Importance of nature

     Pressures of daily life mean we’re increasingly detached from nature even though nature in many forms is there for us. Yes, like love, nature is all around and it’s free!!! Even watching wildlife programmes online or on the TV costs, but it’s still no substitute for experiencing nature direct. You don’t have to go on safari for fulfilling experiences of nature. Great as those places are, nature is also on our doorstep all year round.

     Children especially have a natural affinity with nature. Evidence is growing of how regular contact with nature boosts new born children’s healthy development, supports their physical and mental health and instills abilities to assess risk as they grow. It even underpins their informal learning and academic achievement. For children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity. Its like an amazing list of features no other product can ever match.

      Nature performs major miracles for us every day, from giving us great views and helping to prevent floods to regulating the weather and keeping us supplied with clean water, fresh air and plentiful food. Trees in towns cool us in summer and trap air pollution. How can we ever accurately value bees pollinating apples or healthy soils and forests holding back flood waters? Bees pollinate our crops, putting food on our table and in our stomachs.

      However smart we’ve become as a species, without diverse nature and a healthy functioning natural environment we’ll be as lost as a tourist without a map app. It’s easy to think nature will always be with us. But such wishful thinking depends on whether we let nature go to the wall or act to repair, restore and maintain it.