“Anthropocentrism is the belief that human beings are the most important entity in the universe” (Wikimedia Foundation, 2019).

After a massive natural effort, that took more than 4 billion years, the conditions able to ensure a large diversification of life was created, where everything was connected through a circular system (Arthus-Bertrand, 2015) (Gilbert, 2002). Following a natural evolution process, it has been generated a species characterized by a great development of the brain that differs from all the other animal species due to the complexity of the articulated symbolic language that allows a high capacity of abstraction and transmission of information through another exemplar (Treccani, 2017). It has separated itself from all the other species in the world, raising itself as the only owner of the planet. It has colonized the natural world to provide him all the resources to grow as a dominant species.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, all around the world, two thousand animals are slaughtered every second. This to provide food to 7.5 billion of “the dominant species. However, it is going further, this species believes it is exempt from the law of nature, it is killing anything that does not feed it, it is exterminating whatever eats what feed it, it is massacring everything that does not nourish what feed it. Furthermore, this brings it to cancel the law of competition and it will be able to destroy every species, living or not-living, to justify its own growth (Quinn, 1992). This species takes the name of “Homo Sapiens”.

Nowadays, we are facing an unprecedented both environmental and economic crisis, derived from an anthropocentric view of the world (Burdon, 2013). This puts humans as superior to nature and let them use any other elements as an asset for the benefits of only humankind and to justify his own expansion (Boslaugh, 2016). Humans are a prisoner of a capitalistic system that is forcing them to continue on devastating the Earth to survive because the only thing that matter for them is their species supremacy (Quinn, 1992).

What if mankind cannot survive without the natural flora and fauna?

“As we move into an uncertain future, place your hope on each other because all the changes in history came from ordinary people, like me and you, became together, and they did extraordinary things.” (Burdon, 2013)

Back to wilderness is  an essay made in IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, developed at Master in Advanced Ecological Building and Biocity 2019/20 by:
Filippo Vegezzi 

Faculty: Marziah Zhad