The Princess of Wales has talked about how she finds connecting with nature a spiritual experience as she shared her love of the outdoors.
Just last month, Catherine marked Mother’s Day with a message about how she and her family had relied on getting out and about for comfort and strength over the past year as she underwent treatment for cancer.
Now, she is again putting the focus on the importance of being outside as she supports the Scouts in making access to nature a priority for young people.
In a short film, alongside Chief Scout, Dwayne Fields, the Princess takes a walk around Lake Windermere to discuss the impact that the natural world has on mental and physical wellbeing.
She reveals that ”I find it a very spiritual and very intense emotional reconnection I suppose, these environments. Not everyone has that same relationship perhaps with nature, but it is so therefore meaningful for me as a place to balance and find a sort of sense of peace and reconnection in what is otherwise a very busy world.”
Dwayne Fields, who became Chief Scout in 2024, says ”I think it’s really important for young people to have access to nature because it’s a space where they can push themselves, they can challenge themselves, they learn leadership skills, spend time making friends and those life-long really great memories that we all hold onto.”
The Princess, who is Joint President of Scouts, and Dwayne Fields took a group of scouts aged 10 to 15 on a walk around the shores of Lake Windermere as the youngsters worked towards their Naturalist Activity badge. All of them are based in Scouts groups in Cumbria and Greater Manchester.
Scouts encourage around 450,000 young people to engage with nature. Dwayne Fields said ‘‘in an increasingly complex world digital technology has its place, but the few hours we spent in the hills without screens was magical: we are often at our best in the outdoors, and I want more young people to experience outdoor adventures like this for themselves.”
The Naturalist Activity badge at the Scouts is built around developing skills which show an interest in the natural world and involves participants demonstrating a range of study and conservation techniques.
The Princess of Wales became Joint President of Scouts in 2020.
