Finding Nature

Over the past few years, I’ve often written about our failing relationship with nature. It’s now recognised that this issue lies at the heart of the environmental crises, but how do we solve it? What if we could simulate how that disconnection occurred? What if a computer model tuned by real world data could help us understand not just how we got here, but where we might be headed?

That’s exactly what my latest research published in Earth and featured in The Guardian set out to do. It uses a computer model to simulate the long-term decline in nature connection from 1800 to 2020 and tests it against real world data. Then it projects what might happen over the next century. It’s a story of urbanisation, intergenerational change, and the quiet erosion of everyday nature in our lives. But it’s also a story of hope, because it shows how transformative action could turn things around.

A Model of Human–Nature Disconnection

At the heart of the study is a simulation that models how people interact with their environment over time. It’s built on the idea of the extinction of experience—the cycle where loss of nature leads to lower connection, which can then get passed on to the next generation as shown in the conceptual framework below. This illustrates how nature connection is built from people’s engagement with nature, both within a lifetime through attention to nature and across generations through feedback loops. One feedback loop captures how engaging with our surroundings shapes our connection to nature during our lifetime, and another models how parents pass on their orientation to nature to their children.

The models conceptual framework

The model simulates this and tracks individuals and families across an initially nature-rich landscape (see green dots below), simulating births, deaths, and changes in nature connectedness as nature depleted urban areas (red dots) expand, matching historical urbanisation data. Families (blue dots) come and go within a natural environment becoming more urban.

Simulation of living with increasing urbanisation. Families (blue dots) come and go within a natural environment (green dots) becoming more urban (red dots).

The model runs from 1800 to 2125 to test future scenarios. It’s not just about individuals—it’s about systems, generations, and tipping points. It captures how cultural and environmental changes ripple through time.

Model versus Nature Words

To test the model, a way to track nature connectedness over time was needed. But of course, we don’t have surveys from the 1800s. So I turned to culture. Specifically, I used the frequency of nature-related words in books—words like river, blossom, moss, and bough—as a proxy for how connected people were to nature. These words reflect what people noticed, valued, and wrote about. And when their use is plotted over time, a clear decline of around 60% is revealed. Particularly from 1850, a time when industrialisation and urbanisation grew rapidly.

The decline of nature words since 1800

Here’s the remarkable part: the model (red line), built from the ground up to simulate human–nature interactions, closely mirrored, with less than 5% error, the actual decline in nature word use, see chart below. Despite the uncertainties of using language as a proxy, the fit was striking. It suggests that the model is capturing something real about how our relationship with nature has changed. The model’s accuracy validates its ability to predict future trends.

Time-series plot of modelled nature connectedness (red line) and the nature connectedness target (blue line).

The modelled nature connectedness decline of 61.5% was very close to the 60.6% maximum decline of nature words in 1990. For context, in a cross-sectional survey of 63 nations, nature connectedness in the USA was 57.5% below the nation with highest level, Nepal, relative to the full range. This suggests the modelled decline is plausible.

However, the model missed the 8% uptick to 2020. This suggests either an issue with the nature word data since 1990, such as recent publishing trends for ‘nature writing’, or that the model may be missing societal factors that have positively influenced nature connectedness in recent decades.

There are a number of societal factors that are associated with levels of nature connectedness. Only one with a positive association with nature connectedness has seen a recent uptick, spirituality. Perhaps a growing need for spiritual fulfilment has driven an increase in nature connectedness, or nature word use. However, such changes would need to overcome the rapid increases in factors with a negative relationship, such as the rapid penetration of smartphone technology.

Either way, large national surveys running since 2020 show that nature connectedness is in decline, so recovery doesn’t seem to be underway.

What the Model Reveals

The model simulation reveals a steep decline in nature connectedness from 1800 to 2020, primarily driven by urbanisation and environmental degradation. However, the most significant factor is intergenerational transmission: as parents lose connection to nature, their children begin life with lower connection, creating cultural inertia that persists even if environmental conditions improve.

Crucially, calibration revealed that intergenerational transmission overwhelmingly accounts for the long-term decline, while the lifetime extinction of experience mechanism added only marginal refinement. This insight underscores the importance of early-life and family-based interventions in reversing the trend and highlights the deep-rooted, systemic nature of human–nature disconnection.

Into the Future

To explore how nature connectedness might evolve, the model tested a range of future scenarios involving three types of interventions:

• Urban greening: Increasing nature in cities by 50%, 100%, or 1000%, in the context of a tenfold rise in urbanisation since 1800.
• Nature engagement campaigns: Boosting attention to nature by 50%, 200%, or 300%, against a backdrop of a threefold decline in nature connectedness.
• Parenting and early-life interventions: Enhancing intergenerational transmission by 30%—a stretch target based on current interventions that typically yield 10% gains. This was phased in over 10 years and then held constant.

Changes to nature access and attention were scaled linearly from 2020 to 2050, then maintained through 2125.

The simulation revealed three distinct clusters of outcomes (see chart below):

• Continued decline: Scenarios with modest increases in nature access (50% or 100%) or attention alone failed to reverse the downward trend. These interventions, even in combination, were insufficient to counteract the system’s inertia.
• Holding steady: Some scenarios halted the decline but didn’t reverse it. This included the child-focused intervention alone, or combined with low-level greening and attention boosts. Even a 1000% increase in nature access alone only stabilised the trend.
• Recovery and growth: Only the most ambitious combined interventions—such as a 1000% increase in nature access paired with the child-focused strategy—led to a delayed but accelerating recovery post-2050. This illustrates how intergenerational transmission can shift from a vicious to a virtuous cycle.

These findings highlight the system’s deep inertia: even transformative interventions take decades to show results. This delay underscores the urgency of early, sustained action.

Importantly, these targets might be more achievable than they appear, a 1000% increase in nature to counteract a similar change in urbanisation is daunting. However, in the UK, people spend around 7% of their time outdoors—half of that in urban settings—and a median of only 4.5 minutes per day in green spaces. A tenfold increase would mean 35% of the day outdoors or just 45 minutes in nature rich places—ambitious, but within reach.

Future scenarios of nature connectedness to 2125

Why It Matters

This isn’t just an academic exercise. Nature connectedness is increasingly recognised as a causal factor in the environmental crises we face today. When people feel disconnected from nature, they’re less likely to care for it. Conversely, promoting stronger nature connectedness can be a powerful strategy for transformative change (IPBES, 2024).

The findings presented here support the report’s conclusion that deep, systemic change is urgent, necessary, and challenging. The model reinforces this, showing that transformative changes in intergenerational transmission are required. The model highlights the scale of transformation required—not just in environmental conditions, but in cultural and familial dynamics—to reverse the long-term erosion of our relationship with nature.

Targeting nature connectedness is becoming a focus for policy proposals, but if we don’t understand how nature connectedness diminished in the first place, how can we know which direction to head in?

This research helps answer that. It shows that disconnection didn’t happen overnight—it was shaped by urbanisation, cultural shifts, and intergenerational change. And it won’t be reversed overnight either. The model shows that recovery takes time, and that early-life experiences, education, and urban design are key.

It also highlights the importance of feedback loops. Once disconnection sets in, it becomes self-reinforcing. But the same is true in reverse: once enough people begin to reconnect, the system can tip toward restoration. That’s the power of cultural change—it can cascade.

Recommendations

So what does this mean for policy, education, and everyday life? The model points to several key recommendations:

Strengthen Intergenerational Transmission

Support parent and child engagement with nature through nature-based programs, school curricula, and family policies. Encourage nature-focused parenting resources, public campaigns, and peer networks to enhance cultural transmission.

Transform Urban Greening and Access

Prioritise biodiverse, accessible greenspaces in urban planning. Integrate nature access across public services—education, health, housing, and transport—to increase everyday engagement with nature. Back community-led initiatives to foster local stewardship.

Monitor and Evaluate Nature Connectedness

Expand national and local tracking systems. Embed nature connectedness indicators into wellbeing and environmental reporting. Use real-time data to inform adaptive, evidence-based policy.

Key Conclusions

This study reveals that reversing the decline in nature connectedness requires more than environmental improvements—it demands systemic, long-term cultural change. The model highlights intergenerational transmission as the dominant force sustaining disconnection, making early-life and family-based interventions critical. Despite ambitious interventions, recovery is delayed by deep system inertia, with meaningful change not emerging until after 2050. This underscores the urgency of acting now to avoid further entrenchment of disconnection. The model’s close alignment with historical cultural trends also validates its relevance, showing that environmental exposure, attention, and familial influence can explain centuries of change. Together, these findings call for urgent, sustained, and multi-level action—combining urban design, education, and governance—to restore our relationship with nature.

Richardson M. Modelling Nature Connectedness Within Environmental Systems: Human-Nature Relationships from 1800 to 2020 and Beyond. Earth. 2025; 6(3):82. https://doi.org/10.3390/earth6030082

Back in 2021 we asked whether the lockdown spring brought about a lasting connection to nature? Many of us found a friend in nature during the first lockdown in Spring 2020, but by 2021 data suggested this was just a short-term relationship. There is now 5 years’ worth of data from over 100,000 respondents to Natural England’s People and Nature Survey (PANS) and this blog takes an informal look at a few of the trends across time and regions.

Let’s start with nature connection (data from over 22,000 people) and noticing nature (data from over 80,000 people). The 2020-2021 fall is even more apparent, with nature connection (orange line) falling by 10%. It did recover through 2021 and 2022, but there’s been further decline through 2023 and 2024. The quarterly variation looks quite dramatic in the zoomed in charts, but the fluctuations are around 2%. Interestingly, from 2023, noticing nature has seen a 4% rise, with the trends going their separate ways – a difference of around 5%. So not as dramatic as it looks, but certainly notable and sustained.

I mention quarterly variation above, but over the 5 years there’s actually very little difference between the seasons, so perhaps the variation in nature connection is linked to the actual weather, or other some other factor, like mood. See how happiness varies in a similar way in the chart below. There are 1200 responses at each time point for NCI and 6000 for happiness, so happiness is likely to be a little more stable.

I also looked at some broad regional differences. There’s around 7% difference between the lowest area, West Midlands, and the highest, the South West. It’s interesting to note this is quite small when compared to the differences between the UK and say Nepal. The lowest nation in one survey, Singapore is around 60% lower than Kenya. The UK is also low on a global scale, so in that context the regions are quite similar – the key point is that the whole nation is low. There’s a need to reconnect a nation, rather than create an equally disconnected nation.

The nature connection measure used since 2020, the NCI, has been joined in PANS by another measure over the last couple of years, the INS. While both measure nature connectedness, they have differences in focus. The NCI taps into emotions, while the INS is more cognitive. This shows up sometimes in the PANS data. For example, London is 8^th highest using NCI, but 2^nd using INS. While Yorkshire goes in the opposite direction, 2^nd to 7^th. But both measures place the South West top and West Midlands bottom. It’s useful to look at measures in the round. For example, consider pro-nature conservation behaviours and London is 7^th again. The NCI has a closer relationship with pro-nature behaviours than the INS. And engaging in pro-nature behaviours has a strong positive relationship with feeling that life is worthwhile.

While pulling out the data on trends some questions on people’s concerns and worries about visiting green and natural spaces caught my eye. Maintaining the post lockdown theme, I’ve written previously about the impact of over 3 million ‘pandemic pets’ so I took a look at ‘fear of dogs’ and ‘fear of crime’ for comparison. Sadly, both have risen since 2020. From around 15 to 19% for crime, that’s a rise of 27%. And from around 7 to 11% for dogs, a rise of over 50%. The trend below is interesting: in late 2023 it peaked at over 13%, suggesting that for over 7 million adults a fear of dogs (or poor dog owners) impacts their visits to green and natural spaces. Interestingly, that dropped dramatically when the XL Bully ban was introduced early 2024, although it appears to be returning to the overall upward trend.

Different people have different fears, and taken together the fear of crime and dogs means 1 in 4 adults are worried about visiting green and natural spaces for those two reasons. PANS includes 12 more areas of potential concern and worry, and overall 65% of people have worries of one form or another, from getting lost, to lack of facilities and on to fear of crime or dogs.

The trends show that while nature connection is falling, fear is increasing among a substantial proportion of people. People are less likely to find being in nature brings happiness if they fear visiting it. Green and natural spaces need to feel safer if the decline in nature connection is to be reversed. The more encouraging observation is that change can happen in response to measures taken. Fear can be reduced and nature connection can be higher when the environment facilitates it.

Millions of people live with mental health challenges, costing economies billions, while the window to avert the worst impacts of the environmental crises is closing. Engaging with nature offers a low-cost, scalable solution—boosting our wellbeing and inspiring us to act for the planet. But how do visiting nature and feeling connected to it work together to deliver these benefits? Our latest paper, published open access in People and Nature, explores this question, offering insights on how we can foster both human and environmental health.

Previous research has tended to focus on nature exposures, nature connection and key outcomes of wellbeing and environmentalism in isolation. Our latest work unites these aspects, supporting previous results found in isolation, but importantly demonstrating the compensatory and synergistic relationships at play. That is how exposure and connection can balance out weakness in the other, or how they can be combined for a greater effect.

We analysed data from the People and Nature Survey in England, involving thousands of participants (4,588–12,082), to understand how often people visit nature, how connected they feel to it, and how these factors relate to their wellbeing and environmental actions. We also considered the quality of nature in their neighbourhoods, so how good local green spaces are, and how this shapes the picture. Using advanced statistical models, we looked at how nature visits and connectedness interact to influence outcomes like mental wellbeing and nature conservation behaviours.

Something to sing about: Being both in and connected to nature unite human and nature’s wellbeing

Here’s the key aspects of what we found after accounting for the quality of people’s neighbourhood green and natural spaces or how good their passive nature exposure is. Importantly, both visiting nature and feeling connected to it were linked to better wellbeing and more environmental action. But the story gets more interesting when we look at how these two factors work together. For wellbeing, visiting nature more often brought bigger benefits for those who already felt highly connected to nature. However, for people with low connectedness, increasing their sense of connection made a bigger difference, especially if they rarely visited nature.

The chart below helps explain this. For the 12% of people with the lowest nature visits, the circular markers, the feeling that life is worthwhile increases rapidly as nature connection increases from 0 to 40—suggesting that even small steps to build connection can make a big difference. The findings suggest that a jump to very high nature visits may not contribute as much to wellbeing as connection does for this group. This trend levels off around the average level of mean NCI, 50. But as nature increases beyond 60, those with low nature visits reach average levels of feeling life is worthwhile, 6.8. This is when more visits could well deliver more benefit.

For the 44% of people with high visit frequency, the triangular markers, there’s a more consistent rise in wellbeing as nature connection increases. With wellbeing above average once nature connection is above average, hinting at a synergy where visits and connection amplify each other. The same broad trends are seen for happiness and life satisfaction – so both feeling good and functioning well.

The differences between the dotted lines show that more visits to nature can benefit mental wellbeing.  With these benefits being greatest for those who feel the most emotional connection to nature. So, benefits are a product of nature exposure and connection working together. Interestingly, those with the highest level of visits and lowest connection aren’t as well as those with the highest connection and lowest level of visits.

Finally, for some people improving wellbeing through increased nature visit frequency might be difficult, for example disability may make nature visits impractical. For those in this position with very low nature connectedness (e.g., the bottom quartile of the population, where NCI scores are ≤ 31), useful forms of nature based social prescribing may focus on building connectedness in home-based settings, though for those with higher nature connectedness and negligible active nature exposure, increased connectedness may be of less value.

The environmental findings revealed some different dynamics, see the chart below. For people who don’t visit nature often, the circular markers, a stronger connection to nature significantly boosted their environmental actions, particularly at low connectedness levels—showing that building connection can inspire action even without frequent visits. Increased nature connection in the lowest 25% of nature visitors has clear effects. For those who visit nature more often, connection helps, but the effect is less dramatic. For more frequent visitors, a deepening their bond with nature can make a difference to pro-nature action.

The chart also highlights how from levels of nature connection just below the mean of 50, the level of visits makes less difference, as indicated by the lines being close together.

These patterns highlight the complexity of how nature visits and connectedness interact. Sometimes they compensate for each other—for example, lots more visits can make up for low connectedness in driving environmental action. Other times, they work synergistically, like when frequent visits and high connectedness together amplify wellbeing. Understanding these nuances can help us target interventions more effectively, ensuring we reach people where they are in their nature journey.

Implications

So, what does this mean for policy ideas like ‘Green in 15’ and practice? Although differential benefits are a challenge for policy making, the results demonstrate a straightforward principle: for maximum benefit to help unite both human and nature’s wellbeing there is a need to increase opportunities to access to high quality local nature and to build individual levels of nature connectedness.

For wellbeing, nature-based interventions like social prescribing should prioritise building connectedness, especially for those with low connection or limited access to nature. For environmental action, increasing nature visits can spark change for those with lower connectedness, while deepening connection can amplify conservation efforts among frequent visitors.

Increasing nature access and thereby visits is the most frequent objective to realise the wellbeing benefits of nature, with little consideration of the opportunity to deliver the co-benefit of environmental behaviour. However, our findings suggest that environmental benefits are more likely to come from strategies which increase nature connectedness than strategies which increase nature visits.

Focussing on access and visits to nature is more straightforward, but we know nature connection can be targeted and improved. Indeed, it is a powerful strategy for transformative change recommended by IPBES.

Key takeaways

Finding that those with the highest level of visits and lowest connection aren’t as well as those with the highest connection and lowest level of visits is a reminder to move beyond access only policy focus. Doing so will bring the maximum benefits for human health and environmental actions. So key takeaways are:

 Foster Nature Connectedness

• Develop programs and campaigns using approaches like the pathways to nature connectedness that encourage interaction with nature to build meaningful and emotional connections to nature across education, health, and urban planning.

Target Interventions Based on Connection and Nature Visit Levels

• For individuals with low nature connectedness (bottom 25%), prioritise initiatives that build bonds with nature, as small increases in connectedness could well yield significant wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour gains – plus are likely to motivate more visits creating a virtuous cycle.
• For those already connected but with low visit frequency, encourage more nature visits to amplify synergistic benefits for wellbeing.
• Incorporate Nature-Based Social Prescribing into healthcare systems, particularly for mental health.
• For individuals unable to visit nature frequently, prescribe home-based activities to boost connectedness.

Nature Rich Green Spaces

• Nature rich neighbourhood green spaces can encourage more visits and be designed to foster connectedness. Urban design can help by making nature visible and inviting. Go beyond green to create and maintain accessible nature rich spaces with more nature to engage with.

Encourage Environmental Action Through Connection

• Promote campaigns that strengthen nature connectedness to drive conservation behaviours, especially among infrequent nature visitors. The research shows that connection significantly boosts environmental action even without frequent visits.

Leverage the synergistic effects of nature visits and connection

• Encourage frequent nature visits while simultaneously fostering a deeper emotional connection to nature.

These policies are relatively low-cost, scalable, and address both mental health and environmental issues by leveraging the compensatory and synergistic effects of nature exposure and connectedness.

Final thoughts

Previous research has tended to focus on nature exposures, nature connection and key outcomes of wellbeing and environmentalism in isolation. The present work unites these aspects, supporting previous results found in isolation, but importantly demonstrating the compensatory and synergistic relationships at play.

These findings offer a roadmap for tackling mental health and environmental crises together. By understanding how nature visits and connectedness interact, we can design smarter interventions that maximize benefits for people and the planet. It’s a reminder that our relationship with nature is complex, but full of potential.

Nature Connections 2025 on the 16 & 17th June 2025 promises to be bigger than better than ever. Across two exciting venues in Derby, the 7^th of the Nature Connections series will include two days of talks, workshops and networking with researchers, practitioners and professionals exploring and growing Nature Connection. You can book your place here.

We will start by River Derwent in Derby city centre at The Museum of Making at the Silk Mill, the site of the world’s first factory. The starting point of an industrial relationship with nature, so a great place to hear the very latest on forging closer connections with nature.

Our second venue, new for 2025, is the amazing Electric Daisy which will host workshops, nature connection activities, space to relax and connect with other attendees, and the conference meal, drinks and networking on Monday night. The Electric Daisy is the brainchild of Down To Earth Regen, a forgotten space that has been transformed into something extraordinary—it’s an urban oasis, garden and a haven for nature in the heart of Derby.

Electric Daisy from electricdaisy.org

Our keynote speakers are David Drake, Director for People and Nature at Natural England), Dr Jessica Tipton, head of the National Education Nature Park at the Natural History Museum, and Prof. Miles Richardson, who will be sharing his very latest research into nature connection over the last two hundred years – and through to 2050!

There’s a programme of talks on understanding and deepening human-nature relationships, arts-based approaches to connecting people with nature, nature connection for children and young people, engaging people with nature, scaling and embedding nature connection, nature connection for health and wellbeing. These include a chance to hear from Lawyers for Nature on We Are Nature and about the largest urban rewilding project in the UK – that’s also in Derby. Plus, you can take part in a roundtable on Nature Connection in Schools.

The Silk Mill

As well as a packed programme of talks, there are workshops on evaluating nature connection, arts and movement-based workshops, a nature poetry workshop, nature connection walk to a nearby park, and more. There will be more spaces this year to meet with others or take part in nature-based activities.

Ten years on from the first Nature Connections, the event has grown into something very special. We look forward to welcoming you.

The app Encounter has launched. It is a guided nature journal that lives on your phone, designed to help you notice what’s around you and deepen your connection to nature. The app offers inspiration and ideas tailored to your area and the time of year so that you can create your own nature diary entries. You can also tag the species and nature you see.

This free app, created by nature writer Melissa Harrison, with input from me along the way, helps you build a habit of noticing nature. Recording your experiences is a powerful way to boost nature connectedness, benefiting both your wellbeing and the environment. Encounter provides tailored tips and prompts to guide you, highlighting what to look and listen for, from the first spring butterflies to hedgerow fruit. You’ll also find invitations to join citizen science projects or local conservation initiatives, plus articles from Encounter’s partners to deepen your understanding of the wildlife you live alongside.

Encounter Nature

We know jotting down the good things in nature improves nature connection and writing about nature helps weave the emotional and biological threads that form a deep bond to the natural world. First, it helps understand that we’re not separate from nature, we’re part of it, flesh-and-blood creatures tied to the earth like every bird and tree. Second, it’s that quiet pull you feel when you watch the setting sun or hear waves lapping on the shore. Nature connection is much more than time outdoors; the two threads of knowing we belong and feeling it deep down cause a shift where the boundary between you and nature blurs into nothing.

Why does this matter? People with a strong tie to nature don’t just smile more or feel their days are more worthwhile—though they do. They’re also more likely to care about the birds, the trees, or the air we all breathe. This isn’t just a feel-good fix for our minds; it’s a lifeline for the nature crisis too. Nature connection unites our own wellbeing with that of the wider natural world.

So, how do we find this special relationship? The first step is to tune in and take notice of the birds chirping or the wind rustling the leaves. Too often, our busy lives take over, and others vie for our attention. Most people never stop to hear a blackbird sing. Too often, we can be tuned out, lost in our own noise. But when you start noticing—truly seeing, hearing, feeling—the soft fascination of nature wraps around you. These fleeting moments don’t need a lot of time; they can sneak in between the busyness. And if you jot them down, something magical can happen—writing about nature deepens those moments and roots them in place.

This writing doesn’t need to be a masterpiece. A couple of lines about a bright flower or a crow’s call plants these moments as seeds. It’s the act of writing that matters. There’s no need to worry about facts and figures; a few short, positive lines about the good things in nature is great. A paragraph or two is even better. Nature always has a story to tell, and for us, constructing stories is a natural process that brings coherence and meaning. Simply, noticing nature and weaving each moment together helps the two threads of feeling and belonging to form.

So, join in and be part of a collaborative project to reconnect people with the natural world we all share. Download Encounter and start weaving your own story with nature.