I beg to move,
That this House has considered public access to nature.
It is a pleasure to open this debate on increasing public access to nature and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for supporting it. In an age where we are increasingly isolated from the natural world, and in a country that ranks lowest in Europe for nature connectedness, improving access to green space could not be more important. Yet that very framing somehow suggests that we are separate from the world around us and that nature is simply something to be visited on occasion. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Others have pointed out that it has been around 7 million years since our ancestors started evolving into the modern humans we are today. During that process of evolution, we have spent more than 99.9% of our time living in a natural environment. Our bodies are adapted to nature.
In debating the urgent need to improve access to nature and to reforge our connection with this precious earth, it is also important to reframe that relationship so that we no longer see nature as something other, but something of which we are a part and which is also part of us.