Country Living Magazine campaign highlights dangers of isolating children from natural world
Country Living Magazine has launched a campaign in the wake of alarming research that shows UK children are losing touch with the natural environment, a loss that could damage their wellbeing and the future of the countryside.
The Bring Back the Nature Table campaign, sponsored by Jordans Cereals, is designed to reconnect children with nature by encouraging all UK schools to set up nature tables. Nature tables, complete with sticky buds, catkins and pussy willow, were once common in primary school classrooms.
Country Living Magazine says the loss of nature tables is just the tip of the iceberg and more needs to be done to raise awareness of health and societal costs of children's isolation from the natural world.
According to research recently conducted by the magazine, less than half (45%) of all UK parents and grandparents surveyed took their children out for a regular walk. And few (48%) actually took the time to stop and look at wildflowers or insects with their children. 31% of those parents and grandparents surveyed said their children wouldn't even know what pussy willow was.
It is absolutely horrendous to realize that so many children today have no idea as to nature and also as to whether their food comes from. They think that wool grows on trees and that eggs come in cartons from the supermarket. To connect sheep with wool and chickens with eggs does not even enter their minds. This is sad in the extreme. We have been mollycoddling children for far too long and even children in the countryside, those that are not directly connected with farming or forestry have no idea often either and are as ignorant in matter countryside as are their town and city cousins.
The magazine has also enlisted the expertise of GP and strategic health advisor for Natural England, Dr William Bird, who says children have lost so much contact with the natural environment that they are more familiar with cartoon characters than British wildlife.
"Getting out into green spaces is absolutely vital for children, for their mental state and wellbeing," says Dr Bird. "We have an innate connection with the natural environment and this means that nature has the ability to recharge us. But over the years, nature has been squeezed out of school timetables and parents and grandparents have stopped taking children on nature walks in parks, fields and woodland. I think the Bring Back the Nature Table campaign is really important in helping children re-connect with this beneficial health boost."
Dr Bird says research has shown that green spaces can even help ease aggression and prevent bullying in the playground.
"Studies have actually shown that green spaces can boost a child's concentration and calm them down. On an asphalt playground, it will be the biggest and loudest child that dominates," says Dr Bird. "But if you let children play around trees and bushes, they will congregate around the more creative one - the one who's catching tadpoles or building a den."
Country Living Magazine's editor, Susy Smith says, "Country Living Magazine is concerned by the increasing number of today's children who are missing out on the benefits that nature provides to their health and mental wellbeing. We hope the Bring Back the Nature Table campaign will help children to reconnect with nature and not only reach their full potential, but also help safeguard the countryside for future generations."
Bill Jordans, founder of Jordans Cereals and Pensthorpe Nature Reserve, who was greatly influenced by nature as a child, says, "Growing up at our family flour mill in the heart of rural Bedfordshire, I saw first hand the damage that intensive arable farming had done. At Jordans we started selling organic cereal in the early 1970s and put specific wildlife-friendly farming practices at the heart of our company in the mid 1980s. My hope now is that by encouraging children to engage with the natural world they will do a much better job of looking after our countryside in the future than my generation has done in the past!"
The campaign is also supported by environmental education charity, the Field Studies Council.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008
Bring Back the Nature Table
