Can people's connection with nature impact their conservation behaviours?

This research question was developed off the back of theories often cited in conservation literature that the more people are connected with nature, the more they would engage in behaviours that would protect nature. Beyond conservation, Melissa also emphasises the importance of humans' connection with nature for their psychological and physical health, and general wellbeing.

However, what exactly is nature?

'Nature' can mean different things to different people. To better understand people's 'concepts of nature', or how they define 'nature', Melissa conducted a surveys with the general public to ask them what comes to mind when they think of 'nature'. Three broad categories for identified:

• Descriptive (i.e. "Nature is trees, birds, mountains")
• Normative (i.e. "Nature is precious and needs protection")
• Experiential (i.e. "Nature is beautiful", "Nature is where I spend time with family or friends - camping, hiking")

By identifying these broad categories, Melissa's research was able to inform policy and interventions that aimed to promote people's connection with nature. Ultimately, promoting the adoption of environmental conservation behaviours in Victorian communities.

Watch the full episode of Pocket Change with Dr Melissa Hatty, Connecting with Nature:

Pocket Change is a series of pocket-size videos about a key aspect of behaviour change.  Each episode features a BehaviourWorks Australia Researcher explaining their area of expertise in a clear and simple manner.  

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Transcript:

Geoff
Hi everyone. I am talking to Dr. Mel Hatty today about nature and the impact of nature on people and their connection with nature. So welcome, and give us kind of an overview of your PhD.

Melissa
So my PhD was a partnership with the Victorian State Government. They released a biodiversity strategy a few years ago and part of their strategy was to get people more engaged in conservation. And the theory was if we get people more connected to nature, then they will do more to protect nature because that's what the literature shows. So my PhD sought to understand what is connection with nature and how can we understand it in order to use it as a leverage for conservation.

Geoff
So we did this as a change room and we asked the question, Are humans part of nature? We got an interesting mix of answers. What's your experience of that question?

Melissa
Personally, or from what I understand from other people?

Geoff
Well, your research and when you ask that question of people, it's not always the simple answer; yes, humans are part of nature?
Melissa
Well, it's very true. And the very concept of nature is quite contested in in the literature. So when we talk about nature, there's so many different definitions of humans being part of it, are they not part of it? And from my own personal perspective, yeah, humans are nature, humans are part of nature. But when we think about connection with nature, the very concept of connecting with nature implies that humans are not part of it. So humans are over there, nature's over there and we need to reconnect. So it's a very contested debate in the literature.
Geoff
Why is nature so important to us?

Melissa
Nature is important, and connecting with Nature even more important because we're dependent on nature for everything. We're dependent on nature for food and clothing and everything. Housing, everything comes from nature. But connection with nature is also important because we know that people who are more connected to nature tend to have better health and wellbeing outcomes. They tend to be happier psychologically, better health outcomes in terms of cardiac disease and lower incidences of chronic illnesses, those kinds of things. But we also know that people who are more connected to nature do more to protect nature.

So part of the Victorian State Government strategy is again getting people to connect more so that they're more motivated to do something to protect the natural environment.

Geoff
So since this is featured in an academic look at the world, what exactly is nature?

Melissa
Oh, that's a very good question. So nature means different things to different people. And often when we ask people about nature, they'll say pretty things like flowers and trees and and all of the things that kind of makes us feel good or they might talk about nature in terms of landscapes, forests.

Very rarely do people think about nature in terms of what we would consider human byproducts. So if you think about things like cars, for example. Most people would say a car isn't nature. But when you look at the components of a car, they come from nature. So you could probably say that a car is part of nature.

But another interesting part of that also is this idea about, you know, pretty things that we often think of into pleasant type things when we think about nature. We often don't think of things like the coronavirus is part of nature. And if we think about a bushfire or a flood, well that's nature as well. But we often don't think about nature in those terms. We often think about the more in the more positive realm.

So one of the things that came up during my research when I was thinking about this idea of nature is if we're going to try to encourage connection with nature, we're going to try to get people to connect to the natural environment, what are we getting them to connect to?

So I wanted to go down this path of understand what exactly is nature and what does it mean.

Geoff
So tell me about concepts of nature, the different types of concepts of nature.

Melissa
Yeah. So we did a survey and we asked people what comes to mind when you think about nature? And some people wrote one or two words, some people wrote great long sentences, and I coated all of this information and ran a whole bunch of steps on it. And I came up with three broad categories; so, descriptive, word things like labels for things. So tree, plant, forests, the normative category were things around needing protection. So nature is precious, Nature is valuable. It needs needs of protection.

The other category was experiential and experiential in the sense of doing things in nature. So camping, hiking, fishing but also experiences in the sense of emotional experiences. So people who describe nature in terms of beauty or wonder or tranquility, or talked about colours or aesthetics, that was more a rich, a kind of picture of nature.

And then there was a complex category, which is kind of a combination thereof. So some people talked about lots of different things within the same usually those people that wrote great long sentences about nature.

Geoff
So how do these concepts of nature relate to your PhD?

Melissa
So I looked at whether the different perceptions people have of nature, these different concepts, whether they relate to connection, because the idea was understanding nature in order to understand connection with nature. And what I found were people that described nature in terms of descriptive terms. So who just said it was a tree or a forest or an animal, they had much lower connection connection to nature, whereas people that described it in a richer kind of way, so the kind of experiential terms, they talked about emotions or they talked about actually doing things in nature.

And also the more complex category that sort of had the multiple descriptors in one, they had a much higher connection with nature.

Geoff
So depending on your concept of nature, indicates your connection with nature?

Melissa
Potentially.  You couldn't tell whether it was a causation effect or we could look at was a particular relationship. This is associated with that.

But what that potentially implies is we could use this as a leverage point. So if we want to try to increase a relationship or increase a connection with nature for people who are already connected, so people that have a kind of an experiential view, an intervention might be different than someone who describes nature in just terms, in just descriptive terms. And so we could maybe promote nature in terms of a richer experience. So rather than just go out and spend time in nature, we could say things like, nature is beautiful, right? And it's tranquil and it's peaceful and it makes you go right. And all of these things might encourage people to go, yeah, we'll go and look at nature.

Geoff
Okay. So if the ultimate aim is to get people more connected with nature, are there any interventions that will enable this to happen?

Melissa
Yeah. So I didn't look at this specifically in my research, but there's a really interesting body of literature that's coming out at the moment, and there's some work coming out of the UK that looks at rather than just spending time in nature. Spending time in nature is important, but it's not enough. And spending time in nature and connecting with nature are not the same thing.

So what we need to do, it looks like, is to actively gauge, to actually connect with nature through our senses. So touch and smell and notice. We need to think about the meaning. We need to think about the kind of the psychological, emotional elements of nature. So if we're going to walk from here through that park rather than just being on our phone and kind of, you know, nature happens to be around us, we need to actually stop and pay attention and go, Wow, look at that tree, look at that or smell the leaf. So you can have that more kind of active engagement.

Geoff
How do we do that? How do you increase that kind of engagement?

Melissa
Oh, good question. Technology, oddly enough, is one mechanism that is potentially useful. So there's been some apps that have been developed that have encouraged people to actually get out and actively engage. So Pokémon go for a little while -

Geoff
Yes. Yes.

Melissa
- to actually encourage people to get out and go to particular places. And there's been some apps again coming out of the UK that encourage people to go to specific locations and then you might there might be a prompt on the app that encourages you to do something while you're in that location to actively engage.

Geoff
So technology is not necessarily a barrier. It can actually lead us to nature.

Melissa
There's been an interesting debate talking about technology as a exactly as you said, as a barrier to doing it. But depending on how we use the technology, we can actually use it to our advantage for good instead of evil.

Geoff
What about wilderness versus gardens? Nature is everywhere. If you pay attention to it, even in an urban environment, can we connect?

Melissa
Absolutely, this is an interesting topic. The very idea of wilderness is a bit contested but we often think of nature as something out there. It's a long way away and we have to leave the city or we have to go somewhere to appreciate nature. But nature's everywhere. Nature is nature strips, nature is pot plants. Nature is everything that's around us. And these apps are particularly useful in that sense because they encourage us to think about what's actually here in our environment right now so we don't have to leave and go miles away to experience nature. We just have to pay attention to what's around us.

Geoff
So how would you wrap up your PhD, which is years of research into a 30 seconds? What would you wrap up the kind of message, the key message here?

Melissa
What's my elevator pitch? Nature is important. Nature is an important part of us ss humans, and we need to think about our relationship with nature in order to protect what we have. That we need to survive as a species. And connection with nature is one way that we can do this. And there's different types of connection. There's different ways that we connect these different factors that lead into connection. And I guess one of the most important things for me that came out of my day was this idea about we need to actively engage, we need to pay attention rather than just kind of being oblivious to what's around us, to actually stop, to smell the flowers, to notice the eucalypt leaves, to just look at the sky and go, Wow, that's a really pretty cloud formation. In order to actively engage in that process and to nurture that sense of we're part of the system, we're part of a bigger world that we're dependent on.

Geoff
So the saying stop and smell arises actually has an evidence based?

Melissa
Totally.

Geoff
Thank you Mel.

Melissa
Thank you Geoff.