Looking through the window on a clouded night in the city, a father says to his child, “There is no moon tonight.” The child replies, “Let’s go down to the supermarket and get another one.”

All of us can offer similar examples representative of a generation of urban people who have lost their connections to nature. These are the people we ask to support the natural environment, and our urgent messages about the future of the world’s protected areas have little impact on them.

All over the world, people are pouring into cities. In Britain, 90 percent of our population is now in urban areas. There is a clear need for action to enable contact with protected areas for urban people, to help them to benefit from nature, laying down the basis for their awareness and committed support for nature.

All of us who work with nature know what it means to experience nature. We know nothing can replace the experience of standing in a magnificent landscape. No words are needed for a connection made in our hearts, for people to begin to love nature.

Groups taken into natural areas for the first time are always thrilled. They feel transformed. Sometimes they feel overwhelmed by a sense of a powerful spiritual and cultural reunion with nature.

This experience can’t be replaced by a few square meters of green space in the city. But after experiencing the wonder of a protected area, these small green spaces, and indeed every single tree in the pavement, become symbols of continuity with nature. This strong connection is maintained in day-to-day life.

The Urban Imperative workshop looked at how we can build connections between urban populations and protected areas. Our greatest motivations for action are the emotions of love and of fear. Our calls for action through messages of love for nature depend on enabling urban people to have inspired connections to nature. On the basis of this love for nature, we hope urban people, from politicians to the unemployed, will be able to sit down long enough to listen to our more complicated messages of fear.

There are too many quick fixes to our economic problems which damage the environment. It is only through a deepened and informed understanding that we can get the right kind of support and action for protected areas from the urban powerhouses where most of the vital decisions are made.

Bringing together lessons from across the world

The Urban Imperative workshop brought together important initiatives from across the world to focus on urban outreach strategies for protected area agencies. Such a gathering generates an atmosphere of excitement, energizing all of us, because the mutual exposure to our work validates our commonalities and opens us up to the potential of approaches new to us.

Such comparative learning powerfully sharpens our awareness of the detail of our own methodologies and scenarios. It enables us to read our contexts more fully, and leap to new solutions through the insights and innovations of others. Such an occasion gives us all new beginnings and a strengthened working context, with our new partners in dialogue and practice playing a key role in all our futures.

A diversity of strategic approaches

At the workshop I was most impressed by:

The range of opportunities we have to engage urban people with nature. The characteristics of a protected area define the roles it can play in providing opportunities for engagement with urban people. This is as true of an embattled gem in a sea of urban concrete as it is for a haven at a distance from urban populations. Here, two things are especially important: (a) nurturing community champions, particularly young people, to stimulate interest and organize activities relevant to the needs of their peers; and (b) creating a range of green spaces, including urban farms, parkland, and activity centers within neighborhoods that lack such amenities.

The barriers we must overcome. There are practical barriers, such as lack of information and peer group experience, sheer distance, and the cost of transport, entry, equipment, and activities. There are also barriers of perception. These often relate to prejudice against groups with different socioeconomic and/or racial characteristics. But they may also have to do with negative images among visitors of what a particular protected area agency actually does; or among agency staff of implications of increasing visitor numbers.

The potential of those who haven’t yet benefited from engagement with nature. Those who haven’t yet benefited will find the experience more powerful and meaningful than those who have taken it for granted. Once engaged, their motivation is similarly more intense, and their potential for contributing to the protection of nature is enormous.

The immensity of the resources we can unlock.  By building awareness and commitment at higher political levels, and among leaders in urban contexts, the protected area community has the potential to unlock greatly increased funding and other resources. This requires forceful presentation to decision-makers of the benefits to cities of protected areas, and defining such benefits not only in terms of infrastructure (e.g., water supply), but in term of such social benefits as health.

Moving forward together

The power of a worldwide network of activists brought together to focus on cities and protected areas cannot be underestimated.

The members of IUCN’s Task Force on Cities and Protected Areas have already begun to provide mutual support, expertise, and inspiration to each other. The World Parks Congress recommendation, “Cities and Protected Areas” (see the Appendix) offers a good framework for doing so.

The Urban Imperative is now on a world stage. We shall support each other around a common goal.