As we embark upon another year of seemingly inevitable environmental degradation, it is the “bark” that I want to emphasize: specifically, the bark of a tree named “Prunus africana”, which, I discovered the other day, is now either an endangered species, or rapidly becoming so, depending on the information source. Used in a variety of traditional remedies, some of which seem to have support from clinical trials, the bark of this tree is ever more in demand. Instead of seeking alternative remedies, or alternative ways of culturing the tree, the natural populations of this tree are being decimated. Should we care? Well, ultimately it's not just the tree, but a whole ecosystem that is affected in some – often unpredictable – way. But let's focus on the immediate ecology of the tree: “As with other members of the genus Prunus, Prunus africana possesses extrafloral nectaries that provide antiherbivore insects with a nutrient source in return for protecting the foliage.“ (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_africana#Traditional_and_alternative_medicine accessed on 11.11.2020). This refers to the production of small drops of nectar at the margins of leaves, a function that evolved under selection pressure to protect the tree against herbivores on the fortuitous background of having rather ferocious ants present in its immediate ecosystem. The ants feed upon the nectar secreted by the leaves, and valiantly fight off any other animal that would eat their precious life‐giving greenery. The Wikipedia quote is not nearly as poetic or “charming” as many of David Attenborough's pronouncements, and yet it is quite “cute” in its unassuming and doubtless unintended way; in fact, I would go as far as saying that it's “caring”, a concept to which I will return later. Though I have to admit that when I first read the sentence, I felt a strong desire to go into Wikipedia and change the wording to the one that I have suggested above – one that is more evolutionarily correct; more “scientific”. And then I stopped and thought how churlish that would be. I've argued in at least one previous editorial that we need a new, scientifically correct, language for evolution everywhere, and I still believe that. However, I am starting to realize that that is probably not enough for recounting biology in the context of gaining public support for environmental protection: one needs both scientific accuracy and caring, attractive, language – as long as those caring words don't mislead, or invite creationist abuse of one's words. Essentially it boils down to the question “Can one be a scientist and a lover of nature?” Well, David Attenborough is an example, just off the top of my head. Perhaps the real point is that one can't be a human without having emotions.

Emotions run high when reports of deforestation and decimation of species appear in headlines. Tree‐huggers are arrested and deemed by many to be mad neo‐hippies. And it's all very well to assert the well‐trodden doctrine that humans are merely an extension of nature, so why should we make a division between what we are “doing” to the biosphere and what the rest of the creatures on this planet are “doing” to it? The danger there is that we regard any type of ecosystem degradation and extinctions as “natural” and inevitable. The problem with seeing the whole of nature merely as an inevitably evolving system “obeying laws” that humans didn't make is that it too easily serves as a justification for doing nothing to protect anything outside humans and the organisms directly relevant to our existence. Even worse, it can lead to certain political persuasions viewing ecosystem degradation as a “natural” challenge to organisms, and their inability to respond quickly enough via evolution as a “natural” failure (followed by extinction) – as eloquently put in an article by Wyner and DeSalle in 2019^[1]. It is by now a commonplace to state that large parts of the natural world – possibly even most of it – are, in the longer term, absolutely vital in order for humans to continue to exist with an acceptable quality of life. But, returning to Prunus africana for a moment, 99.9% of that natural world is so alien to most people, why should they care? Caring is a kind of emotion, and if people feel emotional about things, great things can be done for conservation. It's often said that important decisions are driven more by emotions than facts and logic. We are very capable of great fear of situations generated, or facilitated, by human development – COVID being a prime example; why not love of the world as we would prefer to keep it? Language certainly can make people emotional, and so I believe that scientists too can, with care, use broadly appealing language beside strict scientific constructions.

This might all seem very illogical, but the sad truth, I would argue, is that if we don't get irrationally emotional about our Earth and the wondrous life upon it, no amount of sensible talk about interconnectivity within the biosphere and consequences for humans as part of the larger system will save our living planet from horrendous degradation… or us, for that matter. I am not a tree‐hugger, and I probably never will be. But I am increasingly viewing Huggerus arboribus as a wonderful organism because of its caring behaviour.

当我们开始另一年看似不可避免的环境退化时，我想强调的是“树皮”：特别是一种名为“非洲李子树”的树皮”，我前几天发现，它现在要么是濒临灭绝的物种，要么正在迅速变成濒危物种，这取决于信息来源。用于各种传统疗法，其中一些似乎得到了临床试验的支持，这种树的树皮越来越受欢迎。这棵树的自然种群正在大量减少，而不是寻求替代疗法或栽培树木的替代方法。我们应该关心吗？好吧，最终不仅仅是树，而是整个生态系统都以某种方式——通常是不可预测的——方式受到影响。但让我们关注树的直接生态：“与李属的其他成员一样，非洲李拥有花外蜜腺，为反食草昆虫提供营养来源，以换取保护树叶。”（维基百科：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_africana#Traditional_and_alternative_medicine，访问时间为 2020 年 11 月 11 日）。这是指在叶子边缘产生小滴花蜜，这种功能在选择压力下进化，以保护树木免受食草动物的侵害，这是在其直接生态系统中存在相当凶猛的蚂蚁的偶然背景。蚂蚁以树叶分泌的花蜜为食，勇敢地击退任何其他会吃掉它们宝贵生命的绿色植物的动物。维基百科的引述并不像大卫·阿滕伯勒 (David Attenborough) 的许多声明那样富有诗意或“迷人”，但它的谦逊和无疑是无意的方式却相当“可爱”；实际上，我什至会说它是“关怀”，我稍后会谈到这个概念。虽然我不得不承认，当我第一次读到这句话时，我强烈地希望进入维基百科并将措辞更改为我上面建议的措辞——一个在进化上更正确的措辞；更“科学”。然后我停下来想那会是多么无礼。我至少在之前的一篇社论中指出，我们需要一种新的、科学上正确的进化语言 然后我停下来想那会是多么无礼。我至少在之前的一篇社论中指出，我们需要一种新的、科学上正确的进化语言 然后我停下来想那会是多么无礼。我至少在之前的一篇社论中指出，我们需要一种新的、科学上正确的进化语言无处不在，我仍然相信这一点。然而，我开始意识到，在获得公众对环境保护的支持的背景下，这可能不足以讲述生物学：一个人需要科学的准确性和关怀、有吸引力的语言——只要这些关怀的话不会误导，或邀请创造论者滥用一个人的话。本质上，它归结为这个问题：“一个人能成为一名科学家和一个情人性质的？” 好吧，David Attenborough 就是一个例子，就在我的脑海里。也许真正的重点是，没有情感就不能成为人。

当头条新闻出现森林砍伐和物种灭绝的报道时，情绪高涨。拥抱树木的人被逮捕并被许多人视为疯狂的新嬉皮士。而这一切都非常好断言良好的践踏学说，人类只是自然界的延伸，所以我们为什么要做出什么之间的划分，我们是“做”到生物圈，什么在这个星球上的生物的其余部分是“在做什么？存在的危险在于，我们认为任何类型的生态系统退化和灭绝都是“自然的”和不可避免的。仅仅看到整个自然的问题作为一个不可避免的进化系统，“遵守人类没有制定的法律”是因为它太容易成为不采取任何行动来保护人类之外的任何事物和与我们的存在直接相关的生物体的理由。更糟糕的是，它可能导致某些政治观点将生态系统退化视为对生物体的“自然”挑战，并且它们无法通过进化做出足够快的反应，将其视为“自然”失败（随后是灭绝）——正如作者在一篇文章中雄辩地指出的那样Wyner 和 DeSalle 在 2019 年^{[ 1 ]}。现在，人们普遍认为，从长远来看，为了让人类继续以可接受的生活质量生存，自然界的大部分地区（甚至可能是大部分地区）绝对至关重要。但是，回到Prunus Africana片刻，99.9%的自然世界对大多数人来说都是如此陌生，他们为什么要关心？关怀是一种情感，如果人们对事物有情感，就可以为保护做大事。人们常说，重要的决定更多是由情绪而非事实和逻辑驱动的。我们非常害怕人类发展产生或促进的情况——新冠病毒就是一个很好的例子；为什么不爱这个世界，因为我们宁愿保留它？语言当然可以让人情绪化，所以我相信科学家们也可以谨慎地使用广泛吸引人的语言，而不是严格的科学结构。

这可能看起来很不合逻辑，但我认为可悲的事实是，如果我们不对我们的地球及其上奇妙的生命产生非理性的情绪，就没有多少明智的谈论生物圈内的相互联系和对人类的影响作为更大系统的一部分，将拯救我们的生命星球免于可怕的退化……或者我们，就此而言。我不是一个拥抱树木的人，我可能永远不会。但我越来越多地将Huggerus arboribus视为一种奇妙的有机体，因为它的关怀行为。