Photo credit: Lisa H via Unsplash
As we take stock of the social, environmental, and economic crises in the world today, it is clear that our current way of life and the systems we have built to sustain it are inequitable, unsustainable, and economically precarious. We are in the midst of a global health crisis with over 5 million dead worldwide. On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a mental health and loneliness crisis leaving many people feeling disconnected from one another. Economic inequality in the United States has increased at rates not seen since the Gilded Age in the late 1800s. Research suggests that Americans, by and large, are deeply unhappy: as a matter of fact, Americans are feeling more isolated, lonely, and worried about their children’s future than at any other time in the last 50 years. Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. Happiness, well-being, and ecological sustainability for all seem like a distant dream.
But our current public health crisis also reveals new opportunities for happiness and sustainability. While people experienced feelings of social isolation and loneliness during the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, many also experienced joy from being with their companion animals and noticing wild animals return to places where they hadn’t been seen in years. Research shows that people experience greater well-being in nature and experience “nature deficit disorder” when deprived of it (Louv, 2019). The role that companion animals play in human well-being is also well documented (IFAW, 2016). The pandemic has made it clear that connecting with nature and animals is an essential aspect of human happiness and fulfillment. Recovering from our social, environmental, and economic crises will entail building on these newly rediscovered sources of happiness.
As we begin 2022, OneNature views this moment of crisis as an opportunity to rebuild our society and economy in a way that makes people happier by protecting abundant wildlife and a thriving planet. We believe that the key to a new and better future is shifting away from an economy based on unsustainable and inequitable economic growth toward an economy that values well-being. We argue that wildlife conservation must be central to this vision of well-being, because species diversity is crucial to sustaining the natural world as well as less tangible forms of human flourishing. And we aim to put these beliefs into practice in partnership with Indigenous and local communities, using well-being to articulate the shared values that ground effective and equitable wildlife conservation practices. Building a new, more sustainable future does not have to mean sacrifice. OneNature believes that our future has the potential to be abundant in what really matters, a thriving natural world with flourishing well-being for all.
Join us in working toward this new vision!
Sources:
Tracking covid-19 cases, deaths and vaccines worldwide
How American Inequality in the Gilded Age Compares to Today
Poll: Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years
UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
What is Nature-Deficit Disorder?