UNNATURAL CONSTRUCTIONS - Making Sense of Nature - page 106

that there are different beliefs, opinions or values about what we call
'nature'. But it's another to show that the nature being analysed, debated
or evaluated is not itself an extra-social world lying outside social discourse
and practice. I want to answer my question with reference to three cases.
Between them, these cases cover the non-human world ('external nature')
and human biology. They also cover 'nature' in its other principal mean-
ings, and make plain how its collateral concepts are, similarly, anything
but natural. Readers can focus on one, two or all three of the cases pre-
sented as they wish. Each of them is quite meaty, and will take some time to
digest.
Those well versed in the literatures upon which Making sense of nature is
based may regard a chapter showing that 'nature is nothing if not social'
as being rather beside the point. However, I obviously beg to differ. While
nature's social character may be obvious to those with a trained eye, for
many people it is scarcely evident at all and nor are its important implica-
tions apparent. Equally, as I argued earlier in the topic, while representations
of 'nature' in art, cinema, advertising or poetry clearly express their origi-
nators' intentions, this does not mean that other genres of representation
are somehow intrinsically devoid of significant social content. The three
cases I choose to examine in this chapter show clearly how claims about
nature can actively dissimulate socially contingent processes of creating and
assigning meaning. That the cases reach back a period of years does not
make them less relevant to the present: the representational lessons we can
learn from them are applicable to the here-and-now. Despite some 40 years
of research and writing about 'the social construction of nature', I'd sug-
gest that the need to 'denaturalise' representations of nature remains an
important one.
WHAT'S A 'FOREST'?
Globally, the surface area of forest has declined by over 50 per cent since
the 1850s, and by significantly more than that in certain parts of the world
(see Map 4.1) . The balance between 'deforestation' and 'reforestation' is
important, partly because of anthropogenic climate change: forests are a
very important sink for carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas. But the loss
or degradation of forest ecosystems matters for lots of other reasons too.
Not all forests, and not all tree species, are valued equally. In many parts of
the world, so-called 'old growth' forests (ones that have been undisturbed
by humans) are increasingly rare. They are fringed by landscapes that have
been deforested, that are reforesting (perhaps with plantation trees) or that
are given over to agriculture. For these reasons, efforts are being made to
protect old growth forests before they disappear altogether. These forests are
valuable for aesthetic, cultural and moral reasons, as much as for economic
and practical ones.