When 80% of us in the UK and more than 50% of the world live in towns and cities, we’re losing our contact and our connection with nature.
This affects our health and wellbeing – studies show how much we need nature for our mental, physical and emotional health, like this one from Stanford University – and by spending very little time in natural and wild spaces, we don’t see what’s happening.
We don’t see the loss of species, disappearing habitats, the leeching of the soil, or the poisoning of our air and water.
As consumers we make this happen. Forests are cut down. We take things out of the ground. We grow things in an unsustainable way. We treat animals badly We dump plastic that ends up in the sea.
We have treated nature as a commodity that we can exploit, instead of a community to which we belong. It’s leading to all sorts of environmental damage and climate change.
We can change the story.
As consumers we can make a different choice: to love and respect nature, by spending time outside more, less time in front of a screen buying stuff we don’t need.
On Black Friday – one of the holiest days in all of shopping – when 14 million people in the UK spend up to £2bn on more ‘stuff’, inspired by US retailer REI’s #optoutside campaign, a few of us went on a connected nature walk instead.
It was a fresh sunny day. We walked in silence through a glade of sycamore and ancient ash, and sat down quietly amongst huge beech trees, feeling the wind on our faces and listening to the birds.
We shared our feelings about Black Friday and shopping.
We easily covered the five-mile walk, stopping for lunch in the low winter sun.
It was a simple, life affirming day. There was nothing to buy, and I feel good about that.
Wild Human 
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