“Years of collective research illustrates the negative effect caused by the growing disconnect with nature… Understanding the important connection we have with nature and our environment is truly one of life’s most important lessons.”
- www.
thenaturezone.net

Nature Deficit Disorder, a term coined by Richard Louve, in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, describes the current norm where youth are profoundly disconnected from nature. This disconnect puts children and the future of the environment at risk. But it isn’t just children that can benefit from being better in-touch with the natural world - we all benefit. In the foreword to Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth, Edward O. Wilson says:

“Because humanity evolved in nature over millions of years, there is every reason to expect that we possess an innate capacity to draw deep excitement and pleasure from experiencing it. And because our species has been exquisitely adapted to the razor-thin biosphere covering the planet by this same evolution, our survival depends on understanding and protecting the rest of life. What we most enjoy, including a clean, healthy, natural environment, also serves the interest of the human species.”

We benefit from being connected to nature; there is no doubt. The benefits are cognitive, spiritual, mental and physical. And yet, we continue on the path of disconnection. It is this disconnection that allows us to continue to over-consume and pollute without really stopping to think about what we are doing. The suburbs are ripe with disconnection. At a glance it doesn’t appear to be so, what with all the green lawns and the manicured gardens. But green lawns and manicured gardens are not that natural and we spend more and more time indoors and in our cars. We use the remote from our car to open the garage door, close it behind us and enter our homes without even walking from the driveway to the front door. We put up fences, and having marked off our little patch of the planet, expect everyone to mind our boundaries. Even nature.
I had a neighbour once, who banged on my door one Sunday morning, livid, because MY mice were coming into HIS yard. I was confused. We have a lot of pets, but we don’t have any mice. And the only pet we have that goes outside is the dog, and she doesn’t fit under the fence. It turns out he meant mice - like, WILD mice. Mice that live wherever mice live, under things, I suppose. And he saw them come under the fence from my yard and into his and back again and he wanted me to stop them. He didn’t have any mice in his house - just mice who sometime walked through his backyard.
I told him that I do not own any mice, and that, in spite of the fences, the mice that live out there feel free to go wherever they like. And even when I explained that I don’t encourage mice and I DO have a big dog and therefore, I doubt there was any substantial mice breeding programme going on on my little patch of the planet, and even if there was, there have always been mice and there will always be mice and there are all kinds of things (snakes even!) that live outside and there really isn’t much we can do about it… Even then, he insisted that I keep MY mice on MY side of the fence.
I was worried that he’d come back demanding that I keep my birds from flying through the air space over his house, but luckily he moved away soon after. Good thing, because that was just crazy. I hope, for his own piece of mind, that he has overcome his personal disconnect with nature.

In spite of our fences and lawns and automatic garage door openers, Nature, with a capital N, exists in even the most barren subdivision. While we wait for the trees to grow, there are insects and wild flowers and dew in the morning. If we only take a few moments to stop and really look, we can see the natural world around us and know we are truly connected and that it matters - it matters in a million magnificent ways. And as we take the time to see and to rebuild our awareness of this profound connection, then making the changes to protect our natural world becomes easier and more rewarding.