"We care for our Nature" or "We care for Nature"?
Was drafting an email and my senior wanted to type "Planting saplings is our way of saying we care for our Nature".
I felt that's wrong English. Shouldn't it be "we care for Nature"? (it makes it a bit impersonal to remove the 'our', but if 'our nature' isn't right, can the cuteness factor of mentioning 'our nature' be preserved?. Which is correct?)
You're right. Nature has (at least) two different meanings. When attributed to people, it tends to refer to their character/personality/beliefs/customs/heritage:
It's not in his nature
means "he's not that kind of person, he wouldn't do that". So if we "care for our nature" we care for our character, traditions, behaviour - it's not about nature as in the natural environment. So I would change the phrase to one of these:
We care for Nature
We care for our natural environment
We care for our environment
We care for the environment
In English Our nature would refer to human nature, meaning the way humans are inherently inclined to behave.
Sometimes this sense can be extended to mean the way a particular individual is mentally wired. For example, the popular frog and scorpion fable ends with the scorpion killing them both by stinging the frog in mid-stream and explaining himself by saying, “It is my nature.”
On the other hand, when capitalized Nature is assumed to be talking about the natural world around us. It is a metaphorical concept that you can’t really put a possessive on, because it can’t be owned. Rather, it owns us.
If you really want to put a possessive on it, it should be changed to our environment.