lf children lose contact with natura they won't fight for

According to recent research, even if lhe present rate of global decarbonisation were to double, we would still be on course for 6ºC of warming by lhe end of lhe century. Limiting lhe rise to 2ºC, which is lhe target of current policies, requires a six-time reduction in carbon intensity.

A new report shows that lhe UK has lost 20% of its breeding birds since 1966: once common species such as willow tits, lesser spotted woodpeckers and turtle doves have ali but collapsed; even house sparrows have fallen by two thirds. Ash dieback is just one of many terrifying plant diseases, mostly spread by trade. They now threaten our oaks, pines and chestnuts.

While lhe surveys show that lhe great majority of people would like to see lhe living planet protected, few are prepared to take action. This, I think, reflects a second environmental crisis: the removal of children from lhe natural world. The young people we might have expected to lead lhe defence of nature have less and less to do with it.

We don't have to undervalue lhe indoor world, which has its own rich ecosystem, to lament children's disconnection from lhe outdoor world. But lhe experiences lhe two spheres offer are entirely different. There is no substitute for what takes place outdoors, mostly because lhe greatest joys of nature are unplanned. The thought that most of our children will never swim among phosphorescent plankton at night, will never be startled by a salmon leaping, or a dolphin breaching is almost as sad as lhe thought that their children might not have lhe opportunity.

The remarkable collapse of children's engagement with nature - which is even faster than lhe collapse of lhe natural world - is recorded in Richard Louv's book Last Child in lhe Woods, and in a report published recently by lhe National Trust. Since lhe 1970s lhe area in which children may roam without supervision has decreased by almost 90%. ln one generation lhe proportion of children regularly playing in wild places in lhe UK has fallen from more than half to fewer than one in 10. ln the US, in just six years (1997-2003) children with particular outdoor hobbies fell by half. Eleven- to 15-yearolds in Britain now spend, on average, half their waking day in front of a screen.

There are several reasons for this collapse: parents' irrational fear of strangers and rational tear of traffic, the destruction of lhe fortifying lands where previous generations played, lhe quality of indoer entertainment, lhe structuring of children's time, lhe criminalisation of natural play. The great indoors, as a result, has become a far more dangerous place than lhe diminished world beyond.

The rise of obesity and asthma and lhe decline in cardio-respiratory fitness are well documented. Louv also links lhe indoor life to an increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other mental ill health. Research conducted at lhe University of Illinois suggests that playing among trees and grass is associated with a marked reduction in indications of ADHD, while playing indoors appears to increase them. The disorder, Louv suggests, "may be a set of symptoms aggravated by Jack of exposure to nature". Perhaps it's the environment, not the child, that has gane wrong.

ln her famous essay lhe Ecology of lmagination in Childhood, Edith Cobb proposed that contact with nature stimulates creativity. Reviewing lhe biographies of 300 "geniuses", she exposed a common theme: intense experiences of the natural world. in lhe middle age of childhood (between five and 12). Animais and plants, she argued, are among "the figures of speech in lhe rhetoric of play ... which lhe genius, in particular of later life, seems to remember.

Studies in several nations show that children's games are more creative in green places than in concrete playgrounds. Natural spaces encourage fantasy and roleplay, reasoning and observation. The social standing of children there depends less on physical dominance, more on inventiveness and language skills.

And here we meet lhe other great loss. Most of those I know who fight for nature are people who spent their childhoods immersed in it. Without a feel for the texture and function of lhe natural world, without an intensity of engagement almast impossible in the absence of early experience, people will not devote their lives to its protection.

Forest Schools, Outward Bound, Woodcraft Folk, the John Muir-Award, lhe Campaign for Adventure, Natural Connections, family nature clubs and many others are trying to bring children and the natural world back together. But ali of them are fighting forces which, if they cannot be changed, will deprive lhe living planet of lhe wonder and delight that for millennia have attracted children to lhe wilds.

(Adapted from: https://www. th eg uardian. com/commentisfree/20 12/nov /1 9/child ren-losecontact-with-nature