In a mental-health care setting, can nature conservation and health priorities align?

ABSTRACT

There is growing evidence that activities in nature could meet both health and nature conservation goals. Consequently, there is growing interest in collaborations between health and nature conservation organizations. However, interdisciplinary teamwork and collaborations risk failing through lack of common understanding and awareness of desired outcomes. For this project a multidisciplinary team was established and used a case study collaboration between a major conservation organization and health organization to examine perceptions of nature and assess the nature interventions desired by people in both sectors. We found a broad overlap in understanding of nature. However, there was a tendency for conservation outcomes to be overlooked, highlighting a potential risk of disengagement from the conservation partner. We recommend that health-conservation collaborations increase early communication and more strongly promote the interventions that provide tangible, physical benefits to nature.

KEYWORDS:

• Awareness
• biodiversity
• engagement
• intervention
• well-being

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the workshop participants and respondents to the online questionnaire. This manuscript was also improved by the feedback from two anonymous reviewers who commented on an earlier version.

Declaration of interests

At the time of the study all authors were staff at the two organizations involved.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the project was provided by RSPB.

Notes on contributors

Joelene Hughes

Joelene Hughes is a Senior Conservation Scientist at RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, twitter @RSPBScience

Chris De Ruyck

Chris De Ruyck was a senior research assistant at RSPB, he has since moved on and is currently a PhD student at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba.

Tobit Emmens

Tobit Emmens is the Managing Partnerin Research & Development at the Devon Partnership NHS Trustand an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University of ExeterMedical School, twitter @tobit_e

Richard B. Bradbury

Richard B. Bradbury is Head of Environmental Research at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, twitter @RSPBScience

Rebecca Jefferson

Rebecca Jefferson is a Senior Conservation Scientist at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, twitter @DrRJefferson.