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PLANET HOPE: On People & Nature
May 11 Deadline for nominations for the Children & Nature Network's Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection
May 11 deadline: The Children & Nature Network is inviting nominations for the second annual Louv Prize for innovation in nature connection, which is accompanied by $15,000. Please nominate one of your heroes who is working to connect kids and families to nature. The prize will be awarded at the C&NN International Conference in Colorado in June.
Read Full PostA Conversation: Jane Goodall and Richard Louv
It was an honor to speak with Dr. Jane Goodall for an hour, at the international Children & Nature Network Conference. Some of the conversation will be available soon from the Children & Nature Network. Also, the Children & Nature Network announced a new partnership with Roots & Shoots USA, Dr. Goodall's youth program.
Read Full PostCongratulations to Atiya Wells for Being Awarded the Inaugural Richard Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection
From the Children & Nature Network: Congratulations to Atiya Wells, founder of the BLISS Meadows project, for being awarded the inaugural Richard Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection.
Growing up in an urban setting, like many African-Americans impacted by the history of segregation and other patterns of systemic racism, Atiya Wells did not have access to experiences that might have fostered a healthy, loving relationship with nature. At the age of 22, she went hiking for the first time and a whole new world opened up.
Atiya then founded BLISS Meadows in her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, to inspire and connect Black, Indigenous, and People of Color back to nature. The 10-acre land reclamation project provides opportunities for children and their families to get to know their ecosystem, to reframe and reclaim the history of their ancestors’ relationship to land and food and to contribute to a sustainable community resource right in their neighborhood. The award was created by the Children & Nature Network, and named for its co-founder.
"I've been thinking if I deserve to be standing here...and I do!" — Atiya Wells
Read Full PostChildren & Nature Network announces the Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection
THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED MAY 12….UNTIL NEXT YEAR
The Richard Louv Prize for Innovation in Nature Connection is open to any individual doing exemplary work to advance equitable access to nature in their community or region. The Richard Louv Prize recognizes innovative strategies for creating regular access to the benefits of nature everywhere children live, learn and play.
We believe equitable access to nature is achieved when systemic barriers to nature are removed and all members of a community — regardless of race, income, ability, identity or address — have regular opportunities to spend time in healthy outdoor spaces that are nearby, safe, welcoming and culturally relevant.
The Children & Nature Network created The Richard Louv Prize to honor the visionary leadership and contributions of its co-founder and Chair Emeritus, Richard Louv. His books have been translated and published in 24 countries, and his landmark book, Last Child in the Woods, helped launch an international movement to connect children, families and communities to nature.
PRIZE WINNERS RECEIVE:
- Recognition by the Children & Nature Network’s Founders’ Council at its annual Inside-Out International Conference.
- A feature article in the Children & Nature Network’s signature publication, Finding Nature News.
- $15,000 cash prize.
CLICK HERE for more Information about the Nomination Process
A Challenge to Make Your City the Finest City in America for Children and Nature
Richard Louv's Challenge to Become a Nature-Rich Community from Human-Kind Productions on Vimeo.
Read Full PostFive Questions About Nature-Deficit Disorder
Read Full PostThe Bowman Echo: Remembering JB
When I was asked by John Bowman’s family to write this remembrance, I was honored and daunted. And I knew it would be a longer piece than usually appears in this space. How does one sum up the life of a man who has never quit living? Even now, his daughter Molly says she senses her father’s presence. When she writes, he urges her to use just the right word. Reflecting him, she most often uses the word love.
In the 1990s, a visitor walking into the subdued light of Stroud Tackle, on San Diego’s Morena Boulevard, would have felt transported to a slower, more personal time.
Bill and Eileen Stroud, aging but not old, would have stood like squinting officers on a bridge deck, the identity of the true captain unclear. Behind the counter, grinning, with an unlit pipe clenched in his teeth, would have been the chief volunteer and raconteur John Bowman.
In semi-fictional retirement, JB, as he was often called, spent many of his non-teaching hours either fishing or helping Bill and Eileen. With his neatly trimmed, startlingly white beard and aviator glasses, JB looked like a healthy Hemingway.
He appreciated that comparison, but it fell short.
Read Full PostNature is Where You Find It — Even in a Strip Development
Excerpted from “The Nature Principle: Reconnecting to Life in a Virtual Age”
When traveling, I walk to restore myself. Even in the loudest, most congested cities I usually find remnants of the natural world hiding in plain sight.
I take photographs with my mobile-phone camera of moving water and light and sky, and critters — a groundhog shimmying across the greens of a university campus in upstate New York, a tangle of trout in a Connecticut stream, a fox slipping through downtown Little Rock — and as I stand there, I send these photographs to my wife. The camera gives me the excuse to stop, look, and listen.
One November afternoon in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in search of lunch, I walked out the front door of a Holiday Inn and ambled north along a commercial strip.
Read Full PostThere were no sidewalks, so I kept to a grass berm, walking through parking lots, across gravel, to a street with no pedestrian crosswalk or pedestrian light. The drivers were mad with desire, the traffic an endless knot.
Talking Nature-Deficit Disorder
Author Richard Louv chats about his book, “Last Child in the Woods” and the meaning of Nature-Deficit Disorder. Videography by Mark Schulze with Patty Mooney as Sound Tech, Crystal Pyramid Productions
Read Full PostWill Urban Design and Architecture Incorporate More Nature after the Pandemic?
On May 16, at the request of the Friends of San Diego Architecture, I spoke about the post-pandemic city. In this 15-minute video, posted on YouTube by the group, I make the case that we have an opportunity to change the course of urban design and architecture by weaving more nature into our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and homes. Why? Because public health will demand it, both because greater biodiversity can help prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases, but also for the therapeutic and social-distancing advantages during a pandemic. In 2020-21, we’ve seen growing awareness of the necessity of nature connection for our psychological and physical health. We’ve also become more aware of the inequitable availability of nature in cities—and the price of human loneliness.
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