عن الترويض والاستغلال والدهشة

#### Toxic Relationship - Man and Nature Between the bombardment of love, limitlessness, and destruction: We have mapped and classified nature; We love it and destroy it at the same time. Cognitive dissonance is our daily reality. The constant need to control and exploit animals, plants and ecosystems contrasts sharply with the now strong desire to see, travel through and enjoy wilderness. The desire to create order through paving the soil goes hand in hand with the longing to escape the asphalt urban desert and return to the embrace of the forests. We want to touch the untouched, and wish to be the first to do so, but also safely and in an air-conditioned environment – ​​and we recognize this paradox. Where does this lead us? To the abyss. “Man is the only creature that destroys its own habitat.” Humanity's growing relationship with the environment and other living things is deeply rooted in tradition and religion. There is a wealth of strange behaviors and opinions worth exploring. We want to be as close as possible to conscious, intelligent beings, so we lock them up. In contrast, we find, for example, the American lawyer Stephen Wise, who fights to grant great apes, elephants and marine mammals at least the rights of personhood based on their cognitive abilities. At the same time, many wild animals exist only in captivity. What remains of it in its natural environment is subject to extensive research. But how and when did it all actually start? #### Writing about nature at a whole new level Writer Bettina Balaka excels in combining history, research, and literary narrative on a topic as crucial as “nature and humanity.” In a series of essays, she explores this contradictory relationship: subjectively and scientifically, historically and personally, exfoliated and neglected, analytically and empirically. She writes about overfishing and marine research, animal husbandry and veganism, climate catastrophe and reverence, and how it requires not only individual rethinking but political decisions as well: for the sake of the planet.