Humans have participated in ecosystems for hundreds of thousands of years. Just as beavers modify the flow and course of rivers with engineering works to make themselves a suitable and safe habitat, human beings have always modified their environment. Far from being ignored, the human presence in nature is highly controversial. Let us review three trends in turn that group the majority of positions in this regard: the inhuman, the anti-human and the properly human.

Inhuman ecology, also called ¨human exceptionalism¨, considers that the human being, due to the superiority of his reason, and as an extension of it, his science and technology, can claim the right to subdue nature and abuse it according to its whim. The only thing stopping human´s will to power is the possibility that today’s destruction might threaten their survival tomorrow. It does not recognize more value to the created nature than the practical utility for the human being.

Lynn White attributes it to the Christian tradition that in Genesis receives the mandate to “subjugate the earth”. However, until just three centuries ago, in the use and cultivation of nature, harmony and respect for natural rhythms prevailed. Others are the factors precipitating this attitude. One is the will to power, noted by Nietzsche, which is born from the Enlightenment. Man deifies reason and with it seeks to improve nature and submit it to his whim. He extends his power and does not recognize moral limits. Added to this is the Protestant ethic that, according to Weber, sees the accumulation of wealth as a sign of divine favor. To both dynamics is added the liberal individualism that affirms rights without responsibilities, to justify an economy and consumerism of unlimited growth and the consequent exploitation of nature.

One must be astonished at the utilitarian selfishness and short-sightedness of these men of diminished humanity. Even more by their total lack of reverence in the face of a mystery that far surpasses them in its beauty and complexity; of the arrogance of the one who decides to ignore everything that goes beyond its immediate usefulness. Whoever abuses and exploits excessively without thinking about the consequences; whoever destroys what he does not understand; whoever makes another creature suffer unnecessarily, is not only already sick, but continues to degrade himself and diminish his own dignity. He attempts against himself, against nature and against all humanity.