Enabling Relationships with Nature in Cities

Abstract

Limited exposure to direct nature experiences is a worrying sign of urbanization, particularly for children. Experiencing nature during childhood shapes aspects of a personal relationship with nature, crucial for sustainable decision-making processes in adulthood. Scholars often stress the need to ‘reconnect’ urban dwellers with nature; however, few elaborate on how this can be achieved. Here, we argue that nature reconnection requires urban ecosystems, with a capacity to enable environmental learning in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains, i.e., learning that occurs in the head, heart and hands of individuals. Drawing on environmental psychology, urban ecology, institutional analysis and urban planning, we present a theoretical framework for Human–Nature Connection (HNC), discuss the importance of nurturing HNC for children, elaborate on the role of property-rights and the importance of creating collective action arenas in cities for the promotion of urban resilience building. As values and environmental preconceptions underly environmental behavior, there are limits to achieving HNC in cities, as presumptive sentiments toward nature not always are positive. We end by discussing the role of new digital technologies in relation to HNC, and conclude by summarizing the major points brought forward herein, offering policy recommendations for HNC as a resilience strategy that can be adopted in cities throughout the world.

Vertebrate species knowledge: an important skill is threatened by extinction

“…On the other hand, not only the school's curriculum has changed but today's pupils also grow up in a different socio-cultural environment as compared to those back in 2007. Screen time (media-based activities) that were not even available in the early years of the twenty-first century diminishes the time today's children spent in nature (Larson et al, 2019) and this might be one of the causes for a declining humannature-connection in general (Colding et al, 2020). Further investigation on the influence of pupils' screen time and time in nature on their species knowledge will be helpful for an explanation why there is such a decline over a decade.…”

Relationships between Local Green Space and Human Mobility Patterns during COVID-19 for Maryland and California, USA

“…Alongside government directives for staying at home and social/physical distancing, health authorities including U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and WHO emphasized the importance of regularly performing exercise to cope with the stress of quarantine, stay healthy, and maintain immunity [22]. Several studies argued that physical inability as a consequence of strict quarantine may be associated with increased risk of mental health outcomes as well as cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, and cancer [23][24][25][26]. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic along with other major environmental crises such as climate change shed a light on the need for better understanding of how to promote resilience or capacity of societies to deal with complex health crises [26].…”

Urban gardening as a means for fostering embodied urban human–food connection? A case study on urban vegetable gardens in Germany

“…However, to further overcome the human-nonhuman, mind-matter and subject-object dichotomies that obfuscate integrated forms of sustainability research and practice, there have been calls for more relational forms of sustainability research that integrate internal and external relationships with nature (Walsh et al 2021;West et al 2020). Indeed, the recent scholarship has emphasised the need for an embodied HNC approach that conceptualises HNC as an interplay between internal and external human and nonhuman nature including mind, body, environment and culture (Colding et al 2020;Cooke et al 2016;Raymond et al 2017). An embodied approach takes into account that "(…) humans are not just mentally, but also materially and physically immersed in their immediate environments" (Cooke et al 2016, p. 2).…”

“…In this regard, Artmann et al (2020) applied the framework by Ives et al (2018) introducing the concept of Human-Food Connection (HFC) as an interpretation of HNC in the context of local food production and consumption. Urban food production and associated practices, such as urban gardening have been proposed as potential interventions to strengthen HNC in cities (Colding et al 2020;Cooke et al 2016;Turner 2011). As a focus of considerable research attention, many studies have suggested that by participating in community gardens or allotments, urban residents can profit from mental and physical well being, healthy food production, social cohesion and environmental learning (Breuste and Artmann 2015;Camps-Calvet 2016;Kingsley et al 2009).…”