Reconnection

Miles Richardson

Description

How did our relationship with nature become broken, why does it matter and how can we fix it? From a past in which we were embedded in the natural world, revolutions in farming, science and industry have seen the human bond with nature eroded with the promise of prosperity offering happiness and meaning in life. This mindset may have delivered comfortable living for many, but there is growing recognition that the root cause of wildlife loss and the warming climate is people’s disconnection from nature, which is also an important factor in our mental health. Yet solutions focus on technical fixes to treat the symptoms of that damaged relationship, such as reducing carbon emissions and increasing habitat. What we urgently need is a whole new way of thinking.

Reconnection explores our hidden links with nature through the science of nature connectedness, setting out a way to revivify the relationship across society. Here is a route to a meaningful life that unites both human and nature’s wellbeing for a truly sustainable future. What's more, everybody has a role to play. From business leaders to conservationists, teachers to medics, from drivers to walkers, we can all reduce the damage we do and find new ways to bring nature into our lives. This timely book considers the problems scientifically, then offers simple, practical, positive steps for how we can all work towards a better world.

Preface

Part I – The need for reconnection with nature

1. A Broken Relationship with Nature

2. The Great Theft

3. The Technological Ape

4. Hidden Connections with Nature

5. Nature Connectedness

Part II – Benefits of reconnection with nature

6. Good for You: Wellbeing Benefits of Reconnection

7. How Does Reconnection Bring Wellbeing?

8. Good for Nature: Environmental Benefits of Reconnection

9. One Health

Part III – Creating a new relationship with nature

10. The Good Things in Nature

11. Pathways to Reconnection

12. Scaling Up: Policies for Connection

13. Tools for Change

14. Creating a Nature-Connected Society

15. Designing a Connected Future

Acknowledgements

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Sciences de la nature
• Sciences de la terre
• Humanistic
• Biological Diversity
• Life Sciences
• Movements
• Sustainable Development
• Environmental Protection
• Environmental Conservation
• Earth Sciences
• PHILOSOPHY
• Earth science
• Sustainability
• Biology
• Humanism
• Humanistic psychology
• Popular science
• General officer
• Biodiversity
• Philosophy of science
• Health
• Development
• General
• 454 Life Sciences
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: Pelagic Publishing
• Date de parution: 25 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781784273514
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Nature connection is such an interesting topic. Aside from the physical adventures and mental joy that nature brings, that relationship is vital for our world and it is vital that we care enough to acknowledge the damage we are doing and take urgent steps to fix it.
-Alastair Humphreys, author of Microadventures and The Doorstep Mile
This is a book with muscle. Not a softly aspirational book about belonging and nature but an incisively written work that examines the needs that humans have for seeing themselves as part of the natural world. Reconnection is an important book that moved me, made me think and, made me smile.
-Sir Tim Smit, Co-founder and Vice Chairman of the Eden Project
Fascinating, poignant and hopeful. Reconnection should be mandatory reading for us all.
-Dr Mya-Rose Craig, author of Birdgirl
Reconnection is a joy to read! This is a thought-provoking, inspiring book which highlights the ever increasing need to step outside and re-embrace the natural world into our lives. For the benefit of individual wellbeing, for communities and for the health of our environment, I sincerely hope everybody reads this and seeks a closer relationship to nature.
-Megan McCubbin, zoologist, conservationist and TV presenter
As Miles Richardson says, nature makes sense. After reading his book you too will be in no doubt.
-David Lindo, The Urban Birder
Miles Richardson expertly balances threat with hope in this timely and brilliant book. A must-read for anyone who values the natural world and our connection to it.
-Hilary McGrady, Director General at the National Trust
We re all increasingly aware of how important our relationship with nature is for our own good and for the good of the natural world. Instinctively we know we are not where we need to be. This book sets out in an accessible and thought-provoking way the science that underpins that growing understanding and what we can all do as individuals and as a society to rebuild that relationship before it s too late.
-Beccy Speight, CEO, RSPB
A widening separation of people from nature threatens our physical health, our mental wellbeing and the very survival of our civilisation. In Reconnection , Miles Richardson poetically and expertly explores this monumental issue of our time and how we might go about fixing it.
-Ben Goldsmith, philanthropist and environmentalist
Richardson has produced a rich, timely and painstakingly researched account of what s gone wrong in our relationship with nature and most urgently, how it might be fixed. It s never mattered more, has it? I wish every policy-maker, educator, economist and land manager would read and act on this book.
-Amy-Jane Beer, naturalist and author of The Flow
Thought provoking, brilliantly researched, and surprising in some of its findings. Also extremely readable which, given the importance of its subject, is helpful for those of us without academic backgrounds. A must-read for educators, policy-makers, and anyone else trying to raise awareness of the benefits and importance of Nature Reconnection.
-Brigit Strawbridge Howard, author of Dancing with Bees
Reconnection has the makings of a game-changing classic: hugely sophisticated thought and ideas framed within the most direct and simple language. Any schoolchild could understand it. In fact, all young people and everyone else concerned for the future of life on Earth should read it, if we want to end the nature crisis in our midst.
-Mark Cocker, author of One Midsummer s Day
This book is both authoritative and personal, warm and carefully scientific. It busts myths, challenges assumptions and presents truths we can no longer ignore. And crucially, Richardson offers a compelling and practical vision of what we need to do - and why - to change our relationship with Nature. This is the how-to manual and a must-read for anyone searching for the tools to improve human lives and Nature s future.
-Mary-Ann Ochota, broadcaster and anthropologist
It s so valuable to see all the studies brought together and clearly explained - not only as evidence for the instincts we already have about how much connection to nature matters, but also to dispel some myths about how that connection works (or doesn t), and how it might be improved. I found this book absolutely fascinating and I can see it making an important contribution to so many sectors.
-Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley
Reconnection is a timely, clear plea to understand just how disconnected we have become from nature. Until it is spelled out, it is easy to assume things are not so bad, that reconnection is just a matter of being more aware. This book shows that the fracture lines go deeper and are more damaging than they might appear on the surface, but it is ultimately a hopeful book, offering solutions that make a greener future seem vibrant and joyful - worth striving for.
-Mary Colwell, author of Beak, Tooth and Claw
RECONNECTION
RECONNECTION
Fixing Our Broken Relationship with Nature
MILES RICHARDSON
PELAGIC PUBLISHING
First published in 2023 by
Pelagic Publishing
20-22 Wenlock Road
London, N1 7GU
www.pelagicpublishing.com
Reconnection: Fixing Our Broken Relationship with Nature
Copyright © 2023 Miles Richardson
The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Apart from short excerpts for use in research or for reviews, no part of this document may be printed or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, now known or hereafter invented or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78427-350-7 Hbk
ISBN 978-1-78427-351-4 ePub
ISBN 978-1-78427-352-1 PDF
Excerpts from Richardson, M. (2012) Needwood: A Year in Search of Ordinary Things and Richardson, M. (2014) A Blackbird s Year: Mind in Nature appear with the permission of the copyright holder.
https://doi.org/10.53061/KFSP1540
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Cover design: Jo Walker
Contents
Preface
Part I - The need for reconnection with nature
1 A Broken Relationship with Nature
2 The Great Theft
3 The Technological Ape
4 Hidden Connections with Nature
5 Nature Connectedness
Part II - Benefits of reconnection with nature
6 Good for You: Wellbeing Benefits of Reconnection
7 How Does Reconnection Bring Wellbeing?
8 Good for Nature: Environmental Benefits of Reconnection
9 One Health
Part III - Creating a new relationship with nature
10 The Good Things in Nature
11 Pathways to Reconnection
12 Scaling Up: Policies for Connection
13 Tools for Change
14 Creating a Nature-Connected Society
15 Designing a Connected Future
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
About the Author
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Lord Byron
Preface
W hen did my relationship with nature break down? Is my connection with nature now strong? It isn t easy to place our own relationship with nature into the context of others. Those in our family, on our street, in our town, country or continent. In the chapters that follow, we ll find that there do exist ways to measure how connected we are to the rest of nature. For now, it s helpful to consider the relationship with nature that this book is built on. It may chime with many, but describing it will also help those with different backgrounds to understand my perspective. I write as I am.
All my childhood through the 1970s and into the 1980s was spent in the same family home. A semi-detached house where both parents worked. This was of course typical for many; although, thinking back, the large garden and outlook over fields to the front was fortunate. The house was also in a village, with a brook and small woodland at its heart. An ideal location for developing a close relationship with nature, you might think.
I recall moments when lapwings gathered on the playing field at junior school. There was a vegetable patch and a large tree in the playground. I sometimes collected snails on the way home, where they ended up in the garden - a garden with annual flower borders, vegetables and trees. The snails and slugs would be controlled with pellets. Chemicals were used for the perfect lawn. A pump-action pressure sprayer controlled the pests .
Yet starlings still gathered in large numbers, butterflies often fluttered by, blue tits holed milk bottle tops, and occasionally we fed the birds. I enjoyed the birds, annotated a Collins Bird Guide and joined the junior branch of the RSPB, the Young Ornithologists Club.
I recall little nature at secondary school, just a shed full of rabbit hutches. Outside school, hours were spent in the woods, riding bikes, building dens, and some even constructed zip wires and tree houses. Groups of children gathered on the playing field, enjoying football, cricket and thumping each other. Some still went nesting for bird eggs. We crept through gardens, scrumping apples and jumping the hedgerows between front gardens in the Grand National . We were chased, lit fires and enjoyed being outdoors, but there was little to do inside.
Family holidays were short and straightforward. A week in Wales, Devon or the Lake District. The flatlands of Norfolk or the Scottish hills. Time in natural landscapes, enjoying the coast and walking. Although I wasn t a keen walker, and we sometimes came home early as it always seemed to rain. That s my recollection, at least.
Naturally, this childhood was normal for me, and I guess, typical for many. We spent plenty of time outdoors, but did we have a close relationship with nature? Looking back, I don