Credit: Julia Neidig
By Julia Neidig, Isabelle Auguelovski, Bosco Lliso, and Unai Pascual.
We live in an epoch in which humans, especially those in urban settlements, have a significant impact over the planet. Yet, cities are also sites mostly affected by climate change. Greening cities, by implementing different nature-based solutions, can help to adapt and mitigate to climate change, while also contributing to a higher quality of life. For example, urban gardens or parks help improving air, water, and soil and can deliver economic revenues through a growing tourism and real estate sector. These benefits are mostly expressed monetarily, nature becomes a part of the economic market. Putting a value on nature is per se not bad. It helps to prioritize specific policies over others. However, values expressed should be mirroring different ways of connecting with nature.
People around the globe are different; and so are their perspectives on what nature is and what it may bring to people. Science and policy are increasingly calling to include values emphasizing meaningful relationships with nature. These so-called relational values are expressed through, for example, sentiments of care, stewardship, and sense of belonging, and the many emotional attachments people retrieve from experiences in and with nature. Despite being difficult to measure in economic terms, they are necessary; they build the base for a community and deep connection with nature. Relational values can thus serve as a leverage for taking collective and individual action for the environment. But, do people really hold these relational values or are they mostly connecting to the instrumental framing of nature dominantly used in political discourses?
To answer this question, we examined urban residents’ connection with nature in the 250.000 resident city Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2012 winner of the European Green Capital Award. While local political discourses follow the narrative of nature as a driver for economic growth and well-being, residents showed a much more nuanced understanding of the value of nature. We used Q-methodology, an approach apt for understanding different perspectives on a conflicted topic and identified four different profiles of how urban residents relate, value, and connect with nature. These profiles range from deep emotional ties with nature towards more community-oriented values of urban greenery. Overall, there was a positive valuation of nature’s contributions to people, as the study participants disagreed with statements expressing negative notions of nature, such as feelings of fear and disgust generated by nature. As residents show a much more complex understanding of nature that reaches beyond instrumental framings, urban planners and decision-makers hence need to move beyond economically driven decision for (urban) nature for a long-term ecological transition that builds upon the diverse and plural needs and perceptions of residents.
Please see below for a video about the results of this project:
Relational Thinking 