Nature, Connectedness, & Collaboration: Pathways Toward Collective Well-being

Abstract

In a world facing a variety of threats to people and the planet, diverse ideas and solutionsare essential. Spending time in and feeling emotionally connected to nature is continually emerging as a strategy that provides benefits for collective human and environmental well-being. This dissertation examines how nature-based organizations can help people connect, or reconnect, with the nature around them to create positive social and environmental outcomes. Further, it examines how collaboration, whether between researchers and practitioners or within and across organizations, can play a vital role in these efforts. The first manuscript conceptualizes the motivators, barriers, and strategies tocollaboration as identified by researchers and practitioners working in the nature and health field and provides suggestions for increasing the existence and efficacy of these collaborations. Overall, researchers and practitioners had more motivators and barriers in common than unique to each group. Therefore, initiatives that specifically target commonalities can create important leverage points to support collaborative efforts and, thereby, the field more broadly. The second manuscript embodies a collaborative partnership with a non-profit, nature-based organization in the USA to examine the well-being and pro-environmental outcomes of a novel app-based nature intervention. The results frame nature connectedness as a key influence for increasing the ability of nature exposure interventions to influence well-being outcomes. Finally, the third manuscript continues the collaborative partnership with the samenature-based organization and expands our understanding of the traditionally studied well- being outcomes that can be achieved by a nature-based organization. This project explores the type and scope of well-being benefits that a small, nature-based organization can have on their community and its residents. Further, it identifies the strategies and context that influence the identified outcomes. In addition to discussing what is currently known about the relationships between natureand well-being, this dissertation also highlights remaining and significant literature gaps. I emphasize several places where continued research and learning are necessary, such as the use and efficacy of app-based nature interventions and the impacts of nature-based organizations on communities. I also demonstrate the varied ways that collaborative research projects can support building more wholistic and complex theoretical frameworks connecting time spent in nature with human and environmental well-being.