Blog post by Joelene Hughes, Senior Conservation Scientist, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science.
Instigating and developing connection to nature in children, teenagers and adults, is seen as critical for the future of nature conservation. But what is connection to nature and how do we do that?
Understanding connection to nature how it relates to behaviour, and how it can improve the success of our conservation work is a key strand of science research at the RSPB.
Across the conservation sector, improving people’s connection to nature has become a goal of many activities, projects and programmes. These activities generally assume that someone being more connected means they are more likely to act positively for conservation.
However, there is little information about how connected someone needs to be for it to translate into positive action for nature.
This makes it difficult to evaluate the change that activities and projects are making or how they could be improved.
What is a connection to nature?
The phrase “connection to nature” is a simple term used to describe the complex and varied ways people relate with nature.
As with any relationship, different people will “connect” in different ways and connection to nature has been shown to involve various feelings including enjoyment, freedom, safety, a sense of identity, oneness, empathy and responsibility.
Trying to measure the strength of a connection to nature is similarly complex. Several questionnaires have been developed that measure different aspects of someone’s connection depending on the questions included.
Some of these are more suitable for adults while others are for children. Some are long and create a detailed picture of connection, while others are short and designed so they can be included in longer surveys that look at other factors like health, well-being and behaviour.
Recent research - how connected should a child be?
In conservation, the goal for connecting people to nature is to get people acting positively for nature and the environment although it shown to have other benefits, for example improved health and well-being.
There are many factors in someone’s life that affect their behaviour, health and well-being so it is incredibly difficult to be prescriptive about targets for individuals. This applies to children and adults alike.
The influence of family, friends and what equipment is available can all affect a child’s behaviour. But results from a recent collaboration with the Nature Connectedness Research Group showed that there is a positive correlation between their connection to nature and the likelihood that they are acting positively for nature and the environment.
The likelihood that a child was carrying out some pro-nature (black line) or pro-environmental behaviours (grey lines) increases with increasing connection to nature. Boys and girls differed in pro-environmental behaviours (girls are solid line, boys are dashed line).
Using one measure of connection to nature – the Connection to Nature Index, a questionnaire developed by Judith Chen-Hsuan Cheng and Martha C. Monroe (2012) – we looked at how children’s connection and behaviours are linked.
We developed a “gradient of connection” from low>mild>strong based on when the majority of answers would be positive (around 4.06) or strongly positive (around 4.56) and related the gradient to the children’s answers to some behaviour questions.
The results of our analysis showed that a children with a strong connection were more likely than not to be acting positively for nature and the environment. Therefore we suggested that a target connection score of 4.56 would be reasonable.
The full paper has open access until 28 Sep, so why not have a read?
Understanding more about connection to nature: next steps
The study fits into our developing research programme that aims to improve the effectiveness of what conservation organisations do to develop people’s connection to nature.
Currently, we’re studying the aspects of people’s initial experience with nature that can help initiate a connection – what makes people want to experience nature again?
While in the future we are hoping to look at what type of connection leads to conservation behaviour and how that happens.
Meanwhile, additional work collaborating with the Nature Connectedness Research Group is looking at the relationship between connection, well-being and behaviour while another collaboration with researchers at the University of Essex is looking at differences in connection to nature within the population in England, both throughout the lifespan and between regions.