Richard Louv inspired many people to reflect on children’s experiences in Nature with his book Last Child in the Woods. He talks to JUNO about why he believes being in Nature is so important

In your books you write about Nature-deficit disorder. What is this?

I always try to stress that I created that term not as a medical diagnosis, but to describe the human costs of alienation from Nature, including diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illness. This alienation keeps children, adults, families, whole communities from realising their potential. The flip side of this condition is natural abundance, and I am cautiously optimistic – a growing number of people are becoming aware of the importance of a meaningful connection to Nature, and of the social, spiritual, psychological and environmental costs of the distancing. The question that emerges is: how can we have an enriched human experience? We know now that the wise course includes Nature.

Why is it important that we fix Nature-deficit disorder?

The latest research focuses not so much on what is lost when Nature fades, but on what is gained in the presence of the natural world, and the gains are considerable. I – and many others – have come to consider meaningful contact with the natural world to be a forgotten but fundamental human right.¹

Tony King, head of policy for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, wrote in an editorial for The Guardian, “When people talk of human rights in the context of nature conservation, they often mean protecting the rights of people in the non-industrial world to make use of the obvious things nature provides, such as firewood, food and traditional remedies.” King cited the “growing and compelling body of evidence that regular and ready access to a wildlife-rich environment is essential for children’s health and wellbeing”. As a result, governments can and should articulate that “every child and young person has the right to grow up and live in a high-quality, wildlife-rich environment with ready access to the physical and mental health benefits, developmental advantages and play opportunities it affords.”² Certainly it helps to have science back one up.³

In your book The Nature Principle, you expand on the idea of using Nature to heal. How do you believe Nature can help us in today’s modern world?

We may need Nature more now than ever before. After Last Child in the Woods was published, adults often came up to me at readings and events and told me they felt that they also had Nature-deficit disorder. The Nature Principle extends the conversation. I believe we need to address these questions: How might our lives – no matter our age – be enhanced if our society embraced Nature with as much enthusiasm as it has embraced technology? If we could strike a balance between the two, right now, how might our culture change? How might we accomplish this? What would that life be like?

Biophilic design, the incorporation of real and symbolic Nature into architecture and urban planning, is already transforming some workplaces, schools and homes into places that not only conserve watts, but produce human energy: the high-performance human who not only conserves Nature but creates nurturing habitat everywhere. Creative thinking and productivity, and the enhancement of the senses – feeling fully alive – can come through biophilic design and more contact with the natural world.

We enrich our lives through our associations with other species, and I believe it is important to create a “purposeful place”, to build regional and personal identity and meaning in communities so that natural history becomes as important as human history.

What is the Nature Principle?

Simply put, the Nature Principle maintains that a meaningful connection with the natural world is fundamental to human health, wellbeing and survival. Personal experiences can confirm the genuineness of that statement, which I consider to be a reconciliation with old truths and the emergence of new trends. Again, we also have available to us a lot of empirical, anecdotal and theoretical research, so we can point to scholarly evidence linking meaningful connections with Nature to positive impacts on our intelligence, our spiritual health and links to the larger human community.

One of the precepts of The Nature Principle is that the more high-tech our lives become, the more we need Nature. There is a mind/body/Nature connection, so we have better physical, mental and spiritual health through the Nature prescription – that is, simply being in Nature. The Nature prescription can be a form of self-medication or can be prescribed by a health professional.

In Last Child in the Woods you write that it’s not what’s lost but what is GAINED from being in the natural world. Can you explain this change in approach?

Now it’s time for all of us to get on with what writer Thomas Berry called the Great Work. There’s no time to waste. I often paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., who taught us that any movement – any culture – will fail if it cannot paint a picture of a world that people will want to go to. That certainly rings true to me.

For many urban people, thinking about the future conjures up images of Blade Runner or Mad Max, a post-apocalyptic world stripped of Nature, in which humans are stripped of their humanity. We now need an antivenin for this, by which I mean a clear vision of a future we’ll want to go to. One path to this better future is through adoption of a fresh approach to environmentalism and sustainability. For example, we can do better than aiming for simple sustainability – we should aspire to create Nature where we live, work and play. Think abundance. So, if we’re going to imagine a future, why not imagine a movement that can touch every part of society in a good way? I’ve tried, within my limitations, to offer a version of this future.

I believe that the future will belong to the Nature-smart – those individuals, families, business and political and social leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world, and who balance the virtual with the real. That’s a future worth going to. But once again, we first have to imagine it.

The Children & Nature Network

After Last Child in the Woods was published, a handful of like-minded individuals came together to form the Children & Nature Network (C&NN). Our mission was simple: to help build a movement to reconnect children to Nature – for their physical health, cognitive development and emotional wellbeing, and for the good of the planet. Many organisations have been committed to this issue for decades. C&NN keeps track of the movement, offers a single place to learn about the growing body of research, and, most important, provides a way for people, especially at the grassroots, to network – to learn from each other both online and in person at our national leadership gatherings.

In the best sense, this is a leaderless movement, and a well-connected one. As of today, nearly a hundred cities, states, provinces and regions in North America have created their own campaigns to connect children and families to Nature. The site contains links to news, human-interest articles and research reports from England, Australia and elsewhere. The movement is reaching inner cities, suburbs and rural areas across the globe. Many physicians in the UK and the United States are ‘prescribing’ time in Nature to their young patients. In the US, we’re seeing changes in local, state and national policies, and increased media coverage of the issue. We’re seeing a growing popularity for Nature-based education. Young people are stepping forward, often from inner cities, to become what we call Natural Leaders of the movement. We’ve worked to honour what we call Natural Teachers –the English, art and biology teachers who insist on getting their students outdoors. We’ve seen thousands of families band together to create family Nature clubs.

These are just a few changes we’re seeing, but we don’t know if these positive steps will continue. The barriers remain. For example, electronic media use by children and young people in the US has increased in the past five years from 44 to more than 53 hours per week. Obesity and other health-related risks continue at epidemic rates among children and young people, as well as among adults, in the UK and abroad. Children’s ability to recognise wild species continues to decline, and the first wave of denatured young people are now in their early parenting years. As you can see, this is not the time for complacency.

www.childrenandnature.org

References

1. www.childrenandnature.org/blog/2011/12/28/the-forgotten-human-right/

2. The Guardian, November 16, 2011. www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/16/access-wildlife-right-privilege

3. For those who’d like to learn more about the benefits of Nature, here’s the link to five volumes of research and resources on the Children & Nature Network website:

 www.childrenandnature.org/research/volumes/C16/16

Richard Louv is chairman emeritus of the Children & Nature Network and is the author of eight books. In 2008 he received the Audubon Medal. Richard lives in San Diego with his wife Kathy. They have two grown-up sons. www.richardlouv.com