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19/11/2021

3 ways nature in the city can do you good, even in self-isolation
Spending time at the beach or taking a walk in the park can help us recover from the mental and physical impacts of life’s stresses. But physical distancing measures to contain COVID-19 have included closing beaches, playgrounds and parks, adding to the challenges to our mental health. When we stay home to flatten the curve, how can we help ourselves by taking advantage of the benefits associated with nature?
The evidence for nature supporting human well-being has grown in recent decades. We researched the links between nature and urban residents’ well-being and found there are benefits of nature that we can still enjoy now, even in lockdown. Our findings point to some of the ways we can improve our well-being by engaging with everyday nature close to home.
1. A room with a view
We reviewed the evidence, collected survey data on self-reported well-being and biodiversity indicators, and organised focus groups in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, and Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, to better understand participants’ relationship with urban nature.
If you’re stuck at home, the good news is there is plenty of research that suggests a view through a window of vegetation or a body of water can provide a micro-break. A view of nature through a window has even aided hospital patients’ recovery from surgery. A short, 40-second glance at a green roof supports cognitive restoration better than a view of concrete.

Our research found urban residents had greater self-reported well-being when they had nature nearby or visible from their homes. Participants valued a view of vegetated areas – green space – and bodies of water – blue space. One participant said:

I could live in something that was pretty grim if it had a balcony that looked out [at nature].

Participants in our focus groups also highlighted the importance of seeing changes in the natural world, such as change in the weather or the seasons. Even if your view does not have a lot of vegetation or water, a view of the sky can allow engagement with nature’s dynamism.

2. Gardening – indoors and out
If you’re lucky enough to have a yard or balcony, now may be a good time to do some gardening. Gardening can offer benefits such as reductions in stress, anxiety and depression. As a physical activity, gardening can also improve physical fitness and support weight loss.

Gardens can also provide habitat for wildlife, potentially introducing you to new plants, pollinating insects and birds. Urban biodiversity benefits us too.

Our study found strong links between gardening and self-reported well-being. If you don’t have a yard, gardening on a balcony or tending to indoor plants also has benefits. One participant explained:

Having a small vegetable garden and flowers in pots makes me feel happy and content … It is wonderful to see things grow in the city.
3. Green exercise
We know exercise is good for physical fitness and mental health. “Green exercise”, or exercise that takes place in and around nature, can improve your mood and self-esteem.

Our study found strong links between how often urban residents exercised and their self-reported well-being. One participant described how important green exercise is to them:

Being able to walk my dog down at the beach or go up into the hills is a great stress relief and keeps me fit and healthy and, best of all, it’s free.

Another participant described exercising in a public park:

I feel significantly calmer, [my] breathing rate goes down. I love the feel of that moist air going into my lungs from all the trees and I really do feel different.

To limit infection, residents of cities around the world are subject to a range of national and local constraints on when and how they leave the house to exercise. It is important to follow physical distancing guidelines, but it is also important to exercise rather than be both isolated and sedentary.

19/11/2021

Can’t go outside? Even seeing nature on a screen can improve your mood
Are you feeling anxious or irritated during the coronavirus lockdown? Do you constantly want to get up and move? Maybe you need a moment to engage with nature.

Getting into the great outdoors is difficult at right now. But our research soon to be published in Australian Forestry shows you can improve your mood by experiencing nature indoors. This could mean placing few pot plants in the corner of your home office, or even just looking at photos of plants.

Our work adds to a compelling body of research that shows being around nature directly benefits our mental health.
Biophilia
Public gardens and parks, street verges with trees and bushes, and even rooftop gardens bring us a broad range of benefits – boosting physical health, reducing air pollution, and even lowering crime rates.
But inside, in your hastily constructed home office or home school room, you may be unable to take full advantage of urban nature.
Embracing the notion of “biophilia” – the innate human affinity with nature – while locked down inside may improve your productivity and even your health.

The biophilia hypothesis argues modern day humans evolved from hundreds of generations of ancestors whose survival required them to study, understand and rely on nature. So a disconnection from nature today can cause significant issues for humans, such as a decline in psychological health.

In practice at home, connecting with nature might mean having large windows overlooking the garden. You can also improve working conditions by having natural materials in your office or school room, such as wooden furniture, natural stones and pot plants.

Indoor plants
Our research has demonstrated that even a small number of plants hanging in pockets on along a busy corridor provide enough nature to influence our physiological and psychological perceptions.

These plants even caused behavioural differences, where people would change their route through a building to come into contact with the indoor plants.

We surveyed 104 people, and 40% of the respondents reported their mood and emotions improved in the presence of indoor plants.

They felt “relaxed and grounded” and “more interested”. The presence of indoor greenery provides a place to “relax from routine” and it made the space “significantly more pleasant to work in”.

19/11/2021

Lockdown isn’t good news for all wildlife – many animals rely on humans for survival
From Venetian canals running clear, to herds of goats roaming around Llandudno, Wales, there have been claims of nature’s comeback since the start of lockdown.

But recently, staff at the Meltham Wildlife Reserve in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, reported the arrival of a red kite that was found to be underweight and incapable of feeding itself.

Red kites search opportunistically for food, in the same way their historic kin made use of the rubbish heaps of Britain’s past. But the recent arrival of the kite at Meltham perhaps suggests the current situation of restricted travel – which has contributed to decreased roadkill – may not suit these previously persecuted birds of prey.

This raises questions about the way lockdown is impacting wildlife – for better and for worse.
Brown with a signature orange forked tail, red kites’ fortunes have shifted remarkably in recent decades. They were confined to Wales as recently as the 1980s after being hunted and culled as pests, as well as suffering pesticide contamination and inbreeding. But reintroduction programmes that began in the 1990s, have seen their numbers soar.

Kites from European nests were released across England and Scotland. Supported by feeding initiatives and nest monitoring schemes, their numbers have grown from around 20 in the early 1960s, to approximately 1,600 across the UK.

‘Human spaces’
The apparent “return” of wild animals to “human spaces”, perhaps due to the lack of human presence or management, has captured many people’s attention.

Housebound Brits are reporting (or noticing) more of nature in their own gardens, or tuning in to watch various wildlife webcams. Bird watching now features high on social media, with people keen to spot their wildlife neighbours on their daily walks.
For others, signs of ecological rejuvenation lend credence to ideas of COVID-19 as “nature’s revenge”. Humanity’s arrogant shortsightedness and efforts to exploit, consume and reorganise the nonhuman world in line with our own economic interests have produced conditions where a virus in China can quickly become a global pandemic. As one biologist in the US remarked: “We did it to ourselves”.

But the case of the emaciated kite sits awkwardly in relation to such narratives. Here, our withdrawal from the world has not created opportunities for a triumphant raptorial recolonisation, rather a material situation of scarcity.

Nature and the virus
The language of return and revenge speaks of “nature” as something external to human lives and spaces. This is despite a wealth of academic research and writing, particularly in geography, that has examined the fact that animals are - and have always been - present in our surroundings. Maccaques are establishing new urban territories in Indian cities. Rare species of hoverfly are living among urban parks and cemeteries in London. And peregrine falcons are inhabiting human architecture with and against design.

Such a notion that nature exists as a domain “out there”, distinct from society “in here”, has long been a feature of the way people, at least in the west, talk about the world. That’s been the case whether expressed via the celebration of distant wildernesses, or the differing perceptions of species as in, or out, of place in certain surroundings.

But the hungry kite suggests a different reality, one where humans, scavenging raptors and viruses are all jumbled together. Such “entanglement” raises important questions about our relationship with and obligation to others. This is particularly pertinent given we are living in an era of human-induced environmental crisis.

Living together
The kite’s situation offers a route beyond this idea of nature as separate to ourselves. For this is a species whose numbers in the UK were first diminished and then later reversed by human action.

Like a lot of animals that have successfully adapted to live alongside humans, the red kite is an opportunist making the most of our activities. When those opportunities are withdrawn, it becomes painfully clear that such a bird can flourish because, not in spite, of our presence. Clearly, the benefit of human withdrawal is unevenly distributed across nonhuman species.

In Turkey, for example, the government has mobilised resources to feed thousands of stray animals in cities, left hungry as a result of quarantine. But the entangled fate of humans and animals extends beyond cities, to places where conservation efforts attempt to promote the recovery of more diverse and lively ecologies.

19/11/2021

19/11/2021