I would like to suggest a reason that you have not included in your list.
Forming a relationship with Nature.
Humans in Western civilization, in the phases of late Capitalism, and increasingly the remaining rapidly urbanising areas of the world, are becoming more and more alienated from Nature. The Western philosophy as can be traced through modern history and beyond, visualises humans as separate from Nature, superiour entities who have a right to dominate and exploit as they wish, as opposed to humbly being just another thread within an intricate web. As we know, Modern day society is highly consumeristic, the typical cycle is purchase, consume and thoughtlessly dispose, then purchase more and so on and so forth. The consumer is not involved in the creation process, they may in deed be very ignorant of the how or where or who of the product origin. There is no contact with primary materials, no intricate knowledge of wood grains, growing seasons or habitat types... there's no interaction, no knowledge, no relationship.
This has knock-on effects for our environment and our health.
It has been noted that if you do not relate with Nature in some way then you do not value it. The World is going through a period of ecological crisis and it more important than ever that people value Nature and foster pro-environmental values. Yet divorcing themselves from Nature-interaction exacerbates this devaluation in a type of spiral downwards of negative feedback.
Foraging wild food is one of our most primal activities, up there along with activities like animal tracking and fire-making. It presumably satisfies deep primal drivers within our psyches and relates to our health. A burgeoning new area of research is mounting evidence to show that contact with Nature is beneficial on many levels, including physical and mental health. Struggling health services are starting to look to Nature activities as a way to reduce pressure on their services in the long-term (apparently the NHS in the UK is looking into this).
I would also suggest that it is quite important as regards our sense of cultural identity and sense of connection to place, which are further interesting topics to explore and which no doubt lead back in a wending way to health benefits concerns.
Hope you don't mind my long-winded contribution, I was kind of using it as an opportunity to unwind some of the ideas I've been developing with my PhD on the topic of wild food plants in Brazil. Just another 100,000 words...
Feel free to unwind at any time. You are 100% correct in everything you said. I have always been close to nature. Everything from the deepest darkest caves, to forests and mountains, the oceans, etc. etc. No matter how stressed I get, simply thinking for a few minutes, and visualizing the cycles of life in nature is all I need to relax..
What a terrific comment! I hope you are posting here on similar topics - will go check out your blog next. While I think everything you say here is very important and needs to be heard, the potential benefits to health from contact with nature are particularly interesting to me. Fascinating to hear that the NHS in the UK is looking into nature activities. I have always observed the same thing to be true myself (I am a bot in name only and I do value my nature time) RE feeling whole and healthy in body and mind when I have been able to soak in nature.
I am trying to support great commenters like yourself and encourage others to take the time to leave honest thoughtful comments. If you agree to let me quote some or all of your comment, it may be featured in an upcoming post as an example of great commenting. Please reply to let me know if you approve of this use of your terrific comment :) Cheers - R-bot
Ha - thanks! Yes sure you can quote or mention me, go ahead. I'm such a perfectionist if I wrote a post I'd end up spending ages on it which I just can't really afford whereas comments I can just free-write and not worry about perfection. Also there's some really fun conversations to be had! I have literally hundreds and hundreds of scientific articles all about nature connection sort of stuff... in the long-term I would like to do mini-reviews of science topics from my area and try to disseminate to a general public some of the great science going on.
Ah I see you haven't been posting much but you really are a terrific commenter! Really nice to scroll through your "comments" feed and see you generating so much positive interaction in your time here even though you are personally not posting much. This is exactly what I am trying to encourage so I am really glad I saw your comment! I hear people calling for "more original content creators!" all the time here on Steemit... but there is such a dearth of good readers and good commenters that what we have at times is a sterile ecosystem. I am all for original content creators, but I also think we need more engaged readers in a big way! Great job filling this niche! Love - @r-bot
Love this! Nature really is medicine and we often forget that we are a part of nature not separate from it. Once we remember that, we'll start treating nature with more respect and gratitude. :)
Ahoo to that :)