"This book unabashedly declares that love for our biologically and culturally diverse world is a much-needed virtue, an essential need. Collectively, the twenty-three authors--ecologists, psychologists, and educators, poets and artists, the healers and the healed--explore the notion that practicing attentive natural history remains an essential pathway to sanity and health, for both individuals and societies. The book's fundamental premise is that humans are literally born to practice natural history, and are physically, psychologically, and socially healthier when we do."--Page 4 of cover.