​Nature is at the root of our survival as a species, wellbeing and prosperity on this planet. However, in today's busy and distracted world, we can easily forget just how much we rely on it. Nature Days wants to remind you why we should put Nature on a pedestal in our lives, something to be cherished and taken into consideration in our lives before almost everything else, including ourselves.

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• Nature is our life support system and is vital for life on Earth. We rely on Nature totally for survival, from the clean air that we breathe, the water we drink, food we eat, shelter we live under, medicinal resources we rely on and the very bodies we inhabit. We are a part of Nature. 

• Nature provides our food, from the insects that pollinate our crops to the food we harvest. It provides supporting services like soil formation which underpins our ecosystems.

• Nature is also vital for supporting our own health & wellbeing. It enables physical activity and has documented positive impacts on our physical, emotional, and mental health & wellbeing. This is often underestimated or forgotten by us as we go about our daily lives. Nature Days wants to reconnect you with these health & wellbeing benefits and encourage the Irish public to start valuing Nature to maintain and support their own health & wellbeing. (https://imj.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-Benefits-of-Nature-for-Health-and-Wellbeing.pdf)

• Nature supports our social wellbeing, bringing us together, with a sense of belonging in nature spaces.

• Nature supports community, bonding people in a locality and offering opportunities to be part of something bigger together. It enables recreational and spiritual experiences too.

• Nature protects us, offering us shelter, and acts as a natural buffer to the worst effects of climate and environmental change.

• Nature drives our economies, creates energy, jobs and a livelihood for billions of people around the world. From direct jobs in food production, tourism & forestry, to the vital raw materials harvested from Nature to be used in production. So much of the products we use every day are reliant on Nature in some way for their existence.

• All of these Nature benefits are estimated to be worth an eye watering US$125trillon each year. But because it is free, we very often take it for granted or overexploit it. (https://www.wwf.org.uk/what-we-do/valuing-nature#:~:text=If%20you%20add%20them%20all,the%20impact%20this%20will%20have.)