Finding Nature

Funded projects, be they nature-based or otherwise, are typically asked to demonstrate impact. Whether funded by government, trusts, health partners or environmental organisations, there is an understandable desire to know: does this work?

The usual response is for each project to commission or develop its own evaluation. While well intentioned, this can result in lots of small studies, lots of different measures, lots of reports, but little collective learning.

Our latest paper in the journal Ambio, explores a different approach: a tool that facilitates evaluation while pooling evidence across projects. Rather than treating each project as a separate piece of evidence, the tool enables different organisations to collect the same core data and combine results across many initiatives. The findings suggest this approach can provide insights that individual projects simply cannot generate on their own.

At its heart, the idea is simple. Projects use common surveys before and after participation. Project managers also provide some basic information about the activities they’re offering. The survey data then feeds into a dashboard that gives individual projects useful feedback while also contributing anonymous data to a larger evidence base – as illustrated below.

This has clear benefits for projects. Many organisations do not have access to research expertise, large evaluation budgets or analytical support. A shared tool removes some of that burden. Instead of creating surveys and analysing results from scratch, projects can focus on delivery while still gathering meaningful evidence.

The real value, however, comes when data are pooled across projects.

The proof-of-concept study in the Ambio paper combined data from eight different nature-based projects. Individually, most projects would not have had enough participants to explore broader questions about what works best. Together, they created a dataset capable of identifying patterns across the sector.

The first finding was encouraging. Across projects, participants reported increased nature connectedness after taking part. This is important because nature connectedness is increasingly recognised as a key outcome, linked to both wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour.

More interestingly, the pooled data allowed exploration of project characteristics associated with larger improvements. One pattern stood out. Projects explicitly using the Pathways to Nature Connectedness framework appeared to achieve greater increases in nature connectedness than projects that did not use the pathways. Together, eight projects revealed a pattern that none could have detected alone.

That’s good news, but it’s proof of concept, so the finding should be treated carefully. The sample was relatively small, with only eight projects involved, and the study was not designed to establish cause and effect. We cannot conclude that using the pathways caused the higher outcomes. Other factors may have been involved, such as organisational experience, enthusiasm or the use of structured frameworks more generally.

However, that is precisely the strength of this approach. The purpose of a shared evaluation system is not necessarily to provide definitive answers. Instead, it helps identify promising patterns that deserve further attention. It acts as an intelligence system for the sector, highlighting where more focused investment, research or programme development might be worthwhile. Without pooling data, this signal around the pathways would probably have remained invisible.

There is an important point here for funders and policymakers. Too often, evaluation requirements unintentionally fragment evidence. Every grant programme requests something slightly different. Every project develops its own framework. Every report sits in a separate folder. As a result, considerable effort is invested in evaluation, but relatively little cumulative knowledge is generated.

A shared monitoring system offers a different model. Rather than funding dozens of isolated evaluations, investment can support a common measurement framework and data infrastructure. Individual projects still receive the evidence they need for reporting and learning, but the wider sector also gains a growing dataset capable of identifying trends, benchmarking performance and informing strategic decisions.

The approach is not limited to nature connectedness. It could be applied to wellbeing, loneliness, physical activity, environmental education, citizen science or other shared outcomes. Any area with multiple projects pursuing common goals could benefit from combining data rather than dividing it.

For project leaders, the message is straightforward: good evaluation does not always have to mean doing everything yourself.

For funders and policymakers, the challenge is perhaps greater. If we want stronger evidence, we should think beyond evaluating individual projects and start building systems that enable collective learning. The future may lie not in funding more bespoke evaluations, but in creating shared evidence systems that allow projects to learn from one another.

Lengieza, M.L., Richardson, E. & Richardson, M. Amplifying social benefits from multiple nature-based initiatives by crowdsourcing nature connectedness and wellbeing data: A proof of concept. Ambio (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-026-02472-1

Forty years ago today I started working, 11th August 1986. I didn’t enjoy school, so left at the first opportunity aged 16, off down the dual carriageway on my speed restricted 50cc Suzuki. I was an apprentice at Rolls-Royce, learning the basics, from filing metal and turning, to grinding and electrical installations. To the exacting standards expected of those building jet engines.

The first task was to make a ‘box with hinged lid’ from tin plate. Four days of cutting, folding and soldering. The box was finished on Friday 15^th August and still works perfectly. It is still one of my most satisfying outputs.

‘Box with hinged lid’ – 1986 and 2026

Then came technical drawing, fitting and a tin plate funnel, also still in use. Then wiring, circuit boards and ring mains. For the milling instructor, talking was not allowed. He roved the rows of machines with his micrometre, silently assessing your work. If the measurements were a tenth of a millimetre out a week’s work would be flung into the bin. It’s one way to set high standards.

The first anniversary in 1987 was spent wiring toroids, I’d been placed onto the ‘instrumentation’ pathway, no more metal work, just electrical work, wires, cables, circuit boards and out onto site, in the test beds with the jet engines, checking gauges and meters.

The workplace was divided into works and staff (each with their own toilets!), I was on a works route. Overall, I was realising that I wasn’t heading in the right direction for me, although I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. It felt like there was little room for creativity, other than my ever more elaborate logbook illustrations, see below. So, I left in 1989, a month or so before the 3-year apprenticeship was complete.

Memory Failure

It’d be 7 more years, including 3 years at University, until I found a workplace where I fitted, and where managers recognised potential, and encouraged me to do a PhD. That’s not a criticism of the system at Rolls-Royce, after all a football manager can’t be expected to identify a good cricketer. I’d started on the wrong path, and I had to spot that myself.

While some may recognise difference, or not fitting in, others, if they have the right perspective, may spot aptitude. Careers are rarely planned, they are often about moments of opportunity, doors that open, but that may not lead to a favourable destination. I’ve given up jobs I wasn’t enjoying twice, in order to try and open doors elsewhere.

Back to the tin box, such manual skills are wonderful to have and develop. They still felt of their time in 1986, rather than a craft to marvel over on TV, but computers were appearing in the workplace, although it’d be 1996 until I had one on my desk.

When new technology arrives it creates opportunities for creative thinking. In 1999 a few of us repurposed a Sun Microsystems SPARCstation into a web server to host online course materials for students, for all modules by 2000. This was soon followed by discussion forums and the first online degrees, undergraduate psychology in 2005 and my Masters in Ergonomics with a ‘virtual workplace’ soon after. This was acknowledged by the professional body as having “transformed student learning in the discipline across the UK and internationally” – confirming that the point wasn’t the technology itself, but the improvements it could bring.

In the early years, some wanted to shut down this rogue use of technology, but by 2011 it was seen as distinctive and standard setting. It was celebrated, replicated and claimed. People with ideas can be seen as mavericks, even problems when they act on those ideas, but they can be establishing a prototype that more formal systems can adopt.

Fast forward 25 years, the online degrees have been highly successful, and AI is presenting similar opportunities for innovation and transformation. Once again, existing systems are challenged and there can be a similar desire, by some, to hold things back. As with the Internet, it’s clear this new technology is here to stay. Those that adopt it well early can still be front runners decades later.

Back in the late 1990s, I also did online research, developing some of the first online psychology experiments, and using AI to facilitate research has been my focus over the past 18 months or so. Rather than asking AI to do the thinking for me, I’ve used it as a research assistant, programmer and data analyst.

One project explored how our relationship with nature has changed over the past two centuries, analysing millions of words from digitised books to reveal long-term cultural trends and the social factors linked to them. An idea quickly became reality, whereas previously it would have remained in my mind. Another involved building an agent-based computer model that simulated the lives of thousands of virtual people, families and communities to explore how nature connection is passed between generations and influenced by changes in society, cities and culture – more on that here.

Agent Based Model: From idea to reality

What’s exciting is that the agent-based model was something I’d wanted to build for over a decade. I could imagine it, how people, places, culture and nature might interact over time, but turning that idea into working software always felt beyond the programming skills I had available. AI changed that. It helped me translate concepts into code, test ideas rapidly and create a simple model that behaved as intended. That was followed by a second, far more sophisticated model that incorporated regional differences, cultural trends and future scenarios.

Overall, working with AI on and off for eight months from February 2025, I produced four research papers published between August 2025 and March 2026. The latest project has returned to the cultural-trends project, this time using the rapidly evolving AI tools to automate it. I enter the factors I’m interested in, and it does the rest, gathering the data, running the analyses, validating the findings, and drafting the results section. A project that took me several days in 2025 now takes a few minutes of my time.

In the same way that the internet allowed me to move teaching online 25 years ago, AI has allowed me to turn ideas into reality. Enabling me to explore approaches that would previously have remained as sketches in a notebook.

How many people have ideas, talents or ways of thinking that never quite fit the systems around them? Looking back, the most important moments in my career were not promotions or job titles, but the moments when someone recognised potential, or when a new tool opened a door that had previously been closed. Perhaps the challenge with AI is the same as it was with education, apprenticeships and the internet: will it help us spot and develop different kinds of talent, or simply become another way of selecting people who best fit the existing system?

For me, that is where the real opportunity lies. Not in replacing expertise, judgement or creativity, but in amplifying them. The most powerful use of AI is perhaps not getting answers, but helping people build things they could previously only imagine. AI is a power tool, just like those that enabled me to shape metal in 1986. The craft still matters, the judgement still matters, the ideas still matter, but the right tool expands what is possible. Forty years after making that tin box, I find the same satisfaction in building something useful from raw materials. The materials are no longer sheets of metal, but data, code and ideas.

May 2026 marks a small but meaningful milestone for my findingnature.org.uk blog: 12 years online and reaching 500,000 views. What began as a space to explore ideas and share research around nature connectedness has grown into a global resource, with over 279,000 visitors, 215 posts, and a wealth of shared research, practices, and reflections. To receive the latest blogs into your inbox you can subscribe.

A Journey Through the Years

The first blog post 22 May 2014 looked at two research papers, Kamitsis & Francis (2013) on how spirituality mediates the relationship between engagement with nature and psychological wellbeing. And a study on meaning in life, nature connectedness and well-being by Howell, Passmore & Buro (2013).

The blog has evolved steadily since then, with interest building year by year, peaking in 2022 when a retweet by Greta Thunberg led to the busiest day and month in the site’s history. That single most popular day was 11 August 2022. When Twitter became X a main source of referrals (7752) faded (to 617 in all of 2025) and views have levelled out around 60,000 to 70,000 per year from around 40,000 unique visitors.

Views and Visitors Since 2014

What People Read Most

The most visited pages reflect a strong appetite for both theory, policy and practical guidance on nature connection, with the top post being the launch of our first policy briefing in 2020. The biodiversity stripes in 2022 were also popular thanks to Greta. So the widely used research into the pathways from 2017 only make it to 3^rd. Next up, is the practical guidance and the launch of the Nature Connection Handbook in 2022. The top 5 is completed by another research paper, this time signalling the start of my shift to looking at nature connectedness as a societal issue, as much as an individual trait.

• A New Relationship with Nature: what it means and what we can do – 23,911 views
• Biodiversity Stripes – A journey from grey to green – 21,122 views
• Beyond Knowing Nature – 5 Pathways to Nature Connection – 16,728 views
• The Nature Connection Handbook – 11,648 views
• Applying the Pathways to Nature Connectedness at societal scale – 10,698 views

A Resource Hub for Practice

Downloads from the resources section have been a major part of the blog’s impact. The Nature Connection Handbook alone has been downloaded 100,000 times, with other guides, postcards, and handbooks reaching tens of thousands more. This suggests the work is not just being read, but actively used in organisations, communities, and education.

A Global Reach

While the UK leads with over 266,000 views, the blog has found an international audience with views from 218 nations. There have been over 100 views from 93 nations.

It’s encouraging to see ideas about nature connection travelling so widely.

How People Find the Blog

Search engines, overwhelmingly Google, account for the largest share of traffic (139,800 views), but social platforms have played a key role, noting that LinkedIn took over as the leading referrer since 2023:

• X (Twitter) – 34,659
• LinkedIn – 16,987
• Facebook – 10,426

Academic and institutional links (e.g. journals, and research platforms) also feature strongly, reflecting the blog’s connection to research and practice.

When People Visit

Thursdays are the most popular day (17% of views), with 2pm the busiest hour. It seems many readers are engaging during the working day—perhaps reflecting the blog’s use in professional and academic contexts.

Looking Ahead

Half a million views is a moment to pause and reflect—but also to look forward. Blogs on my research papers published in 2026 have received a couple of thousand views so far, but the 2017 pathways blog is still in the top 5. The practical guidance remains popular with the various handbooks and guidance reaching another 14000 or so downloads this year. The mix of research and application is still key. Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, downloaded, and applied these ideas over the past 12 years. The journey continues.

My latest research in the Journal of Environmental Psychology explores how everyday life conditions have shaped mental health discourse and prevalence over the last two centuries. Mental health difficulties have increased across many societies and this suggests that mental health is not just a condition of mind, but also a condition of life. It is shaped by a complex interplay of structural and cultural factors. Economics matter. Education matters. Urbanisation matters. So do technological change, social exclusion, and the physical environments in which people live. Over recent decades, psychology and public health have steadily widened their lens to recognise these broader determinants of mental health.

Yet despite this broadening of scope, one foundational aspect of human experience remains largely absent from how mental health is usually explained: the human–nature relationship. This omission is not trivial. For example, the American Psychiatric Association’s Task Force on the Social Determinants of Mental Health makes little reference to nature at all.

This matters as in this latest research across this long historical view, two foundations of good mental health stand out.

1. The importance of economic conditions—reflected in how much cultural attention is given to issues of work, income, prosperity, and insecurity.
2. A close relationship with the natural world—reflected in how much cultural attention is given to nature.

Together, these factors appear to explain long‑term mental health trends – a trebling since the 1950s and doubling since 1980 – more so than many of the determinants that are mentioned more often.

What did the study do?

The study took a long historical view, examining how often mental health‑related terms have been used in English‑language works over more than two centuries (1800–2020). Large‑scale word frequency data was used as a proxy for societal concern, stress, and broader mental health trends.

A carefully selected set of mental health‑related terms was compiled from five historical eras. Statistical techniques were used to ensure these terms reflected a coherent underlying concept, rather than shifts in language, fashion, or diagnostic systems. Each era was equally weighted so that no single period dominated the index, preserving long‑term comparability.

Is word frequency data a useful proxy for mental health prevalence?

Language is not the same as prevalence, but it reflects reality. What societies talk and write about indicates topics that matter. These language trends were therefore tested against real‑world indicators—namely mental‑health‑related hospitalisation and social security records—and showed strong alignment across time, see the chart below.

The use of mental health terminology matched actual prevalence well

The study reveals a marked and accelerating rise in cultural attention to mental health across two centuries, particularly from the mid‑20th century onward with a trebling since the 1950s and doubling since 1980. This pattern closely matches real‑world prevalence indicators such as mental health related social security claims. These results suggest that word use trends can serve as a reliable proxy for societal concern—and potentially for underlying prevalence—opening up new possibilities for tracking population mental health over time.

Which life conditions best explain the rise in references to mental health since 1800?

The core aim of the work was to test whether macro‑level life conditions, also measured using the word‑frequency approach, could explain the long‑term changes in mental health discourse.

Eight factors were included: six established mental health determinants, plus human‑centred values and the human–nature relationship.

1. Economic Environment, e.g. unemployment, capitalism, economy
2. Urbanisation, e.g. urban, cityscape, housing
3. Technology, e.g. computing, digital, social media, data
4. Environmental Stressors, e.g. pollution, landslide, global warming
5. Social Equity, e.g. exclusion, gender, discrimination
6. Education, e.g. university, curriculum, literacy
7. Human-Centred Values, e.g. autonomy, ethics, individualism,
8. Human–Nature Relationship, e.g. bud, dew, mosses, mountain

Discourse about everyday life conditions explains mental health discourse well.

A predictive modelling approach was used to see how the eight factors best combine to fit the mental health trend. The analysis showed that long‑term changes in mental health discourse can be explained by a combination of socio‑economic macro‑level factors.

Discourse about everyday life conditions explains mental health discourse well. After several validation tests two factors stood out as contributing most:

• The economic environment, reflecting the degree to which economic conditions such as work, income, growth, and employment are salient in everyday concerns
• The human–nature relationship, reflecting whether nature remains part of everyday cultural experience

The economic environment emerged as the strongest positive contributor to lower mental health discourse, consistent with extensive literature linking economic and employment to mental health outcomes.

Notably, the human–nature relationship showed the same protective pattern: when nature featured in our lives, mental health discourse was lower.

Urbanisation and technology showed substantial negative weights, meaning that as these factors grew, mental health discourse also increased. This aligns with evidence linking urban living to social isolation and the growing recognition of digital‑era stressors.

Human‑centred values, including individualism and autonomy, also showed negative associations with mental health discourse, echoing concerns about cultural disconnection and emotional strain in highly individualistic societies. Social equity and education contributed positively, but more modestly.

The six factors with the highest weightings are shown in the figure below, with the stone size proportional to the weightings found in the analysis.

Do the foundational factors get the most attention?

The economic environment and human-nature relationship stood out as foundational factors, but the results show that it is trends in attention to the other six determinants that have been increasing most in recent decades.

While cultural attention to technology (+11%), education (+66%), social equity (+77%), environmental stressors (+47%), human-centred values (+48%) has grown since the 1980s, attention to the economic environment has fallen (-45%), alongside urbanisation (-13%), while the human-nature relationship remains around half of its historical highs.

Attention to other mental health determinants has overtaken foundational factors in recent decades (stone size represents analysis weightings).

References to education, human‑centred values, and social equity overtook economic discourse in the 1990s, with urbanisation, technology, and environmental stressors doing so in the 2000s. Importantly, this fall in economic language does not mean the economy has been “sorted.” Rather, it indicates a declining focus on economic conditions in everyday cultural attention. The economy has not ceased to matter; it has receded into the background while attention to other topics has increased.

These shifts suggest that more visible or contemporary concerns, for example “screen time”, may have come to dominate attention, potentially overshadowing the foundational conditions of mental health. These determinants can dominate attention, while unresolved economic conditions and long‑term losses in nature connection continued to shape mental wellbeing.

It is also notable that Western nations, which exhibit the steepest rises in mental health difficulties, tend to be trending to weaker relationships with nature, a pattern also linked to economic priorities and individualistic values – mental health and the human-nature relationship share foundational factors.

Can the use of non-mental health words predict real world mental health prevalence?

The next step was to explore whether the use of non‑mental‑health words—such as those relating to the economy, urban living, technology, environmental stress, social equity, education, human‑centred values, and nature—can explain real‑world mental health prevalence? The answer is yes, and with surprising accuracy.

When the model was tested against long‑running indicators such as mental‑health related hospitalisation and social security records, it tracked real‑world prevalence patterns across more than a century of data quite well, see below.

Use of non-mental health words can predict mental health prevalence.

Importantly, this predictive power was achieved without using mental health terms themselves, showing that the use of language about broader life conditions carries a strong signal about population mental health.

This matters because it suggests mental health trends are not solely the result of changing awareness or diagnostic practices. Instead, they are closely tied to underlying social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape everyday life. In that sense, mental health discourse acts as a readable signal of deeper structural pressures and protections.

What does this mean for the future of mental health?

By extrapolating recent trends in factors such as the economic environment, urbanisation, and technology, the model produced future scenarios suggesting that mental health burden is likely to continue increasing if current patterns persist. However, alternative scenarios told a markedly different story. When the model simulated a restoration of the human–nature relationship—or a renewed focus on economic conditions—predicted mental health discourse fell substantially. Of the scenarios tested, restoring cultural attention to nature produced the largest reduction, suggesting a powerful and under‑recognised lever for population mental wellbeing.

Future scenarios of mental health

These future scenarios reinforce a central message of the study: mental health trajectories are not fixed, but depend heavily on whether societies strengthen or continue to erode the foundational conditions.

What are the implications of the results?

The results point towards some interesting conclusions. In addition to focusing on individuals’ mental health, two structural foundations stand out:

1. A focus on the economic environment as this underpins the ability to materially provide for oneself.
2. Creating a culture of meaningful engagement with the natural world.

Sometimes simple evolutionary accounts provide a useful perspective. Humans are part of the natural world and like other great apes, there are core material foundations to living well. The opportunity to provide for ourselves in our natural habitat is fundamental. Like other great apes we thrive when we can provide for ourselves and be close to nature.

This perspective cuts through some conceptual clutter as lists of influences on mental health continue to grow. Of course, these factors matter. But many operate within constraints set by deeper conditions. This research suggests that good mental health is built on material foundations. The context of our lives can be seen to sit on top of these foundations. This does not deny complexity—it helps organise it.

From a policy perspective, the long view of this research highlights the need to ensure that current ‘hot topics’ do not overshadow the fundamentals. There is only a certain amount of bandwidth and policy should ensure it considers the most important levers, rather than focus overly on present day context. And scenario modelling suggests that restoring everyday engagement with nature, and re‑centring economic conditions as shared foundations of life, could meaningfully alter future trajectories.

This work also highlights how language use mirrors shifts in societal stress and wellbeing. The approach also points to practical opportunities: language trends can offer early signals of rising mental health burden.

Finally, the shared structural drivers behind both the decline in the human–nature relationship and the rise in mental health difficulties—especially in Western nations should also be considered. These include economic priorities, urbanisation, technological change, and increasingly human‑centred value systems.

The findings suggest that unifying both human and nature’s wellbeing depends on creating economic and urban environments that allow people and nature to thrive together—reinforcing the need for integrated approaches that bridge mental health, social, and ecological policy.

Richardson, M. (2026). Nature, economy and mental health: Predictive insights from historical language patterns. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 112, 103078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103078

Back in January, we opened the call for contributions to Nature Connections 2026 on 16th July. Since then, the response has been both heartening and revealing. We were oversubscribed three-fold, pointing toward a field that continues to deepen, diversify, and innovate in how it understands the human-nature relationship.

Before looking into the themes of the day, a couple of announcements.

Firstly, our keynote speaker for the morning will see the return of Tony Juniper CBE. Tony is a prominent environmental figure who has been active in the defence of nature for more than 40 years. He has run global campaigns, written many books, and advised at the highest levels. He has led a number of major organisations and is currently Chair of Natural England. It will be 10 years, 1 month, and 1 day since Tony opened Nature Connections in 2016, and it will be interesting to reflect on how things have moved on since then.

Second, in addition to the talks, we’ll be hosting a panel discussion: Rooted in Evidence: How Nature Connection can inform Policy and Decision-Making. We’ll have more details on the panel members soon.

And, of course, you’ll hear from me, I’ll be closing the day this year.

Back to the themes of the talks on the day. Across submissions from researchers, practitioners, artists, educators, health professionals, and community organisations, a few patterns stand out.

One is an increasing emphasis on belonging – to place, to landscapes, to local ecologies, and to the communities that form around them. Another is a widening commitment to inclusion, with thoughtful work exploring how nature connection can be made tangible and meaningful for people who face barriers to access, whether physical, social, cultural, or structural.

There is also a renewed attention to the textures of experience: the sensory, aesthetic, and emotional qualities of being in nature, and how these shape identity, memory, and wellbeing. From creative methods to long-term learning programmes, many contributors are examining how sustained, repeated, or carefully supported encounters with nature can lead to deeper shifts than one-off experiences alone.

Innovation features strongly too – digital, artistic, place-based, and co-created approaches that invite people to encounter nature differently. Whether through gardening, the night sky, citizen science, therapeutic programmes, or new forms of design and infrastructure, the work shared points to nature connection as a living, evolving practice.

Perhaps most striking, however, is the continued movement toward relational thinking: seeing nature connection not simply as an individual outcome, but as part of wider cultural, ecological, and social processes. Many of this year’s contributions explore how connection can support stewardship, creativity, ecological responsibility, or collective wellbeing, and how people and places shape one another over time.

All of this promises a rich and thoughtful programme in July, one grounded in evidence, creativity, care, and a shared desire to understand how people can live well with the rest of nature. And if you’re joining us, we look forward to gathering to explore these ideas together – bookings are open!