A Transdisciplinary Framework to Unlock the Potential Benefits of Green Spaces for Urban Communities Under Changing Contexts

Lin, Brenda B.; Andersson, Erik

doi:10.1093/biosci/biad009

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 112 publications

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“…It has also been shown that individuals who live near to greenspace tend to be more connectedness to nature 31 . The urban development sector could increase high-quality coverage of greenspaces in residential areas with social programs that help teach people how to engage with nature when in public greenspaces 32 – 34 . These investments may provide the supports to individuals to learn new ways to interact with nature or be mindful of natural elements in public green spaces even when the initial main goal of going to a public greenspace is a non-nature based activity 35 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A lower connection to nature is related to lower mental health benefits from nature contact

Chang,

Lin,

Feng

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Increasing evidence demonstrates the psychological benefits of nature contact. However, the evidence is often established at the population level, and the individual differences in the psychological benefits gained from nature are considered negligible variations. In this study, we performed a cross-sectional online survey in Brisbane and Sydney, Australia, from April 15th and May 15th, 2021 around one year after the first covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. The results show that individuals with a stronger connection to nature are linked with a lower level of stress and anxiety with increased frequency in public greenspace visits, while such an association is less clear for individuals with a weaker connection to nature. We also find that, through the answer to an open-ended question, individuals with a lower connection to nature tend to mention nature-related words less as the reason for visiting greenspace. This indicates that a person’s connection to nature is linked with how they interact with nature and thus might determine whether and how much psychological benefit a person gains from experiencing nature.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A lower connection to nature is related to lower mental health benefits from nature contact

Chang,

Lin,

Feng

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Reconnecting children to nature: The efficacy of a wildlife intervention depends on local nature and socio‐economic context, but not on urbanisation

Jensen,

Alkan Olsson,

von Post

et al. 2024

People and Nature

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Children's interactions with nature are important mediators of health benefits and future relationships with nature and conservation. However, there are growing concerns that children are becoming disconnected from nature as societal changes make natural environments and their affordances less accessible. There is now a need to explore ways to reconnect children to nature. We evaluated bird feeding as an environmental education intervention on species knowledge, attitudes towards birds and well‐being of children (aged 10–11 years) in 14 urban and rural schools across three city regions. We used surveys to investigate the role of urbanisation and socio‐economic factors in children's relationships with nature and possible modulating effects on the intervention response. Local nature, close to the children's homes, was associated with better well‐being and modulated the effect of the intervention on species knowledge: children from areas with less local nature gained more from the project. Urbanisation per se had no direct impacts but did correlate with the types of affordances associated with nature by the children, suggesting differences in how urban and rural children utilise nature. We found that socio‐economic factors impacted pre‐existing species knowledge and attitudes towards nature. Higher education was associated with better species knowledge. Higher income correlated with children participating in more outdoor activities, which subsequently correlated with more positive attitudes towards birds. Species knowledge also correlated with positive attitudes. We found large differences in the intervention impact between schools, likely explained by a pivotal role of teachers facilitating nature interactions in school‐based projects. Our findings show that bird feeding has potential as an intervention to connect children with nature, but ecological and social contexts moderate its efficacy. Local greenspace and socio‐economics influenced children's relationships with nature in both urban and rural areas, indicating that local conditions rather than urbanisation levels govern connection to nature. Role models appeared crucial, suggesting that specialised environmental education organisations have significant potential to enhance nature connection through interventions, particularly in areas with low socio‐economic levels and sparse nature. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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A Transdisciplinary Framework to Unlock the Potential Benefits of Green Spaces for Urban Communities Under Changing Contexts

Cited by 2 publications

References 112 publications

A lower connection to nature is related to lower mental health benefits from nature contact

A lower connection to nature is related to lower mental health benefits from nature contact

Reconnecting children to nature: The efficacy of a wildlife intervention depends on local nature and socio‐economic context, but not on urbanisation

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