We must restore our largely broken relationship with nature if we are to ensure the planet’s future – and our own.

Asked to consider the value of animals, many people’s first thought would be about money. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, the price of dogs became a popular talking point. Others might think of the less tangible, but also very real, value they place on their relationships with companion animals, especially pets such as cats and dogs. Fewer would immediately consider the ways in which our entire civilisation rests on animals. The fact is, though, that our society and economy are embedded in a natural system that is maintained by the activities of animals, and without them, we would not be here.

Animals are vital to the functioning of the biosphere in innumerable ways. Their interactions with plants, fungi and microbes sustain the conditions on which we, along […]