OLCreate: PUB_9149_1.0: Stage 4: Your Nature Friendly Lifestyle and Community

Stage 4: Your Nature Friendly Lifestyle and Community

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Three people on bikes are smiling as they cycle along a cycle path towards the camera.

By the end of Stage 4, you will have:

Learnt what is a nature friendly lifestyle.
Taken some of the activities from earlier in the course and built them into a regular practice.
Reflected on the course; what you have enjoyed and how you might take these forward to build your own nature friendly lifestyle.
An awareness of opportunities to join nature friendly local or national groups.

Introduction

If you have completed stages 1 to 3, then you will have met nature along the Green Routes, built better nature connections and explored ways to care more for nature. This stage is about pulling together everything you have learnt, and the resources you have found, to create a nature friendly lifestyle going forward.

We will start by thinking about what we mean by a nature friendly lifestyle. Unlike the earlier stages, there are than a number of activities to do, before returning to the course to reflect and explore how you might like to take these forward, building them into your nature friendly lifestyle. We will also look at groups and other opportunities to be part of a nature friendly community.

A Nature Friendly Lifestyle

At York Bike Belles a nature friendly lifestyle focuses on the appreciation of nature in and around each of our lives. It is learning to notice and recognise the nature all around us, fostering connection and care. With that appreciation and care can often come a wish to lead a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle. A lifestyle that involves making daily choices that minimize harm to the environment, and conserve natural resources. Some of these choices might be about how a person chooses to travel. As part of our commitment to helping people achieve a nature friendly lifestyle, York Bike Belles works to increase walking, wheeling and cycling around the city of York, and reduce car use. If you are interested in gaining more confidence on your bike, borrowing a bike or joining short group rides or walks, take a look at the York Bike Belle's website to see which of these activities are currently running.

Other daily choices might be about what a person eats, what they buy and how they manage their environment. Whilst this course does not extend to include this information, there are many resources available both online and offline outlining changes people can make. For example, Friends of the Earth has an overview of top tips for environmentally friendly consumer choices that people can build into their lives.

Activities

There are 5 activities in this stage to help you in moving forwards towards a more nature friendly lifestyle. They all build on some of the activities from earlier stages. This time we will look to do these regularly over a four week period.

Activity 1: Your Green Route

Walk, cycle and connect with nature on 'Your Green Route,' or another route, once a week for four weeks. Keep a record of the species that you find and the date you find them, in your chosen way from Stage 1 e.g. map, journal, notepad. Challenge yourself to learn to identify one new species each week.

Activity 2: Your Green Route - Take Time for Nature

Aim to do a nature pause that you tried in Stage 2 once a week for four weeks, either whilst you are on 'Your Green Route' or in a different spot. Record what you notice. After four weeks, reflect on how you have found this practice. Do you find it relaxing or enjoyable? Has it become easier?

Activity 3: Get Creative

Think about all the creative ways to connect with nature that were discussed in Stage 2. Try doing one of these activities each week for four weeks. This could be the same activity each week, or a different one each week. It might be taking a weekly photograph on 'Your Green Route', or making a mandala with leaves and twigs when you are out, or it could be something more ambitious. Again, after doing each one take a moment to think about how doing this activity has made you feel.

Activity 4: Your Green Space

In Stage 3 we asked you to find a green space at home, in your community, or at work, that you could care for, or join with others to care for, and to read about how you might do that. Over the next four weeks take this forward. Or explore and join a national or local group that cares for green spaces or nature.

Activity 5: Sharing your Knowledge

Invite someone else to walk, cycle or wheel on 'Your Green Route' and teach them about some of the species that you have learnt. Or invite them to take this course!

When you have completed these activities, come back to the course and continue to the next sections in this stage; reflecting back and moving forwards.

Reflecting Back

Take some time to think about each of the stages of this course in turn. There is a summary of each stage below to help you. Think about what you enjoyed doing in each stage. Did any of the activities give you a sense of wellbeing, achievement or pride?

Stage 1; Meeting Nature

In Stage 1 you learnt about biodiversity and the action plan for York. You learnt to identify some common species, and about resources to use to identify new ones. You started to record your findings in a journal, notepad, map or similar. You learnt about Citizen Science and planned to take part in one of the projects.

Stage 2; Connecting with Nature

In Stage 2 you learnt about why connecting with nature is important and tried a mindfulness pause. You created something around the word 'nature'. You learnt about a species in depth and also planned a celebration of an event in nature of your choice.

Stage 3; Caring for Nature

In Stage 3 you learnt about the health of nature and about some of the many different ways that you can care for nature. You decided on how you could care for nature in a green space and on your green route.

Stage 4; Building a Nature Friendly Lifestyle and Community

In Stage 4 so far, you have paused, learnt, created and made your way along a Green Route every week for four weeks and hopefully taken someone else along with you. You have taken forward your plans to care for a green space or nature.

Moving Forwards to a Nature Friendly Lifestyle

All of the activities that you have tried so far are nature friendly and can be part of a nature friendly lifestyle. By doing the activities that you have for the last four weeks you have already been living a more nature friendly lifestyle. Think about how this feels. When you reflected back on all the stages, which activities do you want to take forward or keep doing?

To build new habits in our lives, to make them part of our lifestyle, it can be helpful to think small and easy, so easy that it is almost impossible not to do them! Just noticing one good thing in nature every day on your commute, walk, cycle or out of your window is an easy habit. Just pausing for a moment on a walk or ride at a set point to let nature in is an easy habit. Then you can build up, with patience and consistency. It is also easier to do things if we get pleasure out of them. Think about what activities you have enjoyed, and how you could build these into your life going forwards.

As well as it being easier to do an activity longer term if we enjoy it, a nature friendly activity is also easier to do longer term if we do them with others. Is there a friend who might be interested in the same things, or a group that you could join like a photography or art class, a walking or cycling group, or a volunteering group working in one of the green spaces?

Building a Nature Friendly Community

By doing activities with others you can start to build your own community of like-minded people around you. Or you could join one! Please do take a look at our website to see which of our nature friendly activities, such as nature walks, group rides and cycling support, are currently running. The Wild York website is also a fantastic resource listing volunteering groups and opportunities that support individual green spaces across York, or city wide opportunities with City of York Council or organisations like St Nicks. There is also The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) and GoodGym, both of which have York based groups. Many of the larger conservation or nature charities have local groups too e.g. RSPB, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. Links to all of these organisations are in the resources section at the end of this stage.