The Future and the New Nature Movement / Guest: Richard Louv Author of Last Child in the Woods

Published 2024-06-14

Richard Louv is a journalist and author of ten books, including Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder; The Nature Principle; Vitamin N, and Our Wild Calling. Published in 24 countries, his books have helped launch an international movement to connect families and communities to nature. In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society. Prior recipients included Rachel Carson, E. O. Wilson and President Jimmy Carter. Louv is also the recipient of the Cox Award for 2007, Clemson University’s highest honor, for “sustained achievement in public service.” He has appeared on the Today show, CBS This Morning, NPR’s All Things Considered and other national media. He also speaks frequently around the world, including keynote addresses at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference, the first White House Summit on Environmental Education, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the International Healthy Parks Conference in Melbourne, and Friends of Nature in Beijing, China. He is chair emeritus of the nonprofit Children & Nature Network.

“Louv is...widely credited with helping spark an international movement to examine the therapeutic benefits of time spent outside. That movement is nearly ubiquitous today. New scientific papers revealing the power of wild places to counteract anxiety, stress, depression, ADHD, and even PTSD seem to make headlines every week. ... But back when ‘Last Child’ debuted, Louv’s ideas were pretty radical. …Louv proved himself a visionary, able to identify the collective blind spots we’ve developed amid the rah-rah spirit of our modern hyperdigitized lifestyles.”
— Outside Magazine, 2019