Bringing Nature Home
The “Right to Roam” Campaign is helping to make the British countryside accessible to all. A goal which couldn’t be more important during this time.
Illustration by Alicia Hayden
“Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment-but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading. That’s exactly the opposite of how it was when I was a child”, writes Richard Louv on the first page of his book Last Child in the Woods (2005). This year, learning to appreciate and explore the natural environments local to us have become valuable parts of our cultural routine. However, public access is only allowed throughout a mere eight percent of rural England. This lack of the right to ramble is excluding many people, young and old, from getting the chance to experience nature. And as the research and results on the positive effects that nature has on our health and wellbeing rocket, this couldn’t be a more important time to consider new ways our natural environments can be made more accessible to all.
The island we live on is exceptionally beautiful, teaming with natural spectacles up and down the country. But, with the majority of publicly available natural land in remote and secluded areas, being able to visit and enjoy these spaces has become more exclusive in a time when many people are trying to find and connect with wild places. “All children need nature, not only those whose parents appreciate nature, not only those of a certain economic class or culture or set of abilities. All children, and future generations have a right to a nature-rich future, and the option to share in the responsibilities that come with that right” (Louv 2016: 237).
Nevertheless, the “Right to Roam” campaign, created by illustrator and author Nick Hayes and environmental campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole, is urging the UK government to extend the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The goal is to provide millions more people with access to nature, as well as the liberty to enjoy and participate in activities that are currently prohibited in rural England. Through this, it is hoped that much more of our natural landscape will be made available and with more locations made publicly accessible, more options should emerge for places local and further afield for individuals to visit. However, at the heart of the campaign is the idea of sharing. It’s about “sharing the countryside with each other and with its owners”.
Print by Bethany Sewell.
In today’s pandemic-consumed society, the time is right to unlock more of the English countryside to the public. Through this it is hoped that we can ease the pressure on the “National Health Service by opening up the Natural Health Service, by giving people access to the natural healing properties of the countryside, the health benefits that come with the visceral experience of nature, with access to open space”.
“Urban children, and many suburban children, have long been isolated from the natural world because of the lack of neighbourhood parks, or lack of opportunity- lack of time and money from parents who, might otherwise take them out of the city” (Louv 2005: 65).
As Christmas has come and gone and the year rolls over, let’s remember how we turned to nature in this time, in the hope of building on the foundations that have been laid, of the amounting societal re-connection to nature, that is lurking around the corner. After all, if “we deny our children nature, we deny them beauty” (Louv 2005: 188). Bringing this right to not only wander but wonder back into the lives of many, can help remedy and uplift the nation as we move forward one step at a time.
Thank you so much to Alicia Hayden for the amazing illustration, to check out more of her work visit her website. For further information and references see below.
Print References
LOUV, Richard. 2005: pp. 1, 65,188. Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. London: Atlantic Books.
LOUV, Richard. 2016: pp. 237. Vitamin N the essential guide to a nature rich life. London: Atlantic Books