COVID-19 and human-nature relationships: Vermonters' activities in nature and associated nonmaterial values during the pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly modified Earth's social-ecological systems in many ways; here we study its impacts on human-nature interactions. We conducted an online survey focused on peoples' relationships with the non-human world during the pandemic and received valid responses from 3,204 adult residents of the state of Vermont (U.S.A.). We analyzed reported changes in outdoor activities and the values associated with human-nature relationships across geographic areas and demographic characteristics. We find that participation increased on average for some activities (foraging, gardening, hiking, jogging, photography and other art, relaxing alone, walking, and watching wildlife), and decreased for others (camping, relaxing with others). The values respondents ranked as more important during the pandemic factored into two groups, which we label as "Nurture and Recreation values" and "Inspiration and Nourishment values." Using multinomial logistic regression, we found that respondents' preferences for changes in activity engagement and value factors are statistically associated with some demographic characteristics, including geography, gender, income, and employment status during the pandemic. Our results suggest that nature may play an important role in coping during times of crisis, but that the specific interactions and associated values that people perceive as most important may vary between populations. Our findings emphasize for both emergency and natural resources planning the importance of understanding variation in how and why people interact with and benefit from nature during crises.

Fig 1. Engagement in each activity during COVID-19, segmented by reported change in engagement relative to the same time last year.

Fig 2. Number of participants who ranked each value as most important during the COVID-19 restrictions, segmented by how participants ranked each value (as most, second-most, or third-most strongly valued).

Values are organized according to the results of the factor analysis, with the loading summarized in parentheses for each value onto one of two factors (the “Nurture and Recreation values” factor and the “Inspiration and Nourishment values” factor described in Methods).