimulates memory and cognitive abilities; but above all it boosts the immune system and so the ability to fight tumours and diseases. Breathing fresh air in the woods is a real antistress therapy that makes use of systems such as the endocrine, the cardio-circulatory, the neurovegetative, the immune, the respiratory and the digestive one. Moreover, plants purify the air we breathe absorbing pollutants and then they actively contribute to improve our rest and good humour.
Forests physiologically emit smells and sounds, such as the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. Breathing their air, specific brain regions are stimulated, especially those rich in receptors for dopamine, a neurotransmitter produced by the brain, whose presence is related to the sphere of pleasure and the mechanism of reward. Therefore, it produces a feeling of vital needs’ satisfaction and gratification, activating brain’s reward and pleasure centres and eustress through endorphins’ release that increase dopamine levels.
Nature is regenerative especially when it meets the following four requisites that also constitute its restoration capacity.
- “being away” means distant and different from our everyday life’s environment so that it gives us the impression of being "elsewhere" and then able to make new and interesting experiences;
- “being extent” describes its spatial extension and ability to engage one’s interest thanks to its richness of stimuli and drive to exploration.
- “fascination” of the place that through its charm captivates curiosity and makes one desire to explore
- “compatibility” is the ability of an environment to meet our intentions and expectations.
All these characteristics are activating because, according to biophilia, we are biological individuals born to live in contact and harmony with nature and spontaneously oriented to cooperation, rather than comparison and competition induced by culture.
Trees have long been considered sacred and therefore have acted as objects of worship and respect thanks to their relation with health. Genesis tells us that plants were the first multicellular organisms to populate our planet since the beginning of time when it was Eden.
The healing tree is also a metaphor of our internal healer who is the vital energy of homeostasis.
Hugging trees (the so-called Tree Hugging) and walking barefoot on the grass are considered a bioenergetic therapeutic practice as trees can improve the quality of the biosphere and therefore of our life.
Embracing a tree is like embracing a person, as you enter in “bioresonance” with it and leaving you a true perception of psychophysical well-being. When the plant is hugged by a child it reacts with even greater positivity.
In order to understand living ecosystems we must think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration since living beings have evolved as part of a bioenergetic ocean pulsating like the heart.
Biodiversity as it is manifested by each plant is not only morphological and functional but also energetic, since plants possess bioelectromagnetic characteristics able to influence the state of our organs. This kind of plant bioenergetic personality is revealed through weak signals deeply resonant with our organism.
Plants can vary their bioenergetic emissions depending on the soil’s biochemistry, the nutrients they have absorbed and their relationships with neighbouring plants.
Some studies have shown that plants and trees continue to be generous dispensers of beneficial energies throughout their lives unless they are in distress. Experiments undertaken in the offices of an important multinational company in Edinburgh have even highlight that employees working in rooms with plants felt more productive and healthier than those who did not have greenery in their workplace, even a noticeable decrease in sick leave was observed.
It is also true that trees love human contact and they even have gender preferences. For instance, the oak has always appeared in myths as the masculine tree par excellence and it reacts the most enthusiastically to a woman's embrace, yielding a positive effect on her immune system, ovaries, adrenal glands and thyroid.
Furthermore, starting from these research data, Japanese scholars have noticed that blood samples taken from people soon after they have spent a few hours in the woods show an improvement of their immune system’s natural killer cells’ efficiency and lifespan. Their importance is in fact well known as viral infections’ detectors emitting specific cytotoxins to kill the infected cells thus causing the death of the virus that had parasitized them.
Professor Qing Li from Tokyo’s Nippon Medical School has shown that whoever spends a single day in the woods and "breathes the forest" has for at least one week more killer cells than usual and if the time in the woods is prolonged for two or three days the increased number of killer cells stays for more than a month.
Degenerating human cells are potentially carcinogenic and cancer begins when a crazed cell consider itself immortal and completely out of control proliferates tumultuously to survive. When we breathe in the air of the forest, anti-cancer proteins are produced in greater quantities.
Professor Qing Li has pointed out that fewer deaths due to cancer occur in forest areas, this is a good argument against deforestation in built-up areas and industrial agriculture. Walking in the forest, according to Japanese researchers, also benefits patients with type 2 diabetes greatly.
All these therapeutic advantages are part of the over mentioned "biophilia effect", the healing power of trees and plants helping to recover our ability to experience and unite with Nature, to which humans are indeed physically, cognitively and emotionally connected since birth.
Migration enhances human biodiversity and hybridisation reinforces the human genome and they are inexorable phenomena that can be managed in an absolutely peaceful and cooperative way, also learning from plant migration.
Plants in fact move and conquer new spaces from one generation to the other through seeds, spores and sprouts, emigrating to distant lands through wind, water and animals.
There are vegetables that live along the coasts and, like true pioneers, are capable of long sea journeys, surviving in the sea without fresh water and driven by currents; their seeds have in fact an excellent floating capacity and can remain vital for years, until the currents leave them on a distant beach and, transported by wind or birds, they spread over the new land knowing no border.
Seeds are absolutely perfect survival capsules and like incubators are able to protect the embryo even in the most extreme conditions: ice water, the burning sand of the desert, in absence of air, shelter and protection hence preserving the ability to create a new plant.
Some migrating seeds can adapt very well to the new climate and land conditions revealing an excellent capacity of hybridisation, as they cross breed with native species and so develop more resilient plants for survival.
One of plants’ most amazing abilities is to absorb radionuclides (which are unstable nuclides whose decay emits energy in the form of radiations) decontaminating and cleaning up the environment and polluted soil. Unfortunately, plants absorb the radioactive material concentrating it in their interior and thus, as happened in Chernobyl, they can constitute a significant threat since in case of huge forest fires the radioactive material accumulated within the plants is released into the atmosphere with serious consequences.
Plants, however, are a true miracle as they manage to spread around the world reaching inaccessible and isolated places to grow regardless of the new ecosystem’s conditions, resisting nuclear catastrophes, travelling through time and bringing life wherever they go.
Plants form the largest and most populous nation on Earth, trees are more than 3,000 billions, a truly amazing world power united under a three-coloured flag of vegetation (green), water (blue) and clouds (white).
Without plants there would be no food for animals and humans and, in other words, no life on earth, just as without photosynthesis we would have no oxygen to breathe. Also thanks to photosynthesis, plants, unlike animals and humans, do not need to move in search of food, as they take energy from the sun fixing it in the form of light.
Trees, through their roots, explore the soil in search of food developing very complex networks similar to our neural networks.
Plants are the energetic link connecting the sun with the earth, without them solar energy could not be transformed into biochemical energy that is a life propeller and without their restless work of depollution and cleaning a lot of human waste could not be degraded and absorbed.
Man is therefore not the Earth’s master or ruler at all, but only an insatiable predator of its natural resources consuming them at an ever-increasing rate, Gaia’s physiology as a single living being is then completely ignored. Besides, plants, unlike people, do not have a centralized hierarchical and bureaucratic organisation nor do they have the obligation of obedience to an authority.
Human evolution is not guaranteed by the survival of the fittest, the most intelligent and the most ruthless (thus unintentionally justifying eugenics); but evolution and survival are assured for the most adaptable to the variations of the environment, such as the migrant, who, by definition, respects Gaia’s biological nature.
It is then necessary that humans and plants would increasingly reinforce their relationship of inclusive and fraternal cooperation, which is life’s driving force keeping it rich and prosperous and human peaceful progress’ propeller.
Guaranteeing the survival of a species is equal to preserving the whole of humanity.
Whoever like our Foundation "Science for peace.Eu" approaches Gaia as a living being among the living cannot but avail oneself of a proper Constitution that recognises its needs, rights and values as they are synthesised in the following five fundamental articles:
Article 1: the sovereignty of the Earth belongs to all living beings, plants included.
Article 2: freedom and respect for the rights of all living beings must be safeguarded.
Article 3: the right to uncontaminated water, soil and atmosphere must be preserved for future generations of plants, animals and humans.
Article 4: plant democracy has no other motive except the one to protect all living beings’ freedom to move and migrate, without limitations and borders.
Article 5: all living beings have their own inherent dignity, which involves mutual respect and is the one true instrument of survival, evolution and spiritual progress of all species.
For all these reasons we claim "Gaia first".