From watching for the first star of the night, listening to birdsong, or foraging for blackberries, there are many ways to connect to nature. Despite this, less than half of UK adults say they spend time in nature once a week or more. The RSPB’s Nature Prescriptions are an innovative way for healthcare professionals to prescribe this missing nature as part of a patient’s care plan. Community Engagement Officer Orla Hilton reflects on the growth Nature Prescriptions across the UK, informed by her own experiences in nature.
I'm grateful that my personal connection with nature started at a very young age. Growing up in a not-too-different version of Glasgow to Alasdair Gray’s dystopian representation meant grey skies and rain were an everyday backdrop. Getting your waterproofs on and getting out no matter the weather was inevitable. I was left to my own devices, stirring up potions of leaves, twigs and petals that my parents, thankfully, never agreed to try. I was slung in a backpack and taken up hills, wind on my toddler cheeks. I was left unattended to paint my body and my friends in cold bonfire ash. I was a child at one with being outside.
As a teenager I was lucky enough to have an education in the outdoors from a youth community organisation called Woodcraft Folk. This distilled in me the idea that we were a part of the planet around us, responsible for it and those who share it. I became an active citizen, but above all, spent key teenage years camping and roaming outside with my friends.
A study has found that levels of nature connectedness dip in children of 10 to 15 years-old and take 20 years to re-establish. This leaves young people with fewer tools to promote wellbeing.
As an adult, I’ve taken these memories and ‘tools’ to help tackle tricky times and periods of stress in my life. I’ve celebrated the solar eclipses on hilltops. In extremes I’ve walked the length of New Zealand seeking nature connection, but I also often just go for a lunchtime wander to de-stress.
Yet while nature connectedness has never been lacking in my life, current data shows that nature connectedness and access to nature in the UK is pretty dire.
Wellbeing: The Need for Nature
A study by Natural England found that in 2020, only 41% of adults reported spending time in nature at least once a week, a decrease from previous years. For most of human history, we’ve evolved living and (emotionally) regulating outside. Now we largely live inside, work all week at computers and don’t see ourselves as part of a community or part of the environment.
These lifestyles are often forcing us away from experiencing nature in our everyday. People have a completely different barrage of worries than the past - soaring energy bills, the global housing crisis and inflation has put financial work at the heart of our lives. Twinned with this trend, the UK’s health and wellbeing is in decline.
What if these trends were so connected that inspiring nature connection could create better wellbeing, help alleviate innumerable health difficulties, inspire us to care for nature, and support our pressured health service?
Shetland: Planting a Seed
Enter RSPB Nature Prescriptions…
It all began in the dramatic and windswept environment of the Shetland Isles. Even in recent times, one imagines the community there living closely with nature; affected by the wild weather and surrounded by a desolate sort of beauty. However, it turns out, not everyone felt able to connect to nature. Not everyone felt part of their surroundings. Not everyone felt welcomed to enjoy this often-inhospitable environment.
RSPB Nature Prescriptions started through conversations between RSPB and NHS Shetland staff, including Public Health practitioners and GPs. Taking a co-design approach, a small pilot ran in an NHS Shetland Health Centre. Results were largely informal feedback from patients and staff, but the trend was undeniable. Patients found it beneficial and, unexpectedly, even doctors felt an improvement in their connection to nature. Given the positive feedback, all Shetland GP surgeries were given the opportunity, training and materials to prescribe nature for health and wellbeing.
Growth: Led by Research
Being a data driven organisation, the RSPB wanted to be sure. We also wanted to know if this only worked in the beautiful, rural and remote communities of the British Isles. Next up on the agenda was Edinburgh, a totally different environment to Shetland.
In 2020, during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID pandemic, the city undertook a full-scale pilot study. This demonstrated that RSPB Nature Prescriptions are a healthcare intervention with no side effects and high success rates.
Research from the University of Derby’s Nature Connectedness Research Group (NCRG) has proven that it is ‘moments not minutes’ spent in your natural surroundings that matter.
It’s quite possible to go to a park for an afternoon, listen to music through headphones and worry about the week ahead without actually engaging in the nature around you. Not just possible but the norm, I would venture. More unusual, but undeniably more beneficial, would be spending five minutes watching clouds drift above you and looking for shapes or imagining the world spinning on its axis. The NCRG found that there are five simple ways you can inspire a connection to nature:
With this research at the forefront of our minds, the RSPB has tailored and launched (and tweaked, adjusted, re-designed, collaborated) our offering with the guidance and support of local healthcare providers. With every new launch across England, from Derbyshire in 2023 to Exmoor this year, we have worked with experts across the health sector, providing a resource tailored to their patients in locality, in seasonality, and in need.
So far, the small but enthusiastic team at RSPB England have 17 Nature Prescriptions projects in 15 counties, working with social prescribing link workers, occupational therapists, health and wellbeing coaches, dementia support workers, and community stroke support teams, reaching over 4000 people.
The Future: Species Coastal and Wetlands
With the launch of the launch of the Species Coastal and Wetlands programme this year, we have the opportunity to bring fully funded Nature Prescriptions to Kent and Essex, alongside the many other fantastic wetland restoration works and community engagement offerings. This is made possible with funding from the Species Survival Fund, a partnership between Defra and its Arm’s-Length bodies, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
We provide a simple calendar of suggestions for ways you can inspire a nature connection without travel, or tools or specific knowledge. From watching for the night’s first star to listening to birdsong to foraging for blackberries.
With these quality resources in hand, we are training healthcare professionals from social prescribing link workers to GPs and occupational therapists to prescribe nature and have a guided conversation with patients. We will contribute our offering to the many fantastic nature offerings already out there to solve the disconnect between nature and people.
My early nature connection has inspired a lifetime of work in nature and environmental education. We know that inspiring this connection in others doesn't only support people to better cope with mental and physical health conditions, it supports nature, too, by inspiring care for the natural world.
If you are interested in prescribing nature or in finding out more, please contact me at orla.hilton@rspb.org.uk (Community Engagement Officer for RSPB Kent) or natureprescriptions@rspb.org.uk (for other UK regions)
Orla is a Community Engagement Officer based at RSPB Dungeness in Kent; a position funded by the Species Survival Fund. Orla is leading on RSPB Nature Prescriptions and community engagement in Kent and co-running the Thames Youth Action Panel (a youth-driven group for nature conservation and advocacy). She is an avid long-distance walker and generally a lover of all things mountain.
Photo credits:
Banner: Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
Child with feathers: Anil Kunchala (rspb-images.com)
Island cliffs: Adam Charlton
Woman with magnifying glass: Sam Turley (rspb-images.com)