People’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study.
Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions.
The study by Miles Richardson, a professor of nature connectedness at the University of Derby, accurately tracks the loss of nature from people’s lives over 220 years by using data on urbanisation, the loss of wildlife in neighbourhoods and, crucially, parents no longer passing on engagement with nature to their children.
In the research published in the journal Earth, Richardson also identified the disappearance of natural words from books between 1800 and 2020, which peaked at a 60.6% decline in 1990.
The modelling predicts an ongoing “extinction of experience” with future generations continuing to lose an awareness of nature because it is not present in increasingly built-up neighbourhoods, while parents no longer pass on an “orientation” towards the natural world. Other studies have found parental nature connectedness is the strongest predictor of whether a child will become close to nature.
“Nature connectedness is now accepted as a key root cause of the environmental crisis,” said Richardson. “It’s vitally important for our own mental health as well. It unites people and nature’s wellbeing. There’s a need for transformational change if we’re going to change society’s relationship with nature.”
Richardson said when he tested different policy and urban environmental changes in the model he was surprised at the scale of the changes required to reverse the loss of connection to nature.
Increasing the availability of biodiverse green spaces in a city by 30% may look like radical positive progress for wildlife and people but Richardson said his study suggested a city may need to be 10 times greener to reverse declines in nature connection.
The study found that measures to increase popular engagement with the natural world were not effective at reversing long-term declines in nature connectedness. Richardson said such schemes by charities – for instance, the Wildlife Trusts’ #30DaysWild – were still important for boosting mental health but the modelling suggested they don’t halt the intergenerational loss of nature connection.
More effective, according to the study, are measures instilling awareness and engagement with nature in young children and families, such as forest school nurseries.
A further obstacle to restoring nature connectedness is that the modelling shows policies to transform early education and urban areas need to be in place over the next 25 years to reverse the decline. But if done, increases in nature connectedness would become self-sustaining.
Richardson said the scale of societal changes required to re-establish nature connection may not be as daunting as they appeared because the baselines were now so low.
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A study found that people in Sheffield on average spent just four minutes and 36 seconds in natural spaces each day.
“Increase that by [a factor of] 10, and people are spending 40 minutes outside every day – that may be enough,” said Richardson. “Working with families and parents to engage children with nature with a real focus on that intergenerational transmission is key. There’s already a lot of focus on connecting children with nature but I prefer to say – don’t disconnect them. A newborn child is much the same as a child born in 1800. Children are fascinated by the natural world. It’s maintaining that through their childhood and schooling that’s essential, alongside urban greening. There’s policies starting to do that but we’ve got to think in transformational terms – not 30% but 1,000%.”
Intriguingly, there may be hope of a cultural shift. Richardson was surprised to find that nature words in books are actually on the increase again – with the decline having fallen from 60.6% between 1800 and 1990 to 52.4% today.
“Is it a genuine eco-awareness? Is it the British trend for nature writing? Is it ‘real’ or is it an artefact of the data? I don’t know,” said Richardson. “There has also been an increasing interest in spirituality in recent decades so that might reflect people getting back in touch with nature.”
