As growing numbers of people are engaging with green and blue spaces for health purposes, how can we understand this behaviour in the context of an environmental emergency?
The acceptance of nature connection as a wellbeing tool or therapeutic device has gained momentum and increasing public interest in the last few years, particularly as a result of COVID and the lockdowns associated with the pandemic. The surge in reported nature appreciation and engagement could be understood as an attempt to find some comfort in a traumatic and difficult time for the general population. A time of disconnection from loved ones, a time of extreme anxiety as people patiently waited for the daily deaths to be reported, a time associated with a relentless and horrific disease and a time where large numbers of the population felt powerless as the waves of pandemical mayhem passed.
The Mental Health Foundation chose ‘Nature’ as its theme for Mental Health Awareness week in April 2021. Their chief executive explained this choice by highlighting the change in behavioural patterns of large numbers of the population and the pleasurable and positive experiences related to time spent in the natural world. To the casual observer this could all be considered progressive and environmentally advantageous and most of those working in the environmental and conservation sector may be inclined to go along with the adage ‘no publicity is bad publicity’. The ecopsychologist and developing cultural theorist in me could not help but feel discomfort and unease with some of the wording used by the Mental Health Foundation. It also reminded me of the rubbish strewn images of many of our natural beauty spots and beaches after large numbers of people had decided to “connect” with them on warmer days as lockdown restrictions began to ease in the summer of 2020.
This idea of connecting with the natural world by going for a walk or stepping outside for fresh air is logical, sensible and well documented to promote health and scientifically supported in terms of health benefits- physically and mentally. We need air, we also know vitamin D is needed for our health and many people get pleasure and satisfaction from observing and engaging with the non-human world. The issue with the term ‘nature connection’ is not whether nature-based experiences are beneficial for health, it is with regards to the lack of questioning over the extent and depth of our fundamental and almost constant disconnect with nature- which is our planet- our home. To be able to connect with something suggests that we are temporally and spatially disconnected from it, and it is the high levels of disconnection that we should be very concerned about.
This is a political, and especially political economy, issue of dis/connection, whereby the underlying systems within which we live our lives, from how we design housing, the economic system, employment, education and so on have progressively exploited and degraded nature but at the same time made this opaque. We are urged to connect to nature for mental health reasons but not to make the connection between rising carbon emissions and car use, the exploitation of people and places to mine lithium for electric cars or wind turbines or the high environmental and animal welfare costs of cheap meat. While micro and individual connections are encouraged, these macro level and structural connections are discouraged.
The Mental Health Foundation website referred to nature as a ‘resource’, again words hold weight, and that word is very telling about how most people view our environment. “Nature is our great untapped resource for a mentally healthy future” the Mental Health Foundation asserted on their website and whilst I agree with the sentiment and believe the intentions are well meaning, we are also experiencing a climate and ecological crisis and for many who are aware of this, their mental health is suffering, and their connection could not be stronger. If the planet is in crisis, why suggest that walks will help people feel better when the earth is overheating, our natural spaces are increasingly sparse and air pollution is killing large numbers of people every year? It seems these articles should come with an environmental and climate emergency disclaimer. To promote nature for health, without being honest about how chronically ill nature is because of human systems seems exploitative and irresponsible. While micro level nature connection can offer some temporary relief from the consequences of ecocidal capitalism, it will always fail to enable us to address the root causes and drivers.
Nature is everything. It is survival, it is necessity, it is our food, our air, our land, our sea, it is you and me. To hear it referred to as a resource illustrates why most of the population are disconnected from it, because resources are not divided equally on this planet. Not everyone has equal rights, not everyone has equal access to resources, not everyone can connect with nature in the same way. While the article in question was valiantly trying to bridge the gap and create a dialogue and awareness of the health benefits of the natural world, the words remind us of the huge inequalities in society. People and place have been politicised to such an extent that even going outside for a walk and ‘connecting’ with our environment is inaccessible to many and a sign of privilege.
With the numbers of deaths growing annually of people that have died as a result of air pollution, approximately one fifth of all deaths in 2018 have been attributed to fossil fuel use, it seems that for some people going outside for fresh air is challenging and for those with respiratory illnesses dangerous. Those in poor areas are most likely to be impacted by air pollution and are also less likely to have a garden or green space accessible to them to use. They are also likely to be a section of society experiencing high levels of mental as well as physical health issues. If we want equity regarding nature connection, we must change society, eliminate poverty and redistribute land. How else will access to these spaces be equal otherwise?
Whilst I agree that people appear to be engaging with our natural spaces more readily, becoming increasingly connected to the natural world is slightly more nuanced and, in my opinion, potentially detrimental to the mental health of those who are sensitive to suffering and destruction. I have come to believe the way many people use the term ‘nature connection’ is both linguistically and psychologically problematic and flawed. Primarily as it supports the psychological and societal rift between our species and all others. It also minimises the dissociation and the alienation that many people have from most spaces, and it highlights how anthropocentric we have become in our denial and inability to accept that we are nature.
In a nutshell we have become unnatural, we have become juxtaposed to nature, we have created societies and homes that in our minds and our language are other to nature. We have othered ourselves from our own space within the ecological and planetary system which we depend on and most of us are not aware of this because it was happening long before our birth and it will continue long after our death. This rift or rupture is down to capitalism and the by-products of a system that values profit over life, profit over health, and profit over our collective future.
While universities are keen to develop empirical and scientific knowledge to support the benefits of nature immersion, they are coming from an anthropocentric and largely scientific perspective in most of their writings and findings. Few academics and scholars are placing their work within the context of the planetary crisis or substantially critiquing the system which has been widely accredited for creating the dilemma we face. Capitalism is killing the planet, but ironically ‘nature connection’, is simply another way of treating the more-than-human world like a commodity or a resource. If this is not addressed and scrutinised ecocritically, the results of utilising nature for health purposes may potentially be disadvantageous to the natural world.
Listening to the youth strikers talk openly and honestly about ecoanxiety in my research, made me seriously rethink how we discuss the natural world in terms of wellbeing. The older participants in my sample spoke with joy and affection of their experiences throughout their life with green and blue spaces. They spoke of visiting the Grand Canyon, they spoke about growing up in a smallholding and the privilege of owning land and growing their own food. They spoke about the sanctuary and contentment and peace they felt in spending time gardening, planting trees with conservation groups and walking along the Lagan. Only the youth spoke about ecoanxiety, only one person said they didn’t think the relationship between mental health and wellbeing was complete. That was our young people, those are their feelings, and they are supported by the climate science and mass species extinction observations and predictions.
When I began my PhD in 2018, I was convinced that my findings would be used to support the disciplines of medicine and social care. I thought that I would develop an ecotherapeutic health care model and then spend large amounts of time and energy promoting and developing it further. Almost three years later and as I am writing up my thesis, I find myself critiquing culture and alarmed at the suicidal tendencies of my species and the inertia and terrifying lack of concern and regard by those in power.
The North of Ireland is where I am based and internationally Ireland is renowned for being a place blessed with much natural beauty in the form of our spectacular coastline and tumbling green, sheep speckled hills. The truth is less romantic, it is a country with one of the lowest tree coverage percentages in Europe, where we have no right to roam and no public access paths through our countryside, where public transport is poor, and our rivers and coastlines are becoming increasingly contaminated. Promoting nature connection without speaking about the ecocidal era which we are living in seems worrying at best and potentially lethal at worst. To connect with nature in a meaningful way means to want to protect it, if you have no desire to protect our natural spaces it may not be connection you are experiencing when enjoying the fresh air and surf of the coastline, you may be consuming a resource which future generations will have no recourse to. Consumerism and carbon-fuelled capitalism got us here, genuine connection may be our only way out, but it will involve transformation and that is not therapy, that is revolution.
Footnote:
I would like to thank Professor John Barry for commenting and constructively contributing to this article.
© 2022 Louise Taylor. All rights reserved.
