In autumn 2009, BBC television ran a natural history series, ‘Last Chance to See’, with Stephen Fry and wildlife writer and photographer, Mark Carwardine, searching out endangered species. In one episode they retraced the steps Carwardine had taken in the 1980s with Douglas Adams, when they visited Madagascar in search of the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur. Fry and Carwardine visited an aye-aye in captivity, and upon first setting eyes on the creature they found it rather ugly. After spending an hour (...) or so in its company, Fry said he was completely ‘under its spell’. A subsequent encounter with an aye-aye in the wild supported Fry's judgment of ugliness and fascination for the creature: ‘The aye-aye is beguiling, certainly bizarre, for some even a little revolting. And I say, long may it continue being so.’. (shrink)

Many environmental aestheticians—most prominently, Allen Carlson—have drawn a distinction between “arts-based” and “nature-based” approaches to the aesthetics of nature and have argued that the widespread practice of using arts-based theories and categories to understand the aesthetics of nature is a mistake. This practice, they argue, should be rejected and replaced by a practice in which an aesthetics of nature based on a clear, scientifically grounded understanding of the environment is used to appraise nature. In this paper, I will challenge important (...) parts of this argument through a discussion of an example often used by these environmental aestheticians in developing their arguments: namely, landscape.. (shrink)