Showing posts with label nature deficit disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature deficit disorder. Show all posts

Friday, May 12, 2023

Urban Parks Need Help

 CPAWS-BC (Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society) "wants to hear your thoughts on their plans to roll out new national urban parks that will connect Canadians to nature in the city -- A place where we can go to soak up the mental and physical health benefits of spending time in nature, and where pockets of natural areas provide an oasis for urban wildlife and plants".

In these days of frenetic pave-and-build for housing, with municipalities crowding high-rises and multiplexes into every corner of town, we certainly need to "protect more pockets of natural areas (that) provide an oasis for urban wildlife and plants". Let those pockets be deep and wide ... for wildlife and plants, and for human health.

 (See https://treewatchvictoria.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-story-in-garden.html )

To speak up for expansion of urban parks in Canada, see the CPAWS survey: (BY MAY 16TH!)

https://action.cpaws.org/page/127577/action/1?ea.url.id=6387724&forwarded=true


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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Childhood Pastorale: Children, Nature, and the Preservation of Landscape

Why do we need trees? For cleansing the air, shading the ground, producing oxygen, housing the birds, insects and epiphytes ... yes. But also, to make the world nicer for children, who would otherwise suffer from the emergence of "nature deficit disorder." Nature deficit disorder is the complex of physical and psychological problems which includes obesity, ADHD, depression and behaviourial problems, sense of meaninglessness and disconnection from the rest of the biosphere. It's a complicated complex of issues, connected to the preservation of landscapes in cities and in the countryside. For an airing of the issues, check out:

CHILDHOOD PASTORALE: CHILDREN, NATURE, AND THE PRESERVATION OF LANDSCAPE,
by Barbara Julian,
Ninshu Press,
115 pages, ill., 18.95.

Order at naturalreviews@hotmail.com, or buy a copy at Overleaf Cafe-Bookshop, 1105 Pandora Avenue (at Cook), or other selected bookshops.

Childhood Pastorale weaves together interviews with seniors and youth, with a survey of research on "nature deficit disorder." It dips into the rich historic canon of nature poetry and prose, and also traces trends in greenspace conservation and outdoor recreation worldwide . It examines the relationship between children's health and their access to free play in natural surroundings, and will be of interest to naturalists, educators, parents, recreation specialists and city planners.

"... the more de-natured we allow childhood to become and the more divorced people are from other life forms, the less we will know what we are missing and the faster the disconnection will spread. It is not only a gift for individual children themselves to be given time in nature, it is an insurance policy for the sanity of our race and a boost for the likelihood of our protecting other species."
-- from Childhood Pastorale

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Child's Play In Natural Settings

Artist Robert Bateman and partners have given local impetus to Richard Louv's campaign against "nature deficit disorder," the complex of problems that result from children growing up cut off from nature. Bateman has started the "Get To Know" project to help kids know about the plants and animals living wild around us. See the "animal diary" and "cool facts" on his site: www.gettoknow.ca.

The reasons an alarming number of kids grow up cut off from nature include: loss of green space within cities, reluctance of parents to let kids play unsupervised, too much emphasis on structured, formal, often competitive recreation programs, too much time spent with easily-accessed electronic media: computer games, ipods, TV, DVDs etc. Childhood used to be a time of "freedom to roam." Now it isn't. "Be back by dinner," used to be the only rule. Now it seems that no one can go anywhere without a cell phone and an MPV player, without constantly checking in with care-givers, without being driven (or cycling with parents; never alone). We fear the super-sizing which our urbanized environment entails: super high towers, super dense crowds, super big malls. So, fearfully we keep our kids chained to electronic gadgets so that we know where they are in this scary world we have built. But in their chains they are becoming obese, short-sighted, bored, dependent, cut off from natural rhythms, natural light, seasons, weather, other life forms.

For this reason the past few years have seen a spurt in organizations formed to re-unite kids with nature -- such as "Get To Know" and the Children and Nature Network -- but they can only succeed if nature remains there to be known by the kids who now grow up within cities. It all depends upon preserving large swathes of green space which can be easily accessed by those too young to drive out to the wilderness.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Stop the Presses: Trees Enhance Children's Health!

Recent studies indicate many ways in which an extensive urban treescape enhances children's health -- to no surprise to nature-lovers. Because the incidence of childhood asthma has increased dramatically in the past 20 years, it is helpful to know that a study published in 2008 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health finds that "trees may help prevent asthma by changing local air quality or by encouraging children to play outdoors." The researchers estimate that "an increase in tree density of 343 trees per square kilometer would be associated with a 29% lower prevalence of early childhood asthma."

Another new study (in the Journal of Attention Disorders) has "found that children concentrated better after walking in a park setting as compared to either a downtown or residential setting and that the effect of walking in a park on concentration helped close the gap between children with ADHD and those without ADHD with regard to the concentration measure used and that the effect was similar to that of two common types of ADHD medication. In addition, the authors found that children rated their experiences more positively in the park setting than in the other two settings. " No surprise there; we would all prefer a fragrant, dappled shady lane to walking through a dense overbuilt concrete environment.

We often hear that childhood obesity is on the rise thanks to the sedentary habits of TV and computer-gazing kids on couches. Now the journal Ophthalmology tells us that "12-year-olds with the highest levels of near-work activity and lowest levels of outdoor activity were two to three times more likely than their peers to develop myopia."

There is nothing in these studies that common sense hasn't always made clear. The thing now is to make sure the "great outdoors" is still great in our cities, enough so that kids will be drawn into it because it is extensive, inviting and full of interesting encounters with bushes, animals, tree-forts, beaches, mud holes, rock, fields and lots of lovely creepy-crawlies.