30 Days Wild: who benefits most?

Abstract

Purpose: There is a need to provide interventions to improve well-being that are accessible and cost-effective. Interventions to increase engagement with nature are coming to the fore. The Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild Campaign shows promise as a large-scale intervention for improving public engagement with nature for well-being. Design: 273 people fully participated in a repeated measures evaluation comparing baseline measures of nature connection, health, happiness and conservation behaviours with measures post-30 days and 3 months. Results: There were sustained and significant increases for scores in nature connection, health, happiness and conservation behaviours. Those with lower scores at baseline in nature connection, conservation behaviours and happiness showed the most benefit. Older participants and those with higher baseline scores in conservation behaviours were the most likely to sustain their engagement with the campaign. Research Limitations: Although the design and defined outcomes meet criteria for public health interventions, the self-reported measures, self-selecting sample and attrition are limitations. Value: The significant and sustained effects of the campaign on health, happiness and nature connection and conservation, makes this a promising intervention for improving human and nature's well-being. The large community sample and naturalistic setting for the intervention makes these data relevant to future interventions and policy.

A Measure of Nature Connectedness for Children and Adults: Validation, Performance, and Insights

“…The proportion of high scores raises concerns about the utility of the scale for detecting differences, during pre-post evaluations for example. However, the NCI has also been shown to successfully identify such changes and replicate findings found with existing measures of connectedness to nature [10]. Furthermore, rather than a distribution skewed and curtailed at the ceiling, a non-unimodal distribution can be observed with a peak in the frequency of scores around the mid-point, with a second peak of very high scores.…”

“…The weighting, characteristics of the index and relationship to pro-environmental behaviors suggest the population mean is currently insufficient for a sustainable future and a score in the upper quartile, even of 100, can be targeted. Finally, there are also good indications that the NCI can identify changes in nature connectedness following interventions through baseline, post and follow-up measurement [10].…”

“…Further development work included use of the NCI in initial large cohort studies evaluating applied interventions. Here the NCI has shown that it is sensitive to increases in nature connectedness brought about by applied interventions to engage people with nature [10]. The NCI was initially tested and developed through use in the MENE survey.…”

“…The similarity of the data helps confirm that the scale can be used face to face and online. Data from the evaluation of 30 Days Wild [10] is also included as it is the first use of the scale in an applied context, as one might expect this reveals that participants volunteering to take part in a large-scale nature-based campaign have higher levels of nature connectedness than the population mean. This helps demonstrate the utility of the measure.…”

“…Given the apparent benefits to well-being and influence on pro-nature behaviors, nature connectedness is emerging as an important construct that can help develop a more sustainable relationship with the natural world. Importantly, nature connectedness is defined, can be measured and increased through large-scale campaigns [10].…”