Opinion: Why access to nature is good for our wellbeing
Bristol recently hosted a Nature and Wellbeing summit to discuss proposals for a new law in England to restore nature and improve our quality of life. In this blog, Lucy McRobert, Campaigns Manager for The Wildlife Trusts "Nature Matters", explains why access to nature is fundamentally good for our health and happiness.
Having access to nature and diverse greenspaces… [is] a form of primary care that should be adopted within the NHS
Underpinning the Act is our belief, which is shared by many people- and nature-centred organisations that leading a life closely associated with nature is fundamentally good for our health and happiness.
It may sound like common sense, but this is an idea that is only now beginning to become mainstream in our thinking, although it has had its proponents for many years.
It was these champions who formed the speakers for the first Nature and Wellbeing Summit, held in Bristol last week, and funded by Bristol 2015 as part of the City’s year as European Green Capital
Professor Marcus Grant, deputy director of the World health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at UWE, GP Dr William Bird MBE, and naturalist, author and TV producer Stephen Moss, chaired by TV presenter and RSPB President Miranda Krestovnikoff and later joined by GP Ros Kennedy, all spoke using their personal expertise of both people – in the case of our health experts – and nature, drawing on collective decades of experience.
We kick-started the day via the wonders of technology, where we listened to an address from Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Wood (you can watch his talk here).
Whilst speaking from an American perspective, there were stark parallels with the UK and our attitude towards nature, wellbeing and particularly a disconnect from nature in children, but also some lessons that we would do well to learn from.
For example, field trips and ‘experiential education’ in America, have taken a back seat to exams and computers: the same can certainly be said of the UK. There is now,
however, a counter-movement: nature pre-schools (similar to our Forest Schools) at a local level, and also national initiatives, too, such as that led by the White House, to get every fourth-grader into a National Park, with kids of that age, and their families, getting free passes for the whole year.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see such a programme initiated by Downing Street?
Author Richard Louv discusses the importance of "unblocking our senses" and getting away from screens
Primary public health
Following on from this (and it was a hard act to follow) Professor Marcus Grant spoke passionately about the need for primary public health: in other words, treating the population as a whole, rather than every individual.
He focused primarily on non-communicable diseases – obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer – (rather than infectious diseases) those illnesses that have the highest impact on the most vulnerable groups in society.
He cited interesting medical statistics – for example, that the NHS spends £100 billion on treating illness every year, whilst only two percent of that is spent on keeping people healthy.
Having access to nature and diverse greenspaces, he argued, was a form of primary care that should be adopted within the NHS; that green spaces, “nature-based urban living” – were paramount to healthy populations.
“It’s the fence at the top of the cliff,” he argued, “Not the ambulance at the bottom of the valley.”
Dr William Bird followed, putting forward the case, using a real skill for translating complex medical issues into palatable language, that as humans we are designed to be connected to nature.
Nature allows us to overcome three social issues that can have serious consequences for our health: isolation, fear of danger and rejection.
Stoke Park Estate, Bristol
Photo: Chris Bahn
A sense of purpose
Being connected to nature allows us to be sociable, feel safe in our environment and gives us a sense of purpose.
This wasn’t speculation: this was all backed up by some incredibly technical medical explanations, linking to physiological reactions our bodies have to certain stressful situations: a cure? N ature.
Finally, Stephen Moss spoke very personally about his own experiences with nature: he reminded us, that even though we have to deal with the ‘nitty-gritty’ detail, we had to remember why we all loved nature fundamentally.
For Stephen, it was all about something very simple: let your children out. Let them explore.
The solutions to allowing people, especially children, to reconnect with nature are incredibly complex, but one small step we can take is to let your children create memories outdoors, just as many of us did: “that initial love of nature, completely transformed our lives”.
For Stephen, as for Richard Louv and all the speakers, having nature central to our lives, is essentially part of being human. And that was only the first hour.
After the preliminary talks, we divided into small groups, where participants were tasked with creating minute-long Dragon’s Den style pitches that were fed back towards the whole group at the end of the day.
We had to find a solution to benefit both Nature and Wellbeing, sharing best practice and ideas, as well as fun ways of presenting them.
The range of topics that people touched on was extraordinary and then we got to vote for our favourites: some, ranging from selling nature as a drug to medical practitioners (“Has definitely been tested on animals” and “no known side effects”) – to training an array of health professionals, like nurses, midwifes and mental health workers.
Some solutions focused on better integration of the built environment and wild green spaces, better management of habitats, and of course, education and young people.
Of course, a Nature and Wellbeing Act was key to many of the proposals.
It was a day that left the head buzzing with ideas, but ultimately there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and we need as many new ideas as possible to help join up the dots between healthy nature and healthy people.
Find out more about the Nation and Wellbeing Act using the hashtag #ActforNature.
