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Hello, Mr Louv welcome to our second interview.
A lot of kids think it’s more exciting when you play outside
because you don’t know what you’ll find, … it feels like
you’re exploring an unknown world.
Did you use your imagination when you were exploring?
I did.
It was if a whole another world was out there.
When I was a kid we tended to imagine we were cowboys
and Indians or you know Davy Crockett for instance.
And later I think kids began to imagine that they
were explorers, National Geographic explorers.
Whatever it is we imagine ourselves to be, we put ourselves
in a different world when we’re in nature.
It’s one of the wonderful gifts that nature gives us.
It takes us out of ourselves into another time,
into another universe, into another life.
Some adults believe that it’s too dangerous
for young people to go outside and explore the bush.
What do you say to adults when they worry about this?
And what are some of the safe things we can do.
Well, first there is danger outside,
there’s danger indoors too.
In the United States where I’m from, the most dangerous spider
lives indoors, it’s called the Brown Recluse Spider
and one of the favourite places that it likes to hide is on
the clothes that are left on the floor.
And I tried to tell my teenage boys about that to see if
it would help them clean up their room more.
It didn’t work.
There’s danger indoors.
There’s danger outdoors, but there’s also life.
There’s also learning to take small risks when you’re out
in the bush or in the garden.
Small risks, … so that later you can handle bigger risks.
It’s one of the things that kids get when they’re outdoors.
There’s also risk indoors to our health.
I mean the indoor air for instance is usually more polluted
than outdoor air.
We kind of think it’s the opposite but it actually …
outdoor air is often cleaner.
It’s better for us.
When we’re up and moving a lot we’re going to be healthier.
If we’re just sitting on a couch playing video games all day
we’re not going to be healthy, not now and not in the long run
when you become adults.
So, you have to think about risks that way I think.
If the city keeps growing the way they are
getting larger and larger we don’t have easy access to nature
and the bush, in the long term is that bad for us?
Well, I think we have a choice.
As of 2008, more people in the whole world live in cities
than in the countryside.
That’s the first time in human history that that can be said.
As we go into the future that means one of two things.
That means either human beings as you’ve suggested
will lose their connection to nature.
It will become in a sense irrelevant to them or it means
the beginning of a new kind of city.
What if we could begin to design and create new neighbours,
new neighbourhoods, new kinds of houses,
new kinds of work places, new kinds of schools,
new kinds of neighbourhoods that would be filled with nature,
it would be nature rich.
That’s a different kind of city and I think people
are beginning to think about how to do that.
So, that even though we’re still in the city we’re still engaged
with nature and nature’s all around us.
If it’s important for us to feel connected to nature,
how can we do this in the city?
I think we could plant gardens.
You can plant native species in your yard.
Particularly the kind of native species that will help
bring back butterfly migration routes and endangered
species of birds.
We can create green roofs for example that create
new kinds of habitat for wildlife.
We can think about our neighbourhoods differently
and take advantage of the local parks.
We can get out of the town now and then and go to
a national park or in many cases there are national parks
in cities that we can take advantage of that too.
I’m told that in Sydney because government as well
as individuals are beginning to plant more native plants
and create wildlife corridors that wildlife is
coming back to Sydney.
And I think that’s a good thing for everyone’s mental health
and the sense of not feeling so alone in the world
they just make life richer.
So, tell me about your special place in nature.
I got to tell you about mine when I was a kid
but what about yours.
Richard, why don’t you go first.
Well, my garden near my house brings back
a lot of memories when I was a kid because when I was young,
me and my Mum used to plant stuff like little plants
and it reminds me when I was young I used to love plants
in the garden full of nature.
Great, do you still like to do that?
Yeah.
How does that make you feel?
Just happy.
Happy, good.
Izzy, what about you, you’re special place?
Well, recently me, my sister and my Mum just went
to Cairns and we just went for a little bushwalk and we found
like this … it was kind of like a lake but it wasn’t man made
and there was big rocks and there was a swing that
you could swing into the water and it was really nice.
Both of those places sound great.
You make me want to go to your special places in nature.
They sound wonderful.
Music
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