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Home for future Earth Lovers: foundations of nature-connecting habitats for children
Abstract and Figures
Modern childhood is increasingly segregated from nature. Yet, children’s nature experiences are first steps for sustainable futures. In this thesis, I research the foundations of habitats that can connect children to nature. I call them nature-connecting habitats.
Five papers in this thesis answer: (RQ1) what is children’s human-nature connection (HNC)?; and (RQ2) what are the requirements of nature-connecting habitats for children? The "preschools paper" shows that five-year-olds with nature-rich routines have higher HNC than children with nature-poor routines, but it cannot understand which nature experiences are most influential. Hence, the "salamanders paper" assesses children’s participation in a nature conservation project. Discrepancies between the qualitative and quantitative results reveal an assessment gap with theoretical roots, which impedes the assessment of nature experiences in practical time-frames. To close this gap, the "review paper" surveys the literature and shows that attributes of the mind, qualities of nature experiences, and attachment to places are all aspects of HNC. The "embody paper" conceptualizes an embodied approach to HNC to overcome the barriers identified previously, and the "toolbox paper" operationalises it to develop a toolbox to assess children’s HNC and nature-connecting habitats.
Answering RQ1, results show that children’s HNC is a complex set of embodied abilities. Human-nature relationships that could enable, promote, or assist sustainable development are a set of abilities that children can learn. These abilities are relationships between mind, body, culture, and environment, and progress following non-linear dynamics. This thesis identifies 10 of these abilities of HNC and finds that children learn them in three consecutive phases. Phase one – being in nature – includes feeling comfortable in natural spaces, and being curious about nature. Phase two – being with nature – includes reading natural spaces, acting in natural spaces, feeling attached to natural spaces, knowing about nature, and recalling memories with nature. Phase three – being for nature – includes taking care of nature, caring about nature, and being one with nature.
Answering RQ2, two requirements of nature-connecting habitats are found: significant nature situations and various nature routines. Nature situations that can connect children to nature are characterised by configurations of 16 qualities – qualities of significant nature situations. These qualities are: entertainment, thought-provocation, awe, surprise, intimacy, mindfulness, self-restoration, creative expression, physical activity, challenge, engagement of senses, child-driven, involvement of mentors, structure/instructions, social/cultural endorsement, and involvement of animals. This set of qualities delineates the kinds of nature situations that nature-connecting habitats have to provide. These qualities should be various and recurring to allow children’s HNC to progress – hence, various nature routines. These lists of abilities and qualities form a toolbox capable of assessing where and how children connect to nature, named ACHUNAS.
This thesis sets the stage to develop nature-connecting habitats. Children’s HNC and nature-connecting habitats are not the only intervention to promote sustainable futures, but they might be necessary conditions to meet the ever-shifting target of sustainable civilizations.
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... Alonso Roldán, Villasante, & Outeiro, 2015;Cooke et al., 2016;Giusti, 2018;West, 2016). This indicates the need for reflection and more explicit consideration of the ontological commitments our research is based on. ...
Research on social‐ecological systems (SES) has highlighted their complex and adaptive character and pointed to the importance of recognizing their intertwined nature.
Yet, we often base our analysis and governance of SES on static and independent objects, such as actors and resources which are not well suited to address complexity and intertwinedness. This bias, which is largely implicit, has its roots in substance ontologies that have influenced most of contemporary science.
This paper argues that it is useful to critically reflect on this ontological grounding and develop SES research from a process ontological perspective.
Key insights are that process ontological concepts such as process, event and possibility space are able to overcome the dichotomy between the social and the ecological and allow for a conceptualization of continuous change (dynamism) that enhances our understanding of SES as truly intertwined and complex systems.
This will enable SES researchers to conceptualize problems as well as corresponding solutions in novel ways which will ultimately support the development of novel governance approaches, from rethinking the aims of policies from managing people towards managing relations between and among people and the natural system.
To fully tap the potential which comes with a change in worldview towards a process ontology, changing research approaches and ways of abstracting are required.
... Policy interventions have to be developed in conjunction with human experiences and social values [105]. The importance of nurturing shared values for nature for a sustainable future is remarked by many academic authors [7,44,106] and a few noted its particular relevance in the context of developing sustainable human habitats [94,107,108]. In cities, policies have to simultaneously address climate change, disrupted ecosystem services, unhealthy habits, and unsustainable lifestyles. ...
Urban nature is and will be the most common provider of nature interactions for humankind. The restorative benefits of nature exposure are renown and creating human habitats that simultaneously support people’s wellbeing and ecological sustainability is an urgent priority. In this study, we investigate how the relationship between environmental attitudes and healthy ecosystems influences restorative experiences combining a place-based online survey with geographical data on ecosystem health in Stockholm (Sweden). Using spatial regression, we predict the 544 restorative experiences (from 325 respondents), with people’s environmental attitudes, natural land covers, ecosystem health, and the statistical interactions among these variables as predictors. Our results show that restorative experiences can happen anywhere in the urban landscape, but when they occur in natural environments, the combined levels of biodiversity and ecological connectivity are better predicting factor than the mere presence of nature. That is, healthy ecosystems seem to be more important than just any nature for restorative experiences. Moreover, the statistical interaction between one’s environmental attitudes and natural environments predict almost all restorative experiences better than when these variables are independent predictors. This suggests that there is synergistic compatibility between environmental attitudes and healthy ecosystems that triggers restorative processes. We call this synergy regenerative compatibility. Regenerative compatibility is an unexploited potential that emerges when people’s attitudes and ecosystems are aligned in sustainability. We consider regenerative compatibility a valuable leverage point to transform towards ecologically sustainable and healthy urban systems. To this end, we encourage multifaceted policy interventions that regenerate human-nature relationships holistically rather than implement atomistic solutions.
... The spatial human habitat can be designed to be a constant reminder of what a sustainable relationship with nature entails. The literature on biophilic design [103] and nature-connecting habitats [104,105] rests exactly on this conviction. Spatial and cultural interventions on the human habitat have great potential to enable the kind of human-nature relationships required for sustainable living. ...
What relationship with nature shapes children’s desire to protect the environment? This study crosses conventional disciplinary boundaries to explore this question. I use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse experiential, psychological, and contextual dimensions of Human-Nature Connection (HNC) before and after children participate in a project of nature conservation. The results from the interviews (N = 25) suggest that experiential aspects of saving animals enhance children’s appreciation and understanding for animals, nature, and nature conservation. However, the analysis of children’s psychological HNC (N = 158) shows no statistical difference before and after children participate in the project. Analysing the third dimension–children’s contextual HNC–provides further insights. Including children’s contextual relations with home, nature, and city, not only improves the prediction of their desire to work for nature, but also exposes a form of Human-Nature Disconnection (HND) shaped by children’s closeness to cities that negatively influence it. Overall, combining experiential, psychological, and contextual dimensions of HNC provides rich insights to advance the conceptualisation and assessment of human-nature relationships. People’s relationship with nature is better conceived and analysed as systems of relations between mind, body, culture, and environment, which progress through complex dynamics. Future assessments of HNC and HND would benefit from short-term qualitative and long-term quantitative evaluations that explicitly acknowledge their spatial and cultural contexts. This approach would offer novel and valuable insights to promote the psychological and social determinants of resilient sustainable society.
The design of the human habitat can either promote or oppose healthy living, sustainable lifestyles, and the ability to value nature in people. The goal of this paper is to provide some insights to shape a transdisciplinary agenda for future human habitats that are socially and ecologically sustainable. This is what Connecting Land is. Through a planned workshop, 19 professionals from a variety of complementary backgrounds create a vision for Connecting Land and then discuss policy actions required to achieve such a vision. The produced vision highlights a physically and emotionally healthy community that celebrates local nature in their traditions and rituals. Nature experiences are next door and symbiosis with nature is the constant background of the inhabitants' habits. The policy actions emerging from the workshop suggest that achieving Connecting Land requires integrated policies that simultaneously address children's experience-based education, the elimination of physical barriers to nature access, and legal actions to establish the rights of natural elements. To this goal, synergies between the design of natural landscapes, children's education, and short and long-term people's wellbeing are worth further exploration in both academia and practice. Sustainable human habitats that promote a healthy and sustainable culture do not need to be utopian. ARTICLE HISTORY
In order to construct urban environments that limit negative impacts for global sustainability while supporting human wellbeing, there is a need to better understand how features of the environment influence people's everyday experiences. We present a novel method for studying this combining accessibility analysis and public participatory GIS (PPGIS). Seven environment features are defined and accessibility to them analysed across Stockholm municipality. We estimate the probabilities of positive and negative experiences in places based on these environment features, by using spatial regression to extrapolate from the results of an online PPGIS survey (1784 experiences of 1032 respondents). Six of the seven studied environment features have significant impact on experiential outcome, after accounting for spatial autocorrelation among the data. The results show that number of residents and proximity of nature environments and water, all common quality indicators in urban planning and research, have weak statistically significant effects on people's experiences. However, areas dominated by large working populations or proximity to major roads have very low rates of positive experiences, while areas with high natural temperature regulating capacities have very high rates, showing that there are considerable qualitative differences within urban environments as well as nature environments. Current urban planning practices need to acknowledge these differences to limit impacts on the biosphere while promoting human wellbeing. We suggest that a good way to start addressing this is through transformation of negatively experienced urban areas through designs that integrate closeness to urbanity with possibilities to have nature experiences on a daily basis.
Article impact statement: To address conservation challenges conservation scientists must work to change social values.
A high and sustainable quality of life is a central goal for humanity. Our current socio-ecological regime and its set of interconnected worldviews, institutions, and technologies all support the goal of unlimited growth of material production and consumption as a proxy for quality of life. However, abundant evidence shows that, beyond a certain threshold, further material growth no longer significantly contributes to improvement in quality of life. Not only does further material growth not meet humanity's central goal, there is mounting evidence that it creates significant roadblocks to sustainability through increasing resource constraints (i.e., peak oil, water limitations) and sink constraints (i.e., climate disruption). Overcoming these roadblocks and creating a sustainable and desirable future will require an integrated, systems level redesign of our socio-ecological regime focused explicitly and directly on the goal of sustainable quality of life rather than the proxy of unlimited material growth. This transition, like all cultural transitions, will occur through an evolutionary process, but one that we, to a certain extent, can control and direct. We suggest an integrated set of worldviews, institutions, and technologies to stimulate and seed this evolutionary redesign of the current socio-ecological regime to achieve global sustainability.
Improving the dynamic relationship between nature and human well-being is a pressing issue of our time. Landscapes embody this tight interconnectedness and serve as unique sustainability learning hubs, showcased by the global rise of place-based and holistic landscape stewardship initiatives. Incorporating these exciting developments, this book explores the principles of landscape stewardship and their function in fields such as agriculture, ecological restoration and urban green infrastructure. It provides insights into the challenges and the potential of landscape stewardship and identifies future paths for the science and practice of landscape-related sustainability efforts. Aligning analytical perspectives with practical applications, it brings together contributions from leading scholars and innovative models of landscape stewardship from all around the world, making it an essential resource for anyone interested in developing sustainable human-nature relationships.
Article impact statement: Conservation values are unlikely to change through intentional efforts.