Nature and psychological well-being (ENRR533)

Nature and access to it is often associated exclusively with the countryside and rural areas. In fact just over a fifth of the population of England live and work in rural areas and so access to nature is much more likely to be within urban or semi-urban surroundings. The natural world is made up of rocks and soils as well as plants and animals and their supporting habitats. Given the built-up, industrialised and technological context of many contemporary lives, it can be easy to forget that the natural world provides the physical and spiritual framework within which we exist.