Encountering Nature: Toward an Environmental Culture

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Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007 - 190 pages
This book argues that an attentive encounter with nature is of key importance for the development of an environmentally appropriate culture. The fundamental idea is that the environmental degradation that we are increasingly experiencing is best conceived as the consequence of a cultural mismatch: our cultures seem not to be appropriate to the natural environment in which we move and on which we depend in thoroughgoing ways. In addressing this problem, Thomas Heyd weaves together a rich tapestry of perspectives on human interactions with the natural world, ranging from traditional modes of managing human communities, which include the natural environment, in Latin America, to the consideration of poetic travelogues, ecological restoration and botanic gardens.

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Contents

Environmental Conscience
13
A Call to Action
37
Community Autonomy
57
Appreciating Nature
77
Recuperating Space Recognizing
93
Rock Art and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Natural Landscapes
109
Reflections on Reclamation through Art
115
Culture and Nature
121
Art and Heterotopias
139
Learning from Japanese
151
Botanic Gardens as Collaboration Between Humans and Nature
167
Enabling an Environmental Culture
181
Index
187
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About the author (2007)

Thomas Heyd is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada.

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