LORRAINE & DAWN, WAKEHURST

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A SHIFT IN PERCEPTION

Words - Madeleine Ary Hahne Photos - Zoe Salt

It’s 2042 and you’re different now. It wasn’t a blinding moment of realisation. You just shifted, as slowly but truthfully as wind shaping sandstone. Once you stood in this garden and saw flowers, benches, trees, pavement. The garden had been a necessary, if uninteresting, backdrop to your life. In the last twenty years the park has changed, becoming more biodiverse than ever, thanks to the efforts of local environmental volunteers. But you have changed more. Your eyes now flit from bowed, moss-laden branches to diamond dewdrops quivering on nettle leaves. The park’s scent is a tonic—a musk of cedar, dark earth, and sweetgrass. You see so much more because your beliefs, your fundamental worldview, has shifted.

Once you had thought of nature and humanity as two opposing forces, as if they were kept in separate, neatly labelled Tupperware. But then an ancient idea began to drip into the national psyche—the simple idea that humans are native to the earth. This idea, borne by everyone from academics to naturalists, taught that we literally are the earth. Our bodies are here. Our blood runs with it, circulating atmosphere through every vessel. Then the way people spoke of these things shifted. Soon, the idea of man against nature felt passé, even odd. The ideal life changed too. Where before most people had considered exercise, healthy diet, good relationships, and meaningful work all that a good life required, now the list had grown to include access to and interaction with the land. Forest bathing isn’t just a fad now, it’s the norm. People go to parks because they know they need it for their mental wellbeing. You do too. You go and listen for the birds, and to feel the give of grass and soil beneath your shoes. This shift has helped environmental policies become easier to pass. In a world where people see themselves as innately connected to the land, any damage to the land becomes damage to themselves. That simply will not do.

Ten years ago, Lorraine Lecourtois realised something — she spent far too much time indoors. Even though she worked in the bright and dynamic environment of theatre, something felt off. “I could tell that so much time inside was bad for my health,” she said. Lorraine decided to make a change, and soon found outdoor work that made use of her skills in public engagement. As she spent her days in nature, her passion for plants and ecosystems flourished. So when an opportunity arose to work as the Head of Public Programmes at Wakehurst, Kew’s wild botanic garden, Lorraine dove in. 

Part of what drew Lorraine to Wakehurst was its extraordinary biodiversity and unusual purpose. The sweeping gardens are a world in miniature; wetlands, prairies, and woodlands flourish side by side, all within minutes of each other. This ecological diversity makes Wakehurst an ideal home not only for public engagement with nature, but for research of all kinds. Scientists and academics seek to answer questions including, “How do we create the right landscapes around hospitals?” and, “What difference does biodiversity make to human health?” Answers to these and other questions have the potential to radically change the way cities and public spaces around the world are designed, helping us understand how we can live healthier, more connected lives. 

It is the way the wild botanic garden forms a living laboratory that initially attracted Professor Dawn Watling to Wakehurst. Dawn, a Chartered Psychologist and the Director of the Royal Holloway, University of London Social Development Lab, spent her Canadian childhood exploring the outdoors. Moving to the sprawling metropolis of London had a similar effect on her as life in the theatre had on Lorraine.

“When you live in a city like that,” Dawn explained, “you start to value any opportunity just to walk down a street with trees.”

As a psychologist, this reaction to the change in her environment sparked her curiosity. So when she stumbled upon a post-doc investigating the link between mental health and nature, she embraced the opportunity. She now collaborates with Wakehurst on the Nature Connectedness research seeking to understand the benefits of nature for physical and mental health. Nature Connectedness is a strand of Wakehurst’s overarching Nature Unlocked programme which researches how nature can help us combat climate change, biodiversity loss, and other similar challenges.

Lorraine and Dawn started out in radically different fields, and even on different continents. Yet they both came to the same intuitive understanding — that connection with nature is a prerequisite to true wellbeing. As Dawn explained, connection is more than just access, it is about cultivating an “ecological mindset.” Lorraine expanded on this, stating that this mindset means “people who stand in a landscape understand their part in it, what they can give to it, and the maximum they can take from it.” 

But to achieve all this, Dawn argues, we first need data, the universal language of policy, academia, and media. This is what Wakehurst hopes to produce, evidence not only of how important this ecological mindset is to human wellbeing and environmental flourishing, but also exactly how we can establish healthier, and more sustainable, environments and societies. Human health is inextricably tied to the health of the planet and, through their work at Wakehurst, Lorraine and Dawn are determined to promote widespread acceptance of this simple, vital, truth.

Learn more and get involved here:

Nature Unlocked research programme collaboration between Wakehurst and Royal Holloway University; Masters in Sustainability and Management at Royal Holloway; The Schools Biodiversity Project; Grounds of Nature Schools; Nature Connectedness Unit at Derby University; Volunteering at Kew gardens; Many of historical sites across the UK (and the world) also take volunteer gardeners.