ARCHIVE: Helping others to understand

Communicating with others about the importance of the natural environment and how to value it in decision making can be difficult. The issues are complex and interconnected and the impacts are often long-term and indirect.

However, there are lots of things you can do to help explain the issues and persuade others of the benefits of taking an ecosystems approach:

Show them how important the natural environment is to society

Defra economists have produced a short booklet which explains the links between protecting the environment, enabling economic recovery and promoting a strong, growing economy

Leaders in UK business, the Third Sector and the Health Sector have written articles about the value of the natural environment to them and society.  The views expressed in these articles are independent:

Tell them the story in a way they can relate to

We have developed a ‘natural environment narrative’ that sets out, in a few pages, the case for why the natural environment is important to society and the economy and how society needs to change what we do to protect it.

Natural Environment narrative (PDF 22 KB)

We hope that, from this core narrative, people who want to work with a specific sector, organisation or on a specific subject will be able to write their own version of the narrative to meet their own needs. If you would like to use the narrative we have developed or work with us on developing a specific narrative then please contact us.

Give them the facts

Natural England has recently published a report that contains lots of facts and figures on this issue

Show them what Ministers are saying

Defra publishes all key Ministerial speeches.

Show them that others are doing it too

There are an increasing number of examples of how people have applied an ecosystems approach. And it’s not just Government that is adopting it, charities and industries are using it too:

Page last modified: 22 May 2010
Page published: 11 December 2009