In politics and other non-technical contexts, nature or (the) (natural) environment often refers to that part of the natural world that people deem important or valuable, for any reason — economical, aesthetic, philosophical, hedonistic, sentimental, etc.. The word ecology is often used (chiefly by non-scientists) in this same sense.
It is the implicit value system that distinguishes the common sense of environment from its scientific meaning in ecology or biology. To a scientist, for example, a pipe dumping raw sewage into a river is the environment for any organisms that manage to thrive in it; whereas in the common sense that same pipe would be considered damage to the environment. The same distinction can be made between the common use of nature (above) and its use in science (a synonym of material world).
