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Book part
Publication date: 5 November 2021

Cecil C. Konijnendijk

Although people have always been aware of the role and importance of green space, trees, and other nature in cities, wider recognition and policy support is of a much more recent…

Abstract

Although people have always been aware of the role and importance of green space, trees, and other nature in cities, wider recognition and policy support is of a much more recent date, for example in the context of current climate and public health challenges. The nature-based solutions concept has emerged as a strong, recent attempt for “mainstreaming” of nature in political, planning, and economic areas. Starting from a description of the role of nature in cities, this chapter introduces the nature-based solutions concept and its current spread and implementation in an urban context. It also raises some questions about the next steps in implementing the concept, perhaps moving away from too much focus on a utilitarian view of nature and ecosystem and toward considering nature as a framework for all planning and decision-making.

Details

Nature-Based Solutions for More Sustainable Cities – A Framework Approach for Planning and Evaluation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-637-4

Keywords

Abstract

Details

When Reproduction Meets Ageing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-747-8

Book part
Publication date: 4 November 2014

Sonya L. Jakubec, Don Carruthers Den Hoed and Heather Ray

The benefits of green space and nature are increasingly recognized and translated into public health policy and practice. Alongside this trend, inclusion of all people into parks…

Abstract

Purpose

The benefits of green space and nature are increasingly recognized and translated into public health policy and practice. Alongside this trend, inclusion of all people into parks and nature has been an important area of parks and recreation practice. Nature inclusion for those with disabilities, youth, seniors and immigrants has become a focus of Alberta Parks in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism Parks and Recreation in Western Canada. This study was designed to examine the experiences of participants in two such government-supported inclusive nature activities, including day trips and more extensive week-end or week-long nature experiences for adults with disabilities and caregivers.

Design/methodology/approach

Two phases of qualitative data collection occurred as part of a pilot project. The first phase was comprised of eight semi-structured interviews (four adults with cognitive, developmental, emotional/mental health or physical disabilities and four caregivers). In a second phase 27 participants (also adults with a range of disabilities and paid, voluntary or family caregivers) engaged in a semi-structured reflective writing process during the existing nature activities (day trip, week-end or week-long inclusive nature experiences).

This is one of the first studies in the field to embrace the benefits of adopting both a human capabilities approach, emphasizing that human diversity is fundamental to equality and development, and an ecopsychological view, with a concern for individual perspectives and well-being as fundamentally interconnected to the environment.

Findings

Three dominant qualitative themes of inclusive nature experiences emerged: ‘Sensory Activation’, ‘Reimagined Social Relations’ and ‘Reinvented Self’. Inclusion in nature for both caregivers and adults with disabilities holds promise as an activity that can support mental well-being through a reimagining and equalizing of relationships and one’s experience of self in the physical environment.

Practical implications

Such evidence is important for decision-making and programme development among collaborative partners, including not-for profit disability-related recreation organizations and both public health and parks departments of government. In particular, the findings highlight areas for further activity development targeting those with sensory impairment and relationship disharmony.

Details

Environmental Contexts and Disability
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-262-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 August 2014

Myae Han, Nancy Edwards and Carol Vukelich

The purpose of this chapter is to suggest ways for early childhood teachers to teach science content knowledge, vocabulary, respect, and an appreciation for nature while children…

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to suggest ways for early childhood teachers to teach science content knowledge, vocabulary, respect, and an appreciation for nature while children engage in meaningful outdoor nature activities. Science concepts such as nature, life cycle, observation, and experimentation can be woven into outdoor activities as children pretend to be nature scientists. Intentional planning provides teachers with the opportunity to integrate science content knowledge and vocabulary learning during the nature study. The careful selection of content vocabulary related to the scientific process and science content knowledge helps children learn new words in meaningful and developmentally appropriate ways. This chapter provides several examples of outdoor nature activities with science content knowledge and vocabulary embedded into each activity.

Details

Learning Across the Early Childhood Curriculum
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-700-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 21 November 2022

James H. Rutherford

A multidimensional understanding of human nature based on biology can provide a very useful framework of analysis and bring some understanding and coherence to the very fragmented…

Abstract

A multidimensional understanding of human nature based on biology can provide a very useful framework of analysis and bring some understanding and coherence to the very fragmented perspectives within moral, political, and legal philosophy. A useful four-part framework of analysis can be based on the evolution of the brain as described by Paul MacLean (1973, 1990) and Sir John Eccles (1989). A similar pattern of development of our mental and moral capacities through experience in childhood was also described by Jean Piaget (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1981). This multidimensional understanding of human nature considers the individual, social, rational, and metaphysical perspectives. Because this four-part multidimensional understanding of human nature is based on a naturalized epistemology related to the development of our mental capacities in both evolution and through experience, this pattern can be seen across a wide variety of disciplines. Medical ethics, US constitutional democracy, and legal philosophy will be used as examples of the usefulness of this multidimensional understanding of human nature.

Details

Biopolitics at 50 Years
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-108-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 November 2018

C. Tyler DesRoches

No longer do resource economists merely regard nature as a collection of inert materials to be improved by human labor and manufactured capital; rather, nature is, to an…

Abstract

No longer do resource economists merely regard nature as a collection of inert materials to be improved by human labor and manufactured capital; rather, nature is, to an increasing extent, taken to be a mindless producer of economically valuable ecosystem goods and services. Instances of natural capital are frequently said to produce such goods and services in a manner that is relatively detached from human agency. This article argues that, historically, the idea of nature as a systematic original producer capable of self-generation is hardly novel. The eighteenth-century roots of this idea can be found in the writings of Carl Linnaeus who depicted the whole Earth and all of its productions as the “oeconomy of nature.”

Details

Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-431-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 August 2006

Raymond Murphy

This chapter shows that it is important to avoid descending to either an extreme of naturalizing disasters or sociologizing them. Safety depends on the appropriateness of social…

Abstract

This chapter shows that it is important to avoid descending to either an extreme of naturalizing disasters or sociologizing them. Safety depends on the appropriateness of social constructions for nature's constructions, whether inadvertent or based on sophisticated risk assessment. Worse-case scenarios need to be taken into account even if improbable, because assessments of their probability and timing have serious limitations. This chapter demonstrates that modern technology and organization can increase vulnerability to natural disasters. Antimodern communities avoided disaster in this case by stepping off the treadmill of production and practicing technological triage. The challenge for modern communities is to make an ecologically reflexive triage.

Details

Community and Ecology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-410-2

Book part
Publication date: 5 November 2021

David Rojas-Rueda

Urban green space can be viewed as a preventative public health measure. Nature contributes to health through disease prevention, disease management, and well-being (physical…

Abstract

Urban green space can be viewed as a preventative public health measure. Nature contributes to health through disease prevention, disease management, and well-being (physical, mental, and social) promotion. Those contributions are based on improvement in health determinants. Nature and green spaces have been related to more physical activity, restoration and less stress, more social capital, and ecosystem services such as better air quality, less traffic noise, less heat island effects, more biodiversity, among others. Nature, vegetation, and green spaces have also been associated with better mental health, immune system, metabolic system, pregnancy outcomes, reduced cardiovascular disease, and premature mortality. This chapter presents the connections between nature and health, describing how nature impacts key health determinants, how those health determinants are associated with health outcomes (i.e. diseases, injuries, deaths), and provides examples of urban nature interventions that have been related to public health.

Details

Nature-Based Solutions for More Sustainable Cities – A Framework Approach for Planning and Evaluation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-637-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2012

Joachim Scholz

Purpose – This paper explores a pervasive yet little explored myth that underlies much marketing theory and practice: living in harmony with nature. While previous research…

Abstract

Purpose – This paper explores a pervasive yet little explored myth that underlies much marketing theory and practice: living in harmony with nature. While previous research typically presents “harmony with nature” as something consumers can easily find by returning to a benevolent “Mother Nature,” the current research problematizes how “harmony with nature” is discursively constructed in contemporary advertisements.

Methodology/approach – This paper traces the visual genealogy of contemporary advertising imagery to explore different discursive constructions of the harmony myth. Over 600 advertisements published in Backpacker magazine between 2007 and 2009 form the database for this research.

Findings – Drawing on a more nuanced understanding of the organic framework of nature, and representations of nature in the artistic genre of Romantic landscape painting, the current research finds that divergent images of an “Arcadian” and “Dynamic” nature give rise to different constructions of harmony that are fraught with tension. Harmony might be as easily lost as it is found, or it might never be achieved at all.

Originality/value of paper – This research shows that living in harmony with nature is less harmonic than it seems. It extends previous research that adopted an implicitly unproblematic understanding of finding harmony in nature by uncovering nuances and contradictions within contemporary manifestations of the harmony myth. Implications for marketers and for our understanding of the human/nature relationship more generally are offered.

Details

Research in Consumer Behavior
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-022-2

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Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2022

Azize Serap Tunçer and Sinan Bulut

The relationship between nature and humans has changed as the human mind dominates nature. Humans have started to break away from nature, the whole of which they are a part…

Abstract

The relationship between nature and humans has changed as the human mind dominates nature. Humans have started to break away from nature, the whole of which they are a part. However, since environmental problems are among the most important agenda items that need to be resolved, the search for alternatives to the current ecological, social and economic understanding has accelerated. Today, environmental organisations that tend to protect nature are increasing, and the approach to nature–human harmony is gaining importance. Starting from the acceptance that the problem should be defined well in order to solve the problem in this study, a general impression of environmental movements within the scope of the relevant literature is presented. In order to ensure the sustainability of the environment, it is necessary to reorganise children's education support policies, to reduce consumption habits that may cause environmental pollution, to encourage a simple and environmentally friendly life and to raise awareness of children on these issues. Based on these ideas, national and international environmental organisations have implemented many educational projects for children in order to produce common policies for the protection and improvement of the environment.

Details

Being a Child in a Global World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-240-0

Keywords

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