Eden Project and Duchy of Cornwall ask what nature can do for health

Seventeen minutes. That is how long the Eden Project reckons you need to spend with nature each day to feel the difference. This week, some of the country’s leading voices on health, education, business and the environment gathered under one roof at the Eden Project to work out how to make that kind of connection part of everyday life.

The Eden Project and the Duchy of Cornwall co-hosted Nature Connected Lives, the first of what is planned as an annual two-day conference, on 20 and 21 October.

📷Dan James at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

What Nature Connected Lives covered

The programme ran through keynote speakers, panel discussions and practical examples, all built around one question. How can access to, and connection with, the natural world support healthier, happier and more resilient people and communities?

Discussions followed a whole lifetime. They started with the earliest years of childhood, moved through adolescence and adulthood, and then into the places where people live and work. Sessions looked at early childhood development, resilience in young people, community wellbeing and how workplaces could become healthier and more nature-positive.

The event closed with a cross-generational discussion on the practical actions needed to create a more nature-connected future.

📷Tony Juniper at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

What the speakers said

Tony Juniper CBE, Chair of Natural England, was among the keynote speakers.

“Encouraging connections with the natural world has enormous benefits for public health, individual wellbeing and social cohesion. Those connections also encourage the pro-environmental behaviours needed in the face of climate change and nature decline. Eden Project’s brilliant conference has enabled us to get a step closer to unlocking the power of nature for people’s health and wellbeing while building support for positive change.”

David Cope, Executive Director for Purpose at the Duchy of Cornwall, said the way land and communities are managed has a direct impact on people’s lives.

“Nature plays a fundamental role in supporting healthy people, thriving communities and a resilient environment. At the Duchy of Cornwall, we recognise that how we care for and manage our land and communities has a direct impact on people’s lives, and that reconnecting people with the natural world is important in creating a society that works for people as a part of nature.”

“We were delighted to co-host the Nature Connected Lives conference with the Eden Project, bringing together experts and organisations from across different sectors to explore how nature can support our wellbeing at every stage of life.

“By sharing knowledge, building partnerships and turning ideas into practical action, we have a real opportunity to make nature connection part of everyday life and ensure its benefits are accessible to more people.”

GP Dr William Bird MBE, CEO of Intelligent Health, argued that people should stop treating nature as something to take from.

“Understanding that we are nature helps us ensure that we don’t simply see nature as a resource that we can extract health and not give anything back. Nature is our home, gives us life, purpose and happiness and when we help it thrive, we thrive ourselves. Practically this means building nature into neighbourhood health, planning, education, business, social care and most importantly every community takes on the role of bringing nature into their neighbourhood.”

📷Helen Dodd at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

Outdoor play and the world of work

Professor Helen Dodd, Director of the Outdoor Play Research Centre at Exeter University, focused on the very youngest.

“Regular outdoor play in nature gives children a healthy foundation for learning and development right from the start of life. That is why outdoor play, ideally in nature, should be an everyday part of every child’s lives. Research from our group shows that children who play outdoors more frequently in the early years are more likely to have good mental health through to middle childhood. This event at the Eden Project brings together the wide range of people and voices that are needed to catalyse and drive change – to make nature connected play and learning the norm in the early years.”

Turning to the workplace, Dr Mary Johnstone-Louis, Senior Fellow at Oxford Saïd Business School, spoke about business.

“Business fundamentally depends on nature to create value, and yet the world of work is too often disconnected from the nature on which it depends. Our research is mapping effective innovations in businesses across the world, from SMEs to large listed companies, to take nature seriously in their strategy and governance. This is an area of enormous growth and dynamism – one which deserves close attention from investors, policymakers, and leaders alike. I congratulate the Eden Project and the Duchy of Cornwall for creating the space for this conversation.”

📷David Domoney at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

Who was in the room

Organisations large and small were represented, including The National Lottery Community Fund, the NHS, Natural England, Oxford University and Exeter University. Charities The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, the Wildlife Trust, Youth Environmental Services and Resilient Young Minds took part, alongside businesses including Canary Wharf Group, Intelligent Health, Faith in Nature and House of Hackney.

The full line-up of guest speakers was:

• Dr David Cope, Executive Director for Purpose, The Duchy of Cornwall
• Tony Juniper CBE, Chair of Natural England
• Dr Simone Lowthe-Thomas, The National Lottery Community Fund
• Dr William Bird MBE, GP and CEO, Intelligent Health
• Lyndsey-Lee Dunwoody, Project Manager, Royal Foundation
• Professor Helen Dodd, Professor of Child Psychology, Outdoor Play Research Centre, Exeter University
• Professor Ilina Singh, Professor of Neuroscience and Society, Oxford University
• Israh Goodall, CEO, Centre for the Rites of Passage
• Sarah Hood, Pedagogical Lead, Naturally Learning Nurseries
• Jo Davis, CEO, Wild Young Parents, Cornwall
• Natalia de Zuleta, Co-founder, Resilient Young Minds
• Katie Underwood, Youth Environmental Service
• Mari Eggins OBE, CEO, Carefree
• Rhoda Wilkinson, Head of Community, Lancashire Wildlife Trust
• Dr Mary Johnstone-Louis, Senior Fellow, Oxford Saïd Business School
• Sophie Goddard, Director of Sustainability, Canary Wharf Group
• Simeon Rose, Creative Director, Faith in Nature
• Javvy M. Royle, Co-founder, House of Hackney
• David Domoney, Horticulturist and TV Presenter

📷Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

Seventeen minutes a day

The conference follows the launch in September of Greentime17, a national campaign encouraging people to spend just 17 minutes a day connecting with nature. It was launched at Canary Wharf in London with a giant living “Emergency Exit to Nature” sign, nudging people to build the natural world into their everyday routines.

Greentime17 is part of Eden’s wider Nature: Connections and Recovery programme, which aims to connect more people with nature for the benefit of their wellbeing and their environment. The campaign is being rolled out in Cornwall, London, Liverpool, Gwent, Morecambe, Dundee and Belfast, funded by The National Lottery and Ashken Family Foundation.

Eden at 25, and what comes next

Nature Connected Lives lands in the Eden Project‘s 25th anniversary year. It has been a busy one for the educational charity, which has broken ground at Eden Project Morecambe, run the Wildflower Photographer of the Year competition, and worked with built environment company BAM UK & Ireland on nature-rich spaces at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Dan James, Eden Project Development Director, said the conference went back to the charity’s roots.

“Eden Project’s founding ambition was always about reconnecting people with the natural world and with each other. Embedding the reciprocal benefits of living nature connected lives is fundamental to our charitable mission and vital for our health in the face of the compound issues we’re facing now. Nature Connected Lives is a nationally significant gathering to build momentum and raise awareness that will help to unlock the health and societal benefits of nature connection so that we can shape a better future for our planet.”

Nature connection is one of Eden’s key strategic priorities, supported by a range of funders and delivery partners. The charity plans to open Eden Project Morecambe in 2028, followed soon after by Eden Project Scotland in Dundee.

Back in Cornwall, the Biomes where the conference was held now host more than 6,000 species of plants in what was once an exhausted quarry. More than 25 million visitors and over a million school children have experienced it, and the Eden Project says it has generated £6.8 billion in total economic impact for the South West since opening in 2001.

📷Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

📷Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

📷Andy Jasper at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

📷Geraint Richards at Eden Project Nature Connected Lives. Credit: Rob Donald

📷Nature Connected Lives at the Eden Project. Credit: Rob Donald