“Solving the world’s problems by looking towards nature and its solutions”.  This is how Dayna Baumeister defines “biomimicry” to the Bioneers audience.

As a renowned educator, consultant, and co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, the Biomimcry Institute, and Biomimicry 3.8 first, Dayna sees the study of biomimicry as the key to “Life’s Operating Manual”.  

She alludes to just a few examples of the incredible designs of nature that are shaping several technological and industrial designs.  For instance, the reason behind why the spider’s web remains safe from collisions with other life is that it contains UV reflective fibers.  This same design is being used to produce glass that prevents bird collisions that often occur with conventional glass windows.

Trees like the African Baobob, a.k.a. Monkey Bread tree, have inspired the basis of designing infrastructure; illustrating that we must have a solid foundation and build from the bottom up in order to integrate development later.

All of biomimicry revolves around the idea of “creating conditions conducive to life”.  That, “life is resilient and we must never, never forget that we are life too.”

Humans are very young as a species.  Baumeister described the earth as if it existed on a scale of 365 days, and using this scale, humans would only have existed for 24 minutes, and our agricultural based civilizations would be a mere one second old.  As a species so young, we cannot afford to ignore all that came before us.  

By “reconnecting with our own humanity” and acknowledging the millions of species on the planet as our elders, we can revive our ability to live by nature’s rules, and not by rules that aim to defeat or conquer it.  By ignoring nature’s genius innovations, we would only be sabotaging our own ability to survive.

Via Biomimicry Group: