The essay discusses the need of an idea of nature supporting the construction of islands as exceptional places. This theoretical argumentation is developed mainly referring to the so-called island studies. The paper points out the relationship between nature and the categories of insularity (vulnerability, uniqueness and isolation), then proposes some models of islands that may materialize this relationship. Nature and society are presented as a dialectic duo, to show how insularity is the product of cultural and political processes based on the separation between human and natural.