When we say ‘people-centered’, are we placing humans above nature or finally admitting we are part of it? Aren’t we nature too?
Dear Nature,
I’m writing to you, even though we keep insisting you are ‘non-human’. As if that word solved anything. We invent terms to manage the distance. Maybe distance is just a narrative we keep repeating.
Anyway. That’s not why I’m writing.
There’s a phrase being used: people-centred. Some hear humans above everything. Again. But others might see it less threateningly, as bringing us closer to the heart of the matter — the way John Muir read the mountains, the way we interpret stones and rivers, framing nature and culture so we can begin to understand them.
Some might say it’s old wine in new bottles, the same interpreter still in charge. Why add another term if it’s all already there? Maybe that’s exactly the point. Some things are so obvious we stop seeing them. Naming them doesn’t invent something new. It simply helps us pay attention.
And then there’s the one who quietly asks: Where is nature in all of this?
That’s you, isn’t it?
I know, dear Nature. It sounds like we’re putting ourselves at the centre again, in that modern sense shaped by the industrial revolution. That was the moment when the division hardened, the idea that you are separate from us, a resource to be exploited. A modern narrative that slowly turned distance into doctrine. Anthropologists like Philippe Descola remind us that not all cultures accepted this split. For many, the divide between ‘nature’ and ‘society’ simply never existed.
As if everything, even you, exists for us.
But what if it’s not that? What if people-centred is not about dominance, but about recognition? About connection?
What if, instead of society, we saw you and us as part of many collectives — different places, different ways of belonging? We are the ones who name, who feel, who care. Without us, you would still be you, vast, wild, complete, but would you be recognised as heritage?
You don’t need us for that. But maybe we need you.
And here’s a question I keep coming back to: Aren’t we also you?
Not separate. Not above. Not outside. Just you, in another form, walking, wondering, trying to make sense, to interpret (that’s what we do).
Freeman Tilden spent years in forests, mountains, wild places, and still he wrote: People are interested in people. Not instead of you. Through you.
Because even in the middle of a forest, we don’t stop being human. We meet you with our minds and our bodies, with our emotions, with one another, and sometimes with that quiet inner landscape where meaning settles. We bring our stories, our questions, our need to connect – to a place, to each other, to those who walked here before and those who will come after. That’s not a distraction. That’s often where meaning begins for us.
So, where are you in all of this?
Everywhere. In the stone. In the story. In the silence between words. But, also in the person who stops, looks, and begins to care.
Maybe people-centred isn’t a turning away from you. Maybe it’s the only way we learn to love you.
So maybe we’re part of the same whole. And maybe that changes something. I don’t know. But it feels like it could.
Yours,
Someone who’s trying
Dubravko Max Fijačko is a licensed trainer and IE Certified Interpretive Writer from Croatia. As IE Outreach Coordinator, he contributes to expanding the reach of the interpretive approach and to strengthening its integration into professional practice, increasing its availability through learning initiatives. You can contact him at: dubravko.fijacko@interpret-europe.net.
To cite this article: Fijačko, Dubravko Max (2026) “Dear Nature”, Interpret Europe Newsletter Spring 2026, p. 3–4.
Available online: Interpret Europe Newsletter Spring 2026.
