Plant Science

Natural environment

Natural environments (green and blue space) are associated with a range of health benefits, but their use is likely to be influenced by the presence of features, facilities and amenities and the condition/maintenance, or the natural environment quality.

In this debate, "nature" and "environment" are not used in a consistent way. These terms are generally anything but unambiguous. "Nature", as the older of the two, has a conceptual history that stretches back to classical antiquity and that is very contradictory and confused, not just at first sight. In its original meaning (natura in Latin, physis in Greek), it was connected with growth and fertility. Humans as organisms are part of nature and are existentially dependent on it; they can only live with and in nature. To emphasize this fundamental ecological fact is not to lose sight of the varied and changing ideas and constructions of nature that come into being in the minds of people. Rather both belong indivisibly together.