Naturelskere og naturbrukere

Abstract

NATURE LOVERS AND NATURE USERS This article addresses attachment to nature as a source of happiness. Do people who appreciate nature have a better quality of life than others? Do people who take part in outdoor recreational activity have a better quality of life than others? We use representative cross-sectional data from more than 10,000 Norwegians aged 18-79 who took part in the NorLAG/LOGG survey in 2007/2008, and NorLAG panel data from 2,400 individuals aged 4079 who were interviewed twice over five years. Respondents were asked about aspects of life that were important to them, what they would miss if they had to move to another place, and about outdoor training and recreational activities. The analyses show that people reporting they appreciate and regularly go out into nature are more often satisfied with their lives and have more positive than negative feelings in the past two weeks compared to other respondents. These findings are corroborated by within-person analyses showing that a change toward more appreciation of and use of nature has some significant, but small, beneficial effects on changes in quality of life.