What Is the “Nature” That One Seeks to Preserve? A Semiological Approach to Ecological Action
Ecology has evolved over the 20th century from descriptive science to proactive science. This metamorphosis necessitates to adapt a whole theoretical vocabulary to the concrete reality of the field. However, such translation does not come easy. If the vast majority of social actors agree on the need to “protect nature”, deep controversies arise when it comes to putting this preservation into action: what should we do, what should we act on when we want to protect “nature”? What is “nature”, actually? This is the question that this text aims at answering, first by retracing the genealogy of this term, the meaning of which has never been clear, then by isolating a certain number of dominant definitions, each referring to a very specific conception of nature, and thus implying separate protective actions. Rather than arbitrating in an authoritarian manner (as many thinkers have tried unsuccessfully), we propose to integrate this whole complexity of the phenomenon of nature into the approaches aiming at protecting it, which must be conceived in a broad, transdisciplinary and transcultural way.