Natural Environments and Human Health. Alan W Ewert
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them.
Chapter 9 looks at adventure and outdoor education programming as an example of an innovative approach for integrating natural environments and health. Chapter 10 expands on the ways to develop the connection between health and natural environments by focusing on how public policy might be developed in order to facilitate ways in which individuals can better access and benefit from natural landscapes. For example, these future actions might involve policy changes such as greenspace development, providing parks and other natural environments, and moving to make natural environments personally relevant. This chapter also examines the challenges and issues facing future research such as fidelity concerns, who will actually use the research findings, and how the issues of confounding variables will be dealt with.
The book ends with Chapter 11, ‘Resources’, and provides a collection of web sites, extant literature and other sources that speak to the connection between human health and natural environments.
References
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de Vries, S., Verheij, R.A., Groenewegen, P.P. and Spreeuwenberg, P. (2003) Natural environments – healthy environments? An exploratory analysis of the relationship between greenspace and health. Environment and Planning A 35(10), 1717–1732.
Ewert, A. and Galloway, G. (2012) Take a park, not a pill: promoting health and wellness through adventure programming. In: Martin, B. and Wagstaff, M. (eds) Controversial Issues in Adventure Programming. Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois, pp. 130–137.
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2
Human Perceptions of Nature
At the heart of commons-based cultural systems is the recognition that diversity, biological, linguistic and cultural, must be protected as a means of survival.
R. Martusewicz (2005, p. 340)
To better understand humans’ connection to nature and the relationship between human health and natural environments, it is important to consider how both individuals and societies perceive the natural environment. Human actions are driven by perceptions regardless of the reality of our evolutionary, biological, and psychological connections with nature. Perceptions of nature are driven by WorldViews, which are impacted by culture (social interactions) and our interaction with the environment at large. These perceptions ultimately account for the ways that humans interact with, value, protect, benefit from, and use the natural environment.
The overarching goal of this chapter is for people to learn that the natural environment is personally significant to all of us. We first make a case that humans are innately connected with nature evolutionarily, biologically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. This connection is reciprocal; we are influenced by nature and we influence nature. Next we address the evolution of WorldViews and human perceptions of nature leading to the modern, predominantly Western tendency to place humans outside ecosystems; and the subsequent sense of and reality of disconnection from nature. Finally, we examine potential concerns rising from estrangement from nature and the ramifications of such separation, concluding that a WorldView that includes a positive affiliation with nature will lead to increased health and well-being for humans.
What does Connected Mean? Are We Connected to Nature?
Connected means that we are attached or united, we are joined; we are related as in family ties. In a state of connection there is a link or a bond; there is cause and effect. We are connected to nature; meaning that we are in relationship with other living beings and these relationships impact our social, psychological, spiritual, and biological selves, which in turn impact our health and well-being. Early humans were well-connected and interwoven with nature, co-evolving for millennia.
Our social and physical environments influence our perceptions. Therefore, daily interactions and close dependence on nature influenced perceptions of early humans as they lived lives intertwined with natural patterns such as solar and lunar cycles, salmon spawning cycles, whale and bird migrations, insect activity, and berry ripening. Most likely this reliance