Public views on the challenges facing policy and decision makers to manage the natural environment have been laid bare in a major national project.<\/p>\n
The School’s most recent appointment,\u00a0Dr Robert Fish<\/a>,\u00a0led the project whilst at the University of Exeter <\/i><\/a>. The project report reveals that people value their natural environment for a range of cultural and health benefits and its contribution to human livelihoods and prosperity.<\/p>\n As well as being important for economic activity, \u00a0the natural environment is viewed as a place to enhance relationships with family and friends; encourage physical exercise; enable inner peace and mental calm; reconnect with the past; and find meaning in life.<\/p>\n A key finding of the report <\/i><\/a>is that people support the need for making a strong economic case for the environment, yet it\u00a0emphasises that we should be careful not to think about the natural environment as a \u2018bottomless pit\u2019, but as something that helps us to function: therefore, we need to cherish and look after it.<\/p>\n The \u2018Naturally Speaking\u2026\u2019 <\/em>public dialogue process was run in partnership with the\u00a0Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) <\/i><\/a>, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) <\/i><\/a>\u00a0and Sciencewise <\/i><\/a>, the UK\u2019s national centre for public dialogue in policy-making involving science and technology issues.<\/p>\n (Picture by Luke Warm.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"