Unequal barriers to nature's contributions to people impact quality of life

Abstract

While nature contributes to multiple dimensions of human quality of life, access to nature and its benefits is unequally distributed. We surveyed residents of a French metropolitan area to address three research gaps: (i) what are the most common barriers to accessing various Nature's Contributions to People (NCP)? (ii) how these barriers vary across socio-demographic groups? (iii) how do they relate to nature connectedness and impact quality of life? Most frequent barriers, i.e., lack of time, crowding, and low availability or quality of green spaces, differed across NCP categories. Individuals with lower income, limited physical mobility, living in urban areas, and women reported more barriers. More numerous barriers reduced NCP satisfaction, indirectly diminishing quality of life, while nature connectedness independently increased it. Our finding that barriers accumulate for disadvantaged groups, reinforcing social inequities, calls for policies addressing multiple dimensions of access to promote equitable relationships with nature.