Connecting with landscapes: intentional access to green space.

Abstract This book chapter begins with a discussion of environmental narratives and the ways they shape their collective beliefs about natural landscapes, and then presents conservation and preservation ideas and strategies followed by a variety of approaches to integrating nature into the places and landscapes where people live, focusing on (1) environmental narratives, (2) conservation and preservation, (3) green by design, and (4) socioecological approach to human health. People from many disciplines have an opportunity to bring nature and people together in forms that can be experienced through everyday life. Simultaneously, we can continue to protect larger conservation areas in ways that are socially just, helping to combat global warming while protecting ways of life, Indigenous knowledge, and human dignity. The future of the planet depends on acting both locally and globally while helping individual people access a sense of connection to the natural world that translates to action to safeguard it for future generations.