Nepal has been ranked as the world’s most “nature-connected” country, while Bangladesh placed fourth, according to a global study on people’s emotional and psychological bonds with the natural world, reports The Guardian.
The study, published in the journal Ambio, surveyed 57,000 people from 61 countries to examine how social, cultural, economic, and geographic factors influence attitudes toward nature.
Nepal ranked first, followed by Iran, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Britain was near the bottom, ranking 55th out of 61 countries.
Languishing below Britain are the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Israel, Japan and Spain, which is the least nature-connected of the 61 nations surveyed.
Croatia and Bulgaria were the only European countries to make the top 10, with France the next-highest European country at 19th place.
Led by British and Austrian researchers, including Miles Richardson, a professor of nature connectedness at the University of Derby, the study found that spirituality and religious faith were the strongest predictors of a deep connection with nature.
In contrast, countries that perform well in the World Bank’s “ease of doing business” index — an indicator of how market-friendly an economy is — tend to show weaker ties to the natural environment.
Other factors found by the study to be linked to a lack of connection with nature included levels of urbanisation, mean income and internet use.