Did you know that experiencing awe can make us more generous? Or that all human babies, left to their own devices, will eat soil? Or that three-quarters of kids (aged 5-12) in the UK spend less time outdoors than prison inmates? Losing Eden is a powerful and beautifully written survey of the latest scientific research into the vast range of benefits to our minds, bodies, and spirits when we do things outside. It made me want to throw my phone in a drawer and drag my kids outside—so I did!” A developing area of law in the UK called Wild Law, or Earth Jurisprudence, would grant all components of nature legal personality. Loodus on ressurss, mida vajame eelkõige elusana. Nii, nagu raamatu tagaküljel sedastatakse, tahan nüüd tõepoolest ringi korraldada nii linnaruumi, haridussüsteemi, tööl käimist kui ka oma elu. In this lively narrative Dant discusses the key events and topics in the environmental history of the American West, from the Beringia migration, Columbian Exchange, and federal territorial acquisition to post–World War II expansion, resource exploitation, and current climate change issues. Losing Eden is structured around three important themes: balancing economic success and ecological destruction, creating and protecting public lands, and achieving sustainability.

Research by Professor Rich Mitchell of Glasgow University posits that greener neighborhoods could reduce the health gap between the rich and poor and thus make our society more equal – a concept known as equigenesis. Jones writes of the intersection of science, wellness, and the environment, and reveals that in the last decade, scientists have begun to formulate theories of why people feel better after a walk in the woods and an experience with the natural world. She describes the recent data that supports evidence of biological and neurological responses: the lowering of cortisol (released in response to stress), the boost in cortical attention control that helps us to concentrate and subdues mental fatigue, and the increase in activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing the heart and allowing the body to rest.The blueprint exists to help us remake human habitats to incorporate nature. But climate scientists and ecologists tell us that time is running out. We need to restore our relationship with the Earth – to see ourselves as part of the larger ecosystem, not as conquerors of it. Both these books remind us, as we look out of the window at the budding spring, or listen to birds on our daily socially distanced walks, just how very individual, and how personally precious, these experiences can be. Also, one piece of New Zealand legislation has been called a “new dawn in conservation management.” The Te Urewera Act, passed in 2014, granted legal rights to an ancient forest of the same name that is sacred to the Tūhoe people, a tribe of the Māori.

Urgent, accessible, moving [...] A beautifully written, research-heavy study about how nature offers us wellbeing" There is no other time in a human's life course that entails such dramatic change-other than adolescence. And yet this life-altering transition has been sorely neglected by science, medicine and philosophy. Its seismic effects go largely unrepresented across literature and the arts. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo. But Reddy is also a product of her parents’ hard-won social mobility, her father getting help to study in the UK, before the family moved to Canada when she was young. Here, her childhood experiences of Quebec landscapes are transporting: “Into this weird, wild winter wonderland, I was delivered, agog… the space, the nature and the quiet were exactly what an inquisitive, imaginative seven-year-old needed.” Her interest in more shamanic relationships with nature also feed into her heritage, particularly her connections with her mother’s Hindu faith. As a child she had a shrine to Shiva and Lakshmi, and writes about how goddesses are believed to be present in trees, flowers, water, and the sun. When author Lucy Jones was recovering from alcoholism, four elements helped her start anew: psychotherapy, medication, community, and nature. The latter came as a surprise – she found it almost by accident when she moved into a new apartment and became emotionally attached to a pear tree outside her bedroom window. The American West is defined as that which lay west of the 100th parallel, an appropriate definition since that land receives less rainfall than the land to its east and requires a very different land management ethos.Lucy Jones’ Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild had been on my radar for some time, but it was a wonderfully effusive review by the lovely Gabriella over at Merryweather Knitting which pushed me to find a copy. Losing Eden sounded like just the thing for a cold December weekend, and I chose to settle down with it after a long and rambling walk in my local park.