Louv shares a hopeful message for every area of life from more productive workplaces, to better classroom learning, and healing our nature-starved spirits.
Richard Louv is a journalist and author of eight books about the connections between family, nature and community. His newest book is The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin), which offers a new vision of the future, in which our lives are as immersed in nature as they are in technology. This future, available to all of us right now, offers better psychological, physical and spiritual health for people of every age.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin), translated into 10 languages and published in 15 countries, has stimulated an international conversation about the relationship between children and nature. Louv is also the founding chairman of the Children & Nature Network at www.childrenandnature.org, an organization helping build the movement to connect today's children and future generations to the natural world. Louv coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder™ which has become the defining phrase of this important issue.
In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society. Prior recipients have included Rachel Carson, E. O. Wilson and President Jimmy Carter. Louv is also the recipient of the Cox Award for 2007, Clemson University's highest honor, for "sustained achievement in public service" and has been a Clemson visiting professor. Among other awards, Louv is the recipient of the 2008 San Diego Zoological Society Conservation Medal, the 2008 George B. Rabb Conservation Medal from the Chicago Zoological Society, and the 2009 International Making Cities Livable Jane Jacobs Award. He also serves as Honorary Co-chairman, with artist Robert Bateman, of Canada's national Children and Nature Alliance.
Louv has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London, and other major publications. He has appeared on many national TV shows, including NBC's Today Show and Nightly News, CBS Evening News, ABC's Good Morning America, and NPR's Morning Edition, Fresh Air, and Talk of the Nation. Between 1984 and 2007 he was a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and has been a columnist and member of the editorial advisory board for Parents magazine. Louv was an advisor to the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World award program. He serves on the board of directors of ecoAmerica and is a member of the Citistates Group. He has appeared before the Domestic Policy Council in the White House as well as at major governmental and professional conferences, nationally and internationally, most recently as keynote speaker at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference.
He is married to Kathy Frederick Louv and the father of two young men, Jason, 29 and Matthew, 23. He would rather fish than write.
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Richard Louv on January 14th, 2012AND NOW A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE CHILDREN & NATURE NETWORK
After “Last Child in the Woods” was published in 2005, a handful of like-minded individuals came together to form the Children & Nature Network. Our mission: to help build a movement to reconnect children, their families and their communities to nature—for human health and well-being, cognitive development, stronger community — and for the good of the planet.
For years, many educators and others had worked hard to connect children to nature. They continue to do that. But we believed a new network could help turn a cause into a movement by building a powerful source of shared information and resources; by promoting the good work of existing programs; by connecting organizations, campaigns, educators, healthcare professionals, business people, agencies, families and young people; and by bringing new, diverse and sometimes unlikely allies to the table.
C&NN keeps track of the movement, offers a single place on the Web to learn about the growing body of research, and most important, provides a way for people, especially at the grassroots, to network – to learn from each other both online and in person at our national leadership gatherings. The site contains links to news, human interest articles, analysis, and the best collection of publicly-available abstracts of studies on children and nature, from England, Australia, Scandinavia and elsewhere.
The movement has a long way to go, but we do see progress. In the best sense, this is a leaderless movement, and a well-connected one. As of today, nearly a hundred cities, states, provinces and regions in North America have created their own campaigns to connect children and families to nature.
In 2012, the movement is reaching inner-cities, suburbs and rural areas across the globe. Many pediatricians and other health care professionals are “prescribing” time in nature to their young patients. We’re seeing a growing popularity for nature-based education. We’ve worked to honor what we call Natural Teachers — the English teachers, the art teachers, the biology teachers who insist on getting their students outdoors.
Conservation groups, large and small, have launched major initiatives to connect children to nature. In the U.S., we’re seeing changes in local, state and national policies and increased news coverage of the many health benefits of nature experience. We see tentative change in the entertainment media. We see growing interest in transforming our cities into places rich with nearby nature. We’ve seen thousands of families band together to create family nature clubs.
And young people are stepping forward, often from inner cities, to become what we call Natural Leaders of the movement.
Last year, young Natural Leaders helped organize C&NN’s first month-long Let’s G.O.!(Get Outside) campaign, which inspired and networked more than 500 events in 44 states, getting over 100,000 people outside. Many of the events were service projects restoring natural habitat. C&NN is hoping for an even bigger turnout this spring.
These are just a few signs of progress we’re seeing, but the barriers remain, and some are growing.
Electronic media use by children and youth in the U.S. has increased in the past five years to more than 53 hours per week, up from 44 just five years before. Obesity and other health-related risks continue at epidemic rates among children and youth, as well as adults, here and abroad. Children’s ability to recognize wild species continues to decline, and the first wave of denatured young people is now in their early parenting years. Rapid urbanization continues around the world; in 2008, for the first time in history, more human beings live in cities than in the countryside — a trend that quickens our sense of urgency.
Challenges exist within the movement, too, including building greater cultural, economic and professional diversity; developing 21st century tools to reach more adults and young people; helping reimagine our communities and the built environment; and increasing society’s support for people and organizations, old and new, dedicated to this work.
Our goal, working with many other groups, is to create deep cultural change. Some people don’t think that’s possible. We do.
We’d like to thank the foundations and agencies, companies and individuals who support C&NN. And we invite you to join the movement, if you haven’t done so already, and to explore the C&NN web site.
Thanks — and Happy New Year!
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Richard Louv - His WebsiteRichard Louv - Wikipedia
Richard Louv - Books
Children and Nature.org - Take Action
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In my opinion Mr. Richard Louv is doing great impotant work !!! Our future is our children... Monte
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