There are many issues that are difficult to pinpoint when it comes to taking care of the planet. An example is the **quality of the relationship between societies and nature**.
In this sense, an international document, published this week in the prestigious journal **Nature**, comes to shed light on the matter. The project was led by scientists from the **University of Oxford** (United Kingdom), and the **CONICET researcher Sandra Díaz** participated.
The creation of a **Nature Relationship Index (NRI)** is proposed to provide parameters for these measurements.
## How is the index that will measure the relationship between societies and nature
It is a global metric designed to **complement the Human Development Index (HDI)** and capture the quality of a nation’s relationship with nature.
The new indicator will be incorporated into the **Human Development Report 2026** prepared by the **United Nations Development Program (UNDP)**. The long-term goal is to have periodic updates by country, just like with the HDI.
The director of the office responsible for this report, **Pedro Conceição**, is also one of the authors of the document.
“The idea is to monitor how countries are improving their relationship with the living world,” he considered.
“Today, when considering the overall situation of a country, not only the size of the economy is taken into account (generally measured through Gross Domestic Product), but also **fundamental aspects of human well-being**, such as the level of education, life expectancy, and basic needs met,” he added.
“But until now there was no index that reflected how a nation relates to the rest of living beings,” says Díaz, **CONICET researcher at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Plant Biology** (IMBIV, CONICET-UNC).
## How the NRI is composed
The NRI contemplates three central dimensions:
– The prosperity and accessibility of nature, measured by the extent and access to natural spaces;
– The careful use of nature, assessed based on resource utilization and environmental impacts;
– The protection of nature, evaluated by considering legal and institutional commitments to protect ecosystems.
In other words, the NRI seeks to evaluate and **quantify the extent to which countries care for ecosystems**, ensure equitable access to nature, and protect it from possible harm.
## What issues will it measure
This means that nations that invest in shared spaces for nature and people, in clean air and water, and in the restoration of ecosystems **may see their NRI increase**.
“It is important to note that the NRI does not directly reflect the state of non-human nature,” notes the CONICET researcher.
“For this, there are many biological indicators, such as those established by the **Convention on Biological Diversity**, such as the number of threatened or non-threatened animal or plant species, the size of wild populations, or the area occupied by more or less natural ecosystems,” she adds.
“It is an index that measures what we humans do and not how nature fares in our presence,” explains Díaz.
According to specialists, instead of focusing on what **humans are doing wrong**, the proposal is to offer a global framework to measure to what extent people and nature thrive together.
In this sense, the proposal aims to shift the focus from avoiding environmental damage to fostering positive and ambitious relationships with nature through a proposal considered positive and transformative.
“We call our approach ‘aspirational’ because we emphasize human capabilities to make things better,” says Díaz.
## “Narrative change”
According to the creators of this index to analyze the society-nature relationship, they propose a change in perspective.
“What we propose is a change in the narrative from environmental damage and failure to stories and evidence that our societies have the capacity to produce a better future for all life on Earth, and that in many respects we have already done so,” says **Erle Ellis**, lead author of the study and professor at the **University of Maryland Baltimore County**.
“By expanding human development to include healthy relationships between people and the rest of life on Earth, we hope to motivate new levels of collaboration and innovation worldwide,” adds the fellow at the **Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford**.
