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Nature as a Commodity: What’s Good for Human Health Might Not Be Good for Ecosystem Health

OPINION

published: 10 September 2018

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01673

Nature as a Commodity: What’s Good

for Human Health Might Not Be Good

for Ecosystem Health

Yolanda van Heezik 1* and Eric Brymer 2

1 Zoology Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2 Institute of Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds

Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

Keywords: nature-related wellbeing, urban biodiversity, nature therapy, nature doses, greenspaces, nature

exposure

Edited by:

Patrik Sörqvist,

Gävle University College, Sweden

Reviewed by:

Sarah Bekessy,

RMIT University, Australia

*Correspondence:

Yolanda van Heezik

yolanda.vanheezik@otago.ac.nz

Specialty section:

This article was submitted to

Environmental Psychology,

a section of the journal

Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 28 March 2018

Accepted: 20 August 2018

Published: 10 September 2018

Citation:

van Heezik Y and Brymer E (2018)

Nature as a Commodity: What’s Good

for Human Health Might Not Be Good

for Ecosystem Health.

Front. Psychol. 9:1673.

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01673

Are you getting enough Vitamin N? Richard Louv (2008) coined this term in his book “Last

Child in the Woods,” in response to growing evidence that suggests humans are increasingly

disinterested with, and disconnected from the natural world. Concurrent with the literature on

the extent of disconnection (Miller, 2005; Soga et al., 2016; van Heezik and Hight, 2017) is an

ever-expanding body of literature documenting the many psychological, physical, and spiritual

health beneﬁts derived from nature contact (Keniger et al., 2013; Bratman et al., 2015; Martyn

and Brymer, 2016; Frumkin et al., 2017). In fact human survival is inextricably linked with nature:

the species and their inter-relationships that make up the fabric of ecosystems function to sustain

all life on Earth. Biodiversity in all landscapes, including urban ones, provides humans with

essential ecosystem services, such as food provisioning, climate and ﬂood regulation, nutrient

cycling, carbon sequestration, and pollution reduction (Elmqvist et al., 2015). Frameworks have

been proposed for evaluating the economic value of biodiversity (Edwards and Abivardi, 1998),

with more recent approaches acknowledging the inter-play between social well-being, economic

sustainability, and biodiversity and ecosystem function (Tzoulas et al., 2007; Laurila-Pant et al.,

2015). These socio-cultural valuation techniques recognize that biodiversity provides society with

beneﬁts, such as mental well-being, ethical, spiritual and cultural values, as well as economic

values. Psychological well-being beneﬁts have been positively associated with the number of species

perceived by people in the environments around them (Fuller et al., 2007; Dallimer et al., 2012).

Loss of biodiversity reduces the eﬃciency by which ecological communities perform ecosystem

services, as well as the stability of ecosystem function over time (Cardinale et al., 2012).

The role that urban nature can play in enhancing psychological and physical well-being and

reducing health-related costs could be seen by those advocating for the protection and restoration

of urban biodiversity and ecosystem function as a positive outcome, suggesting a need to place

greater value on biodiverse urban spaces. Another, less positive, scenario is that the connection

between human health and nature might threaten the ecological integrity of urban green spaces

by commodifying nature, especially if green spaces are designed and managed for human health

beneﬁts alone, with little concern for supporting biodiversity or ecosystem services. In this latter

scenario nature could become a “pill” with only those aspects of nature that most strongly

inﬂuence human health and wellbeing considered to be important in the design process. Here we

demonstrate how this undesirable outcome might be realized, and argue that a focus on treating

urban nature purely as an eﬃcient means of delivering minimal levels of psychological well-being

is short-sighted. The development of knowledge and implementation of best practice that ensures

outcomes that provide for psychological well-being requires an interdisciplinary approach that

encourages diverse ecological communities with greater input by ecologists.

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van Heezik and Brymer

Human Well-Being and Ecosystem Health

NATURE AS A THERAPEUTIC DEVICE

Mounting support for the link between contact with nature

and improved human health and well-being has led to nature

being applied for therapeutic purposes; for example, Shinrin-

yoku or “forest bathing” in Japan (Song et al., 2016; Hansen

et al., 2017), horticultural therapy or gardening (e.g., Clatworthy

et al., 2013; Kamioka et al., 2014), participation in woodland

management (Townsend, 2006), and green prescriptions (Van

den Berg, 2017). A systematic review of studies of nature-assisted

therapy revealed robust support for its eﬀectiveness (Annerstedt

and Währborg, 2011). Evidence suggests that time in nature is

particularly beneﬁcial for psychological health (Brymer et al.,

2014; Bragg and Atkins, 2016). Consequently, some researchers

have been focusing on identifying the minimum “doses” of nature

needed to beneﬁt well-being (Shanahan et al., 2015; Cox et al.,

2017).

MINIMUM DOSES FOR WELL-BEING

BENEFITS; WHAT MIGHT THEY MEAN FOR

BIODIVERSITY?

How much nature exposure is required to derive a psychological

health beneﬁt? Shanahan et al. (2016) focused on time spent

by people in nature and applied a dose-response analysis, used

in health contexts to evidence eﬀectiveness: they found that

visits of 30+ min to green spaces could reduce the population

prevalence of depression and high blood pressure by 7 and 9%,

respectively, translating to savings for public health budgets.

Such evidence has inﬂuenced health-related decision-making

globally. In general, dose-response calculations have inﬂuenced

physical activity research and manifest as green prescriptions by

doctors, whereby people are encouraged to be more active, and

green spaces are promoted as beneﬁcial. From this perspective,

psychological health beneﬁts come about directly from the

fact that green spaces encourage physical activity. However

research also indicates green spaces have direct positive eﬀects

on psychological health and well-being (Pretty et al., 2006;

Barton et al., 2016). Green prescriptions can therefore be

an important contribution to public health, and strategies to

encourage adoption of green prescriptions have been proposed

(Van den Berg, 2017).

While green prescriptions and recommendations on the

frequency and duration of exposure to nature might seem

helpful, or at least benign, Stanley et al. (2015) argue that

considering nature in this way has detrimental consequences

for biodiversity. Speciﬁcally, the growing numbers of people

accessing green spaces only for health beneﬁts, together with the

promotion of health-related (including exercise) requirements

within green space design, threatens biodiversity and the

integrity of urban ecosystems. This is because green spaces

are inevitably modiﬁed to accommodate human use. Examples

include, pathways extended and widened, large ﬂat areas (e.g.,

lawns) created for exercise groups, vegetation modiﬁed to

enhance users’ perceptions of safety, and artiﬁcial lighting

installed for use outside daylight hours (Stanley et al., 2015).

Habitat design, if undertaken purely from a health and well-being

perspective, might exclude species perceived as undesirable, such

as snakes or spiders. Often these green spaces are rated on

aesthetic characteristics and because aesthetic preferences do not

always align with habitat supporting biodiversity, recreational

spaces might provide resources for only the most tolerant

urban exploiters, which are often non-native (McKinney, 2002).

Less tolerant species are likely to abandon popular, well-lit

areas when frequent noise interferes with auditory cues, when

sounds are perceived as threats, and when pedestrians and

dogs interrupt foraging, resulting in more time being vigilant,

energy wasted, and foraging opportunities lost. While urban

green spaces might provide habitat for some hardy non-

human residents, paradoxically “people-friendly” spaces are

not necessarily “wildlife-friendly.” Thus design of green spaces

might need to consider a broader perspective than aesthetic

characteristics or the maximization of recreation activities.

Others have applied dose-response curves to estimate

the minimum levels of vegetation required for improved

well-being. Cox et al. (2017) evaluated ﬁve neighborhood

nature characteristics and calculated dose-responses for mental

disorders, concluding that quantiﬁable reductions in the

prevalence of poor mental health could be achieved with even

low levels of components of neighborhood nature. Another study

investigated the dose of nature required to reduce stress in people

subjected to a Trier Social Stress Test. Study participants watched

assigned street scenes with diﬀerent tree densities; the male dose-

response curve indicated that stress reduction was greatest at tree

densities of 24–34% (Jiang et al., 2014).

While these studies provide valuable insights into the amount

and type of nature exposure necessary to eﬀect improved

human well-being, this approach becomes problematic when

the minimal levels and type of vegetation identiﬁed as safe and

adequate to enhance human well-being are insuﬃcient to support

biodiverse communities and stable ecosystem function. Tall trees

and shrub understoreys provide habitat for small mammals

(Dickman and Doncaster, 1987), birds (Jokimäki and Suhonen,

1993; van Heezik et al., 2008), and invertebrates (Smith et al.,

2006), and are an important generator of ecosystem services

(Gaston et al., 2013). Despite the important role that vegetation

volume plays in supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services,

trade-oﬀs, and conﬂicts exist between planning for biodiversity

and planning for local residents. For example, these same rich

biodiverse habitats might also present health and safety issues

(e.g., dark parks, health problems from pollen, places for drug

taking activities). It is therefore feasible that those responsible for

greening urban environments might introduce vegetation based

on an easy-to-manage approach, rather than an approach that

considers local biodiversity and ecosystem services.

WHAT KIND OF NATURE?

Keniger et al. (2013) emphasized the importance of

understanding the characteristics of natural settings that

trigger well-being beneﬁts and how these vary among cultural

and socioeconomic groups. However the kind of nature

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van Heezik and Brymer

Human Well-Being and Ecosystem Health

researchers have focused on to demonstrate links to positive

well-being responses is frequently not reﬂective of the type of

natural environments conservationists seek to encourage. In

many studies on psychological well-being beneﬁts the natural

environment is described as parkland with scattered shrubs and

trees (Bowler et al., 2010; Bratman et al., 2015). Descriptions of

“nature treatments” can be very broad. From a health perspective

the notions of greenness and nature often stem from what

the environment looks like, and biodiversity is either assumed

because the environment looks green or not considered at

all (Keniger et al., 2013; Shwartz et al., 2014; Sandifer et al.,

2015). This is because few studies speciﬁcally focusing on health

have involved ecologists. “Greenness” is measured remotely if

the focus of the study is on entire neighborhoods (e.g., Beyer

et al., 2014; Dadvand et al., 2016) or using generalized land-use

databases (e.g., Alcock et al., 2014; Gidlow et al., 2016). These

are convenient to use in population-level studies, but do not

represent many of the relevant features of the greenness, such

as species diversity and composition, vertical structure, and

wildness. In a review of 125 journal articles about green space,

fewer than half deﬁned what the green spaces consisted of with

only simple generic descriptions provided; e.g., park, golf course

(Taylor and Hochuli, 2017). Moreover, when greenspace quality

was referred to, “quality” was subjectively determined without

reference to ecological integrity.

DOES USING NATURE TO ENHANCE

HUMAN WELL-BEING COMPROMISE

BIODIVERSITY?

Urban nature is increasingly seen as a manageable resource to

enhance human well-being. By viewing nature as a commodity

that supplies health beneﬁts, and by identifying minimum

amounts needed to gain beneﬁts, we risk trivializing a deep

aﬀective response to nature. We might end up with a watered-

down, biodiversity-poor version of nature with compromised

ecosystem services. By creating a new baseline of what is

considered normal we could exacerbate ongoing shifts toward

more depleted environments. The concept of shifting baselines

(Pauly, 1995) is pertinent to each generation of urban residents

that perceive the state of the environments they encounter in

their childhood as normal, unaware of the past losses and the

depleted and altered nature of the biodiversity that remains.

Paradoxically, this could also reduce the psychological beneﬁts

from human-nature interactions.

Research linking psychological wellbeing and nature has

traditionally focused on the individual psychological workings

of the individual or the form and structure of nature (e.g.,

color, objects and spaces between objects), often arguing for

“greenness” as the mediator for wellbeing (Brymer et al., 2014).

If well-being beneﬁts, albeit minimal, can be gained from highly

modiﬁed, simplistic greenspaces, and these types of green spaces

become the new norm for the next generation, then there will be

little incentive to restore greenspaces to a more natural biodiverse

state, or even to protect what we currently have from degradation.

While it is still early days, in recent years research into

human health is acknowledging that the focus on “greenness”

is too simplistic and, when considering psychological well-

being, the “richness” of the environment and the human-nature

relationship is turning out to be of paramount importance

(Brymer et al., 2014; Fabjanski and Brymer, 2017; Lawton

et al., 2017). Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach, including

input from ecologists and health professionals, is essential

to optimize green space design for psychological well-being,

which will also ensure ecosystem well-being. A consensus on

greenspace deﬁnitions is necessary to provide a context for

such research (Taylor and Hochuli, 2017). Tools such as the

“Bioscore” developed by Hand et al. (2016), which incorporates

perceived diversity and human perceptions of naturalness, might

be applied to a variety of greenspaces (e.g., Müller et al.,

2018). Viewing nature as a “pill,” separate from humanity but

applied as required, is short-sighted. More meaningful gains for

human well-being can be achieved through recognition that the

artiﬁcial divide between people and nature is false. Developing

a culture of stewardship rather than one of exploitation, and

lifting biodiversity baselines through ecological restoration is

necessary. From a psychological health perspective, what is

urgently needed is a principled theoretical framework, combining

ecological, and psychological related knowledge that can guide

a more enlightened program of research and practice. Only

through this interdisciplinary approach, and the development

of frameworks that support this approach, will we promote

and protect the health and well-being of people and of

nature.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

YvH conceptualized the opinion piece and wrote a ﬁrst draft. EB

contributed to concept and reﬁned the manuscript.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Philip Seddon and a reviewer for constructive

comments.

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Conﬂict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was

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