The impact nature has on your life and health: Nature-deficit disorder

Marin County Parks' open space land.

Marin County Parks is an organization working to restore and provide healthier, safer, and better natural habitats for our community. It has acquired and taken care of many of the parks known within the Marin community that are enjoyed by the public.

Marin County Parks has welcoming staff, such as park rangers that host daily fun and collaborative activities for all ages. These activities will get you off your seat by engaging in nature, even if it is your first time doing outdoors activities! “People work together towards a common goal while also getting to know each other and having friendly conversations with each other and our staff,” said volunteer coordinator Kirk Schroeder.

There are many opportunities offered by this organization that has been working for years to promote and ensure the health of our natural habitats. Schroeder emphasized, “ People need nature in their lives to be happy and healthy.” All rangers and volunteer coordinators work side by side with their community to restore natural habitats, which are important for wildlife and for people who love to be outdoors and do daily healthy activities such as biking, hiking, and walking on the Marin County Parks land.

However, to maintain our parks’ natural beauty, we need your help to restore our parks and to create a more involved community with our parks, which is vital and necessary for our health and for the sake of our precious native plants, animals and yes, us too. Schroeder works hard at protecting our parks and other natural habitats and explains the importance of plants, trees, and wildlife that our earth has granted us, saying, “It is really important to maintain a healthy ecosystem because parks, forests, creeks, and other natural areas are inhabited by many different species of wildlife that are dependent on that habitat that has a lot of natural resources they need to survive.”

Yet, we fail to show gratitude by caring and protecting earth from the many potential dangers. We are harming the planet with our rapidly growing industrial economy, which creates high levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, triggering global warming. In Addition, plants and animal life to go extinct as we become increasingly urbanized. Schroeder said, “Everything is affected by the way we manage our land, and there are many ways we can help protect our land, but there are also many things that contribute to the destruction of our land.”

But it doesn’t end there. In the near future, urbanization may also become an even more serious threat to us and our physical, mental, and emotional health. There are various cases of adults who suffer from nature-deficit disorder; it is even more common among children born in the 21st century, who have the tendency to spend less time outdoors interacting with nature than their parents did as children. By being less active and healthy, children are more vulnerable to illness and emotional disabilities. Schroeder said,  “Doctors are prescribing visits to parks and nature because it will help them [children] have not only a healthy body but a healthy frame of mind which, in the long term, means a happy life.”

To join Marin County Parks in their mission to preserve our forests while also getting outdoors, having fun, and encouraging a healthy lifestyle, visit their website at www.marincountyparks.org.

By: Anahi Mendieta