Mental illness and obesity issues can be traced back, in part, to a lack of time spent in nature, a Wangaratta environment forum has heard.
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Deakin University researcher Associate Professor Mardie Townsend was the keynote speaker at Thursday’s North East Environment Forum, telling about 80 people at the event how humans had relied on nature for tens of thousands of years before the modern world.
“Contact with nature is essential for improving emotional, psychological and spiritual health and wellbeing,” she said.
“We have not had time to adapt to living without nature so the high rates of obesity, mental illness, social breakdown and the like are not at all surprising.
“And yet, in modern society, despite its importance for wellbeing, we are losing contact with nature.”
The professor is based as a researcher in Melbourne, but has a 17-acre farm property at Bonnie Doon where she planted more than 1000 trees and built a mudbrick and timber house operating on solar power, tank water and a septic system.
She said rural residents had poorer health than people in cities, which could be linked to economic hardship and loss of services, but also what she called “environmental degradation”.
Professor Townsend said children should be encouraged to connect with nature from a young age.
“For adolescents, parks improve mental and social health during what is often a tumultuous period of life,” she said.
“The whole thing of stranger danger is a real problem in our society, not because strangers are a danger.
“In fact statistics will tell us that about 99 per cent of harm to children comes from members of their family or people well-know to them.
“What we are doing with stranger danger is stopping children gaining access to the natural environment and their natural experiences.”
Professor Townsend also called on more funding to be allocated to researching the impacts of humans being disconnected from the environment and open spaces.