Urban disconnect with nature is widening

THE idea that people, particularly young ones, who don't get enough time out in the countryside can eventually develop a range of mental maladies known as nature deficit disorder makes sense - even though there's no real medical evidence for it.

- ROELOF BEZUIDENHOUT

Fresh air, bubbling brooks, forests, mountain vistas and undisturbed flocks of birds and herds of game must, in anyone's book, beat today's big-city environment that increasingly resembles a concrete jungle that is, in effect, totally unspoiled by nature.

Golf isn't for everyone, while the few green spaces have become dangerous places. Most urbanites spend perhaps 90% of their lives indoors and in cars, travelling the same, frustrating daily route.

The lucky ones can break away now and then, and live the dream of a few days in a park. But even for them the divide between the air-conditioned office and the wild can be too great. A bit of school biology and zoology supported by graphics of the water and carbon cycles, aren't enough to understand what's really going on out there.

So what? They can check on their smartphones anyway. The more important question is how well they can assess the state of the natural resources along the way to, and in the park, and what the cost of further degradation of these entails.