It is safe to say that all ecosystems of earth are interrelated. Water, air, soil and minerals endlessly recycle into plants, animals, human beings and more. The inner ecosystem of the human intestine, for example has several million bacteria, and more DNA of non human, than human cells. Upon leaving the human body, and looking at ecosystems external to it, is found the human home, fashioned from resources of earth, the human city also fashioned from these resources, and sustained by the biosphere that has plants and animals, creating air, and filtering water.
Nothing in nature exists by itself. That is why all ecosystems of earth are so crucial to life, and why human impact, by such things as global warming, pollution, over-population and more. All evolution is driven by envrionment, and damage to any environment endangers not just the immediate species there, but all elements of the woven web of life. The balance of CO2 created and exchanged by plants and animals is a most obvious example. When too many pollutants and green house gases form, all forms of life, including human beings suffer.
Ecosystems need to be thought of as a series of dynamic inter-actions. The idea of a separate set of entities, such as a forest being separate from a stream, or a cloud being seperate from a mountain, is an entirely human abstraction that sees the creation as “things” and not as the great cosmisc dance that it actually is. A good example of this is when people speak about the loss of any species, let us say honeybees, for instance. People then make a mental picture in their minds about how honeybees may be crucial to pollinate plants. Therefor bees allow crops and forests to thrive. However, people do not yet mentally think of all the other elements of what makes honeybees thrive, and all things, from clouds to trees, to birds and soil, are integral to the life of a honeybee, and therefore, to a human being as well.
In fact, this type of disintegration has gone so far, that many people see nature not as WHAT people are, but as something people use! They even think of resources as being something for humanity, and not something that is part of the total interaction of all things, which in its own way, IS for humanity and all creation.
When people speak of man versus nature, this is an evident attitude. Sometimes, the idea is framed as Nature’s wrath, or man versus tornado, or even conquering a mountain, or the “winter” elements. When people see themselves as something outside of nature, a dangerous and explotive separation from all that sustains life is introduced.
