Access to Nature

While other objectives in this Strategy are designed to bring nature to people, we also want to bring people to nature. Access to the natural environment is important not just because of the benefits it can bring to people’s health and wellbeing, but also because of the benefits to nature that come from communities and individuals who appreciate, understand, value and look after it.

Experiences of nature can be fleeting and incidental, like hearing birdsong on a walk to the bus stop, or extended and deliberately sought, such as by taking a long walk on Hampstead Heath or watching birds along the Regent’s Canal. Allotments, community gardens and private gardens can also provide areas for people to experience nature. Looking after the natural world also provides opportunities for exercise and socialising via volunteering and community gardening. There are also opportunities, and a role to play, for schools and other education settings, whether that be learning about nature in an outdoor classroom or providing space for nature in and around the school grounds. Alongside increasing biodiversity, a diversity of opportunities for people to experience it will help make nature part of everyone’s everyday lives.

There are areas within Camden where residents lack sufficient access to the natural environment – defined as more than 1km walking distance from a publicly accessible Borough or Metropolitan Site of Importance for Nature Conservation. We know also know that green space access is not just a matter of location, but of inequality. A Government diversity review in 2008 identified disabled people, black and minority ethnic groups and young people as having significantly lower levels of access to nature. These groups represent a significant proportion of Camden’s diverse population. More recent surveys, undertaken by Natural England, show a similar pattern with respect to ethnicity , and that COVID-19 exacerbated existing trends in inequality of access to natural space. Limitations to the reasons for leaving your property disproportionately disadvantaged those without private outdoor space, and for those without local green space avoiding public transport became a further problem.

There is no easy solution to these issues. By making what natural spaces there are more accessible, inclusive and welcoming; making green spaces more natural and grey places more green; providing more opportunities for engagement with the natural world; and importantly trying to understand the reasons behind the inequalities in access, we can try to improve the quality of life through nature for as many people as possible. Targeting action where it will have the greatest benefit for areas of socioeconomic deprivation will be a key part of this.