From: slider@anashram.com

Our disconnection with nature has caused untold damage to the planet and ourselves. Through rewilding we can re-establish our rightful place and
thrive along with wildlife

For nigh on 200,000 years, Homo sapiens have existed as nomadic hunter-gatherers, a time period that equates to over 99% of human history. These people were deeply aware of and connected to their environments,
relying directly upon them and living fully immersed within them. It is
only since the onset of the agricultural age 10,000 years ago that we
began cultivating and domesticating wild nature, and with revolutionary consequences.

In a handful of generations, everything dramatically changed. Society
became increasingly industrialised and urbanised, with most of us deeply disconnected from the natural world we evolved in. Today, our entire socio-economic system is designed from a dominant worldview of ecological disconnection. It’s an outlook that we are somehow different and separate
from nature, but also in control of it. We have come to believe that the natural world exists only to serve human needs.

This affects our lives in many complex ways, including our lifestyle,
health, behaviour and relationships, from spheres of society to our
resource use, buildings and urban design, and our economic, education and health systems.

https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/explore-rewilding/what-is-rewilding/reconnecting-with-nature

What do we mean exactly by ​‘connection to nature’? It’s the extent to which people see themselves as part of nature, an emotional affinity
towards the natural world and a subjective sense of connection with it. There’s also a certain level of awareness required to feel connected. If
we are only vaguely aware of or even oblivious to the birdsong, the
scurrying squirrels and the gentle breeze as we take a walk outdoors,
perhaps it’s because we are preoccupied and unaccustomed to paying full attention to our surroundings. There’s clearly a limit then to how
connected we can feel to them.

Losing our natural cycles

Most of the human population, currently 77% but rapidly increasing, now
lives in urban areas. They don’t rely on the immediate ecosystem around
them but on complex and industrialised processes to provide for their
daily needs. People in modern industrial societies spend 90% of their time indoors in artificial, temperature-controlled environments. Their lives
are devoid of natural cycles, birdsong, bubbling streams and the freshest
air. Even people living in rural areas are not immune to the disconnecting effects of increasingly technology-mediated, busy modern life.

There is a wealth of research that illustrates how disconnection from
nature is linked to mental and physical illness, from anxiety, depression
and poor body image in women, to heart disease, fatigue and lowered life expectancy to name but a few. Nature-deficit disorder is a recognised
condition in children, which has been identified as a contributor to
obesity, depression, ADHD, behavioural problems and lowered cognitive
ability.

Communities that are disconnected from nature show higher levels of
conflict, violence, crime and racial tension. On a societal level, a
culture of disconnection feeds an alienated consumer culture and the
continued over-exploitation of nature required to fuel it. Not only that,
this disconnect has been shown to be a major barrier to transitioning away
from this way of life to a just and sustainable future. People who are
less connected to nature are less likely to take positive action, whether
they are an average citizen making lifestyle choices or a top politician
making policies.

How do we reconnect?

It’s clear that an important part of reversing the trend of accelerating ecological disaster we are heading towards is reconnecting with nature.
Where do we start? How do we reconnect?

Getting outdoors into nature is an obvious starting point, and this will
have immediate positive well-being and health effects. However, research
shows that in order to really connect, we need intentional rather than
passive interactions. We connect with our senses, emotions, intuition, imagination, spirituality, and creativity. And we need to intentionally
engage with the natural world using these faculties rather than simply
being outside or taking a walk. This may require a different way of being
than we are perhaps accustomed to in our busy daily lives.

Not everyone has easy access to nature though, so part of this work is
about creating more equity in opportunities for connection. Access to
nature can be affected by economic status, ethnic background, geographical location and how we design the world around us both physically and
socially. Providing opportunities for those with the least access, and rewilding residential and urban spaces to include nature rather than
exclude it will support this.

Biophilic cities such as Singapore, which are welcoming nature back into
urban spaces, offer much inspiration here. Research demonstrates that more green space, natural features and natural design lead to a deeper sense of connection to nature and all of the associated benefits. These benefits
include the reverse of all of the ills experienced from disconnection:
improved mental and physical health, more cohesive and peaceful
communities and a more sustainable society.

In rural areas this could include increasing nature-friendly farming
practices, and rewilding areas of land where it’s appropriate and has the support of local communities. If there is more wildlife and wildness
around, then our experiences in nature will be richer and more meaningful.
Just picture the difference between walking through an industrially-farmed green desert compared with a wildlife-rich landscape with sightings of
eagles and beavers.

On a societal level, supportive policies, legislation and financial
support can help to make all of this possible. By including nature in our systems both the human and nonhuman worlds benefit. Imagine a health
system that took the healing power of nature to heart, with green oases as health centres; an education system that recognised how crucial children’s connection with nature is to their development and learning; and an
economic system that took natural cycles and ecological limits into
account.

For most of us though, it will simply start with birdsong, squirrels and
gentle breezes, and a more mindful approach to experiencing them.

### - can remember this starting quite a few years ago with it gradually becoming fashionable to let gardens (and then whole protected areas)
become overrun with more natural species of plants & wild flowers,
basically because it's good for the insects and the wildlife that lives
off them such as butterflies, bees & birds?

next thing, people in built-up areas are getting into it too, planting
window boxes, and even flat-rooftops, with species of wild plants &
flowers as opposed to all those rather neat little victorian rows of
stylised gardens decorated with specialised exotic plants that had
otherwise become the norm: the 'rewilding' movement was taking-off...

the above website being a modern (commercial) venture of same - i.e., give
us all yer money and we'll do everything for ya's kinda thing - but
potentially revealing, if nada else, the 'shape' that movement is
beginning to now take as the 'appeal' grows/expands... an appeal to have
MORE natural things (like Nature heh) in our daily lives because it's good
for the planet and ultimately good for us humans too! thus it's got great intuitive appeal!

cities of the future, for example, might be better balanced with Nature as
a result, become smaller with more open spaces and parklands between
buildings; to let more of narture IN to our lives instead of walling it
all off behind fences and cultivated enclosures, of people being 'part' of Nature as opposed to being separate from it by dint of them having, rather arrogantly, 'risen-above' it...

the 'term' rewilding being rather fortunate in many ways (which is what
made me smile + think of sharing it) in that via lucid WILDing this could
be said to be a 're-WILDing' of the human race too?

iow: i likes that heh... the planet is getting a make-over and being
'rewilded' (because it's good for the planet) and us human beings aren't
being left out of the equation either!

we're coincidentally getting re-WILDed as well lol :)))

(ain't sayin' it absolutely will or anything, only that it's a nice 'coincidence of terms' that compliment each other + stretches/widens the
whole concept of rewilding to include us humans too)

a rather nice idea! (hey put on the mr blue-sky record, am ready to dance! grinz) ;)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)