Included Outside Publication Faith in Nature

Individuals and communities from different Faiths are known to benefit from nature's health and wellbeing offers; they are known to enjoy and show great passion for the natural world. Yet they are also at risk of reduced opportunities for nature connection and involvement in nature recovery. Additionally, they can be under-represented in nature spaces, experiencing inequity of access to green and blue spaces.

We have identified a gap where there is currently no evidence brief, report or academic paper which details (i) barriers to nature engagement for Faith groups (ii) enablers and examples of interventions that have been developed and tested, detailing what works where and why, and for which Faith groups. Evidence briefings for other (sometimes intersecting) population groups known to face barriers to nature (people with disabilities, those on lower incomes, older people and ethnic minorities) have been produced and published by Natural England in the well-received Included Outside series of evidence briefings. Insight into barriers within different faith groups is currently missing from this set of evidence, and we anticipate there are likely to be different barriers and enablers for different Faiths and lived experience groups within this diverse population.