Moth trapping at Kingcombe Centre, West Dorset, with Peter Marren
People Need Nature has two primary aims:
- To promote for the benefit of the public the conservation protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment by promoting biological diversity
- To advance the education of the public in the conservation protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment
To achieve those aims we will:
- promote the value and need for nature in people’s lives.
- work to promote the value of nature through art, music, poetry, and literature.
- Inspire and create activities to celebrate the importance of nature and the need to protect nature.
- Gather evidence to highlight the value and importance of nature, and the risk to it.
- Create new partnerships with individuals, communities and organisations, to raise awareness and celebrate the value of nature.
- Advocate a fresh approach to valuing and protecting nature, and to influence and drive policy through this fresh approach.
PNN will promote the value of and need for nature in people’s lives, in England and Wales. The goods and services nature provides to people are increasingly well described – the absorption of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the provision of nutritious food, providing clean drinking water; and pollinators to ensure crops grow are just some examples of these services. Nature also provides people with physical and mental health and wellbeing. Although it is more difficult to quantify what these benefits are, evidence is beginning to accumulate about the benefits of a nature-rich environment to people’s health and wellbeing.
Nature provides people with spiritual sustenance, joy, wonder, inspiration, and opportunities for reflection, contemplation and solace. These are the most intangible benefits that nature provides to people and are often ignored or undervalued in decision-making. People Need Nature will work to promote the value of nature to people for these intangible benefits.
People Need Nature also recognises that the benefits that nature provides people are particularly affected by decisions in the public realm. These include the way society views and values nature in publicly owned places, the effective regulation of activities that particularly affect nature, and the impact of public funding on nature. PNN will work to promote the value of nature in the public realm as a means to more effectively protect nature for all of society.
PNN will work to promote these intangible values of nature through these three strands: the spiritual value of nature; nature as inspiration; and the application of these ethics to nature in the public realm.
By promoting the less obvious benefits of nature to society, People Need Nature will enable members of the public to enhance their understanding and appreciation of the value of nature. PNN will create benefit for the general public by helping to reconnect people with nature, through the wonder, awe, joy, inspiration and opportunities for contemplation and reflection that nature provide.