Public views on the challenges facing policy and decision makers to manage the natural environment have been laid bare in a major national project.
Dr Robert Fish from the School of Anthropology and Conservation led the project whilst at the University of Exeter. The project report reveals that people value their natural environment for a range of cultural and health benefits and its contribution to human livelihoods and prosperity.
As well as being important for economic activity, the natural environment is viewed as a place to enhance relationships with family and friends; encourage physical exercise; enable inner peace and mental calm; reconnect with the past; and find meaning in life.
Robert Fish (5th from left) with dialogue partners NERC, DEFRA, Natural England and Sciencewise (University of Exeter)
A key finding of the report is that people support the need for making a strong economic case for the environment, yet they emphasise we should be careful not to think about the natural environment as a ‘bottomless pit’, but as something that helps us to function and therefore we need to cherish and look after it.
The ‘Naturally Speaking…’ public dialogue process was run in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Sciencewise, the UK’s national centre for public dialogue in policy making involving science and technology issues.
Public dialogue (Eirini Saratsi)