No evidence of an extinction of experience or emotional disconnect from nature in urban Singapore

Abstract

Abstract It is widely believed that people living in cities have fewer and poorer daily experiences of nature, and that this contributes to the biodiversity crisis on the basis that if people do not know nature, they will not care for its conservation. In 1978, Pyle coined the term ‘extinction of experience’ to reflect the loss of opportunities to experience nature as urbanization progresses. However, evidence of an emotional disconnect from nature arising from an extinction of experience remains poorly documented. Here we repeat a study conducted in 1996 comprising household surveys and bird surveys in a neighbourhood of Singapore, one of the world's most densely populated cities. We investigate empirically whether experiences of nature, opportunities to experience nature and the emotional connection between people and nature have changed across 22 years. We discover that emotional connection with nature has actually increased among greenspace users and non‐users, while the frequency and duration of greenspace visits remained unchanged. Among greenspace users, the number of different nature elements experienced also remained unchanged and more frequent users demonstrated a stronger emotional connection with nature. We further found an increase in opportunities to experience local nature, as measured by bird species richness and abundance. While we found no evidence for an extinction of experience or an emotional disconnect from nature in this particular setting and timeframe in urban Singapore, similar studies elsewhere are necessary to explore whether there may be geographical, cultural or temporal variations. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.