Nature participation during pandemic restrictions: results for different socio-economic groups and policy preferences in South Australia

ABSTRACT

Nature participation is known to be an important health and wellbeing contributor. The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented changes to peoples’ lives around the world. Also, in Australia, lockdown restrictions limited the way people lived and resulted in significant impacts on physical and mental wellbeing. This study investigated the characteristics and views of 2500 South Australian residents regarding both regular nature and COVID-19-induced nature participation, related stated health effects and policy preferences for increased nature engagement. Results highlight that being younger, female, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as well as having families with children and living in more socio-economic advantaged and less rural areas was significantly associated with increased nature participation during the pandemic. Being unable to work, for example due to a disability, was significantly related to less nature visits during the pandemic and increased nature access issues. Access issues were also experienced by low income households and those living in socio-economic disadvantaged areas, as well as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander respondents. Future policies would benefit from considering the nature participation needs for all groups of society to alleviate existing inequities, particularly during pandemic restrictions.

KEYWORDS:

• Nature participation
• pandemic
• COVID-19
• South Australia

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to a number of reviewers who provided constructive comments that much improved this manuscript. Part funding and data access for this research was provided by the SA Department of Environment and Water, and research assistance was provided by Adam Wheeler. The authors thank the Department of Environment and Water in South Australia, which made this dataset available for analysis, and Monika Stasiak who helped with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data is available upon request.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 Nature availability refers to the number of green spaces nearby analysed as “percentages of parkland, tree canopy, and open grass within 1.6 km road network distance from home” (Mushangwe et al. 2021, 1). Nature access refers to the accessibility of nature. For instance, green spaces in rural areas may not be accessible because they have uses such as farming, or green spaces may be less accessible to lower income groups if nature park fees are high. Lower accessibility may also occur when parks do not allow for pushchair and wheelchair access or have otherwise unsafe terrain/footpaths for other groups such as the elderly or children. Both terms are linked and sometimes used interchangeable because low nature availability nearby can also cause poorer nature access opportunities. Our survey asked for nature access issues, and as such we only discuss nature access in our study.