Unequal barriers to Nature’s Contributions to People impact quality of life

While nature contributes to multiple dimensions of human quality of life, access to nature and its benefits is unequally distributed. We surveyed residents of a French metropolitan area to address three questions: (i) What are the most common barriers to accessing various Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP)? (ii) How do these barriers vary across socio-demographic groups? (iii) How do they relate to nature connectedness and impact quality of life? Most frequent barriers, i.e. low availability or quality of green spaces, lack of time, and crowding, differed across NCP categories. Individuals with lower income, limited physical mobility, living in urban areas, and women reported more barriers. More numerous barriers reduced NCP satisfaction, with repercussions on quality of life. In contrast, nature connectedness directly increased quality of life. Our finding that barriers accumulate for disadvantaged groups, reinforcing social inequities, calls for policies addressing multiple dimensions of access to promote equitable relationships with nature.