Finding Nature

Our efforts to engage people with nature are often based on knowledge and identification. A national paper last weekend gave a couple of good examples – watching birds had 6 pages on identification, while going to the local woods was about ticking off 10 species, including goshawk and pine martin! This is raising expectations of what might be seen, but also our current research suggests it’s not the way to get people connected to nature. Continue reading →

As the blackbird’s sing their final songs of summer, I thought I’d share some words that emerged as I sat listening to their song; an imagined journey to a time when blackbird’s sing no more – it could form an epilogue to A Blackbird’s Year. Back to looking at recent nature connection research for the next post.

Resting beneath a birch tree, swifts above cut thoughts free to float with them in azure skies, rising to a place only present of mind. The dance of the wind shaped progress to a veteran oak, and from within a blackcap sang as a blackbird wired by. I circled its trunk one thousand times; with each circuit, a new angle of light described it, and by the end of the day that tree’s form was known. Continue reading →

This short blog recycles the opening of my guest blog for The Wildlife Trusts’ 30 Days Wild campaign, just so I can add a few more ideas for going wild in June, and beyond!

A prosperous future depends on nature. We need to spark new interactions with the natural world and bring nature into our everyday lives – that’s why campaigns such as 30 Days Wild matter, for our, and nature’s wellbeing.

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As part of my work to find ways to improve our connection to nature, I do research into understanding what individual differences make us connected. The results of three of these studies have just been published in the journal Ecopsychology.

As covered in earlier blog posts, the research into human-nature relationships offers a few perspectives on what a connection to nature is. It can be our relationship commitment, a belonging to a wider community. Or it’s about emotional affinity, seeing nature as a source of awe and beauty, rather than an object of observation. Finally, it can be seen in terms of an extended sense of self, an identity that includes nature – a cognitive belief about our place in the natural world.

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I’ve spent the last few days in London, taking a moment to notice nature in the city. Naturally, pigeons were about and they bought to mind The Pigeon Paradox by Dunn and colleagues. Their paper, in Conservation Biology, suggests that global conservation depends on urban nature. Continue reading →