When we hear the word ‘infrastructure’, many of us think of roads, railways, the electricity grid and the internet.
But over the past year, another form of infrastructure has become increasingly hard to ignore: Nature.
Without healthy soils, there can be no food production. Without pollinators, harvests decline. Without forests, wetlands and healthy watercourses, both water supplies, air quality and the ability of ecosystems to cope with change are affected.
Over the past year, issues relating to self-sufficiency and resilience have received increased attention in many countries. The debate often centres on energy, transport and production. At the same time, all these systems ultimately depend on nature’s ability to provide raw materials, clean water, fertile soil and stable ecosystems.
It is easy to take these things for granted. A road can be repaired. An electricity grid can be expanded. But a degraded ecosystem can take decades or centuries to recover.
At Tänk Om/ReThink, we therefore continue to highlight the link between consumption and natural resources to increase understanding of the systems that sustain us every day. The sustainable society of the future is not just about new technology or more efficient processes. It is also about caring for the infrastructure that nature has been building up over millions of years. It remains the foundation for everything else.
