Nature is exploited to make things.  Things get made because individuals generate ideas about reality to solve problems. Broadly speaking, problems fall into one of three categories according to the type of object that is desired.

The primary biological purpose of thinking is to discover ways of managing local resources for survival, and then to improve the local quality of life.

To these ends things are made which are obviously useful. These may be described as worked representations of basic family and community behaviours, and the prime objects are tools, weapons, body coverings, and shelter from the elements. Things in this category may be described as worked representations of human behaviour.

As the growing popularity of bird-watching testifies, people have long been inspired by the beauty, songs, and varied behaviours of birds. Central America's Mayas and Aztecs worshipped Quetzalcoatl, a dominant spiritual character cloaked in the iridescent green feathers of the resplendent quetzal, a bird now sought by binocular-toting birders. Ancient Egyptians similarly revered the falcon god Horus, while many ethnic groups around the world still ascribe strong spiritual powers to various bird species.  The powerful attraction of birds highlights another class of ideas about reality which is concerned with how to communicate inner feelings about values and beliefs. These concern the problems of human origins, cosmic destiny, social continuity between generations, and how to predict environmental uncertainties of the natural world. Plans, writings, cult objects, myths and paintings come into this class. Things in this category may be described as worked representations of reality. For example, animism is the notion, found especially in pagan, polytheistic cultures, that everything in nature—animals, plants, even rocks—has an indwelling spirit or consciousness. This spirit is distinct from and superior to matter; it is an organizing power that eludes scientific investigation. And, like the individual entity, nature as a whole is governed by a vital principle, the Anima Mundi, a mysterious force animating the universe. Animism has commonly been an unacceptable, even heretical concept in Judeo-Christian religion. A similar idea, vitalism, also endows nature with an immaterial, innate force and is also of pagan origin, in the writings of Aristotle.

A third category of ideas is intermediate between the obviously practical applications of mental activity, and the less useful objects which encapsulate more abstract thoughts.

A general problem is how to refine utilitarian objects so that they are more satisfying aesthetically. For example, careful examination of stone axes in a site- collection will usually reveal variations in time and skill devoted to the finished object. These embellishments do not improve function but make the object more pleasing to the maker. By the 3^rd millennium BC, factories were turning out polished stone axes which were traded for their appearance. They were not for everyday use and had become ‘works of art’. They were often buried as part of grave goods indicating that the utilitarian value had undergone a spiritual transformation. Things in this category may be described as refined representations of human behaviour.

A special category of managing spiritual making by working through nature is the creation of legal wildland entities. Here the aim is to foster the human participation in wildness for its own sake. In this context, wildness does not equate with the modern meaning of wilderness as a vast tract of land with no human inhabitants. The meaning is scaled down, and brought into everyday life, by turning to the origins of the term wilderness in Old English as wil-deor-ness, which encapsulated the concept of self-willed land. The greater the expression of self-willed nature in fields and gardens, the higher the biodiversity. In this sense, deliberately managing a landscape to maintain its untidiness expresses a strategy that aims to make all land into sacred space.

The need to make the commonplace sacred emerged as a strategic aim of conservation management in the 1980s.

Inspiration, exaltation, insight do not end... when one steps outside the doors of a church. The wilderness as a temple is only a beginning. That is: one should not... leave the political world behind to be in a state of heightened insight... (but) be able to come back into the present world to see all the land about us, agricultural, suburban, urban, as part of the same giant realm of processes and beings- never totally ruined, never completely unnatural.

...lanes, streamsides, wooded fence rows... freeholds of wildness... enact within the bounds of human domesticity itself, a human courtesy toward the wild that is one of the best safeguards of designated tracts of true wilderness. This is the landscape of harmony... democratic and free.

The essence of this movement was expressed by Thomas H Birch in 1990 as follows:

The point then, is that even the preservation of wilderness as sacred space must be conceived and practiced as part of a larger strategy that aims to make all land into, or back into, sacred space, and thereby to move humanity into a conscious rehabilitation of wilderness. Wilderness reserves should be understood as simply the largest and most pure entities in a continuum of sacred space that should also include, for example, the wilderness restoration areas of all sizes, mini-wildernesses, packet- wildernesses in every schoolyard, old roadbeds, wild plots in suburban yards, flower boxes in urban windows, cracks in the pavement, field, farm home, and workplace, all ubiquitous "margins".

The concept of an external "environment" that can be treated as completely separate from human ethics can be traced to post-Enlightenment thought in the West. This idea is the basis of the Cartesian philosophy of mind versus matter, and a state of conflict between people and environment. The ideology of "Man's dominion over nature," has, from the start, oriented the objectives of science to control the environment, and make other living things subservient to the human needs and wants. These ideas may be contrasted with traditional holistic belief systems of many indigenous groups which incorporate the idea that humans are at one with the natural environment. .

The wisdom of traditional knowledge is consistent with ecology and environmental ethics on the question of the control of nature. The relationship may be characterized in terms of a peaceful coexistence of humans-in-nature, or "flowing with nature," as in Taoist philosophy. Perhaps more to the point, some traditional relationships between communities and their environment place humans and nature in a symbiotic relationship, with mutual obligations. These mutual obligations may lead to "respect," which is a central idea in the relations of many Amerindian groups with nature.

The field of environmental ethics has received much inspiration from indigenous societies, but details are subject to much debate. These ideas of oneness with environment are often expressed by native peoples in art, myth and the demarcation of sacred resources.

At the level of the individual it has been argued that there is a the need to rediscover the ancient oneness and live the spiritual connection to nature. There have also been various attempts to incorporate ethical values from traditional systems into policies for sustainability in contemporary society.