Transformation of Experience: Toward a New Relationship with Nature

Susan Clayton (1) , Agathe Colléony (2) , Pauline Conversy (2) , Etienne Maclouf (2, 3) , Léo Martin (2) , Ana-Cristina Torres (2) , Minh-Xuan Truong (2) , Anne-Caroline Prévot (2, 4)

1 Department of Psychology
2 CESCO - Centre d'Ecologie et des Sciences de la COnservation
3 LARGEPA - Laboratoire de recherche en sciences de gestion Panthéon-Assas
4 LAPPS - Laboratoire Parisien de Psychologie Sociale

Despite decades of awareness about the biodiversity crisis, it remains a wicked problem. Besides preservation and restoration strategies, one approach has fo-cused on increasing public concern about biodiversity issues by emphasizing opportunities for people to experience natural environments. In this article, we endeavor to complicate the understanding of these experiences of nature (EoN). Because EoN are embedded in social and cultural contexts, transforma-tive or new EoN are emerging in combination with societal changes in work, home, and technology. Policies that acknowledge and accept a diversity of culturally situated EoN, including negative EoN, could help people reconnect with the complexity and dynamics of biodiversity. A new conceptualization of EoN that encompasses diverse experiences and reflects the sociocultural context could help to stimulate a broader transformation in the relationship between society and nature, one that better integrates the two spheres. Such a transformation is necessary to more effectively address the biodiversity crisis.

Keywords: values; attitudes; biodiversity; Conservation; experience of nature; social context

Domains: Ecology, environment; Environment and Society

Susan Clayton, Agathe Colléony, Pauline Conversy, Etienne Maclouf, Léo Martin, et al.. Transformation of Experience: Toward a New Relationship with Nature. Conservation Letters, 2017, 10 (5), pp.645-651. ⟨10.1111/conl.12337⟩. ⟨hal-01626794⟩