19 Dec 2024
Every year, Coed Lleol/Small Woods carries out a consultation exercise, to check in with our partners, fellow professionals, volunteers, participants and staff.
This year, we asked people what wellbeing means to them, from personal, community and environmental perspectives. We had 180 responses to the survey, collected at in-person events and online, from those living across Wales and in Shropshire, where we run one of our successful, long-term social forestry projects. You can download the report here.
Some interesting patterns and common threads were revealed. While there were some different emphases between regions, it is striking that the following messages came through across all responses and all three categories of wellbeing.
First, nature connection and social connection were mentioned most frequently, both as elements that influence personal wellbeing and also as the most positive aspects of communities. In terms of the greatest challenges to community wellbeing, the most common responses related to limited funding and a lack of (or a discontinuity of) activities. It, therefore, follows that the strongest response to the question of what Coed Lleol/Small Woods might do in communities was to increase the number of activities and events. When considering environmental wellbeing, litter ranked the most highly as a concerning issue, with possible solutions found in the social prescribing and nature connection theme, namely by providing more events and more environmental education.
Given the current climate and biodiversity crises, bringing people into connection with nature through green social prescribing has become ever more important to foster a greater understanding of and care for the natural environment. Connection to nature has been shown to correlate with certain wellbeing, educational, pro-environmental and pro-conservation behaviours or outcomes and may, therefore, benefit both people and the natural environment.
There is a strong message here that people across Wales (and in Shropshire) want more social events that enable them to connect with nature to be held in their area. They see that these types of events would be beneficial, not just for their own wellbeing but for the wellbeing of their communities. They also believe that environmental education is key to improving some of the environmental issues found in their communities. Possibly connected to the number of professionals responding to the consultation, there is an awareness that external funding is a limiting factor in making bigger strides in this area.
As the benefits of green social prescribing are more widely accepted and have been put into an economic context in terms of savings for the public purse, improvements to the funding landscape are vital to ensure the continuity of delivering this well-evidenced line of work.
Complementing these findings is our extensive study from early 2024 in Mid-Wales, which found that most people felt the outdoors helped their health and wellbeing, and that nature-based activities should be made available on prescription. You can read more about this study here.
