The nature cure is only another iteration of the ways in which we exploit our environment for human gain, in which we seek to mine the hills and dredge the seas for the green gold of wellbeing. If we go to nature expecting it to heal us, we are not going to it for its own sake. Our relationship becomes entirely transactional. We expect medical treatment from it, not companionship. We expect medical treatment whatever the cost to nature itself. We take our ill health to it, along with our pollution, our damage, our wars, our heavy feet, our lack of mutual care. We will disturb a precious habitat for the endorphin rush of seeing a rare creature. We will burn fossil fuels for miles for a boost to our mental health. We will sacrifice one place in order to save another we deem more important for our wellbeing, not its. I never want to go to the lake and expect it to fix me. I would not ask this of any friend, human or otherwise. So why would I ask this of our nonhuman neighbors I claim to love so much?

Let’s love nature for itself, not for what it gives us.