Indigenous Nature Connection: A 3-Week Intervention Increased Ecological Attachment

Humanity as a species has spent most of its existence moving with instead of against nature as found among Indigenous or First Nation communities traditionally. Yet most members of modern societies feel disconnected from nature, which is attributed to a lack of connection and respect toward the more than human. We developed assessment tools for ecological attachment from an Indigenous perspective, validating measures (n = 695) of ecological empathy (feeling concern for more-than-human entities), ecological mindfulness (mindful attitudes and behaviors toward living things), and green action (conservation behaviors). Then we conducted a 3-week behavioral intervention with university students (n = 47) with two conditions expected to increase ecological mindfulness: (1) Indigenous ecological attachment (e.g., acknowledge the trees you pass today) by which ecological empathy was expected to increase; (2) conservation behaviors (e.g., turning off lights) by which green action was expected to increase. In session one, participants completed key measures, read texts related to their condition (facts, a poem, and an essay), and selected condition-relevant actions to draw from and perform in the following 3 weeks (one selected per day). In session two, measures were retaken. In comparison with a control group, MANOVA revealed that hypotheses were supported: Only the ecological attachment group increased on ecological empathy, only the conservation group significantly increased on green actions, and both intervention groups increased on ecological mindfulness.