Paper short abstract:

The being in nature loads us with emotions and feelings. Changes in the environment lead to the loss of the familiar surroundings, and as a result, people's feelings and emotions towards their surroundings also change. If the root causes are known, it is better to address them as well.

Paper long abstract:

We live in an era where environmental changes are already noticeable within one human generation - about 30 years. If we consider that today's elderly may live up to 100 years, there are people around us who remember the time up to three human generations ago. Thus, we can conditionally see in the society three groups based on the time of their active youth: the youngest remember the 1990s; the middle-aged in the 1960s and the oldest in the 1930s.

Our input is based on long-term ethnobotanical and ethnoecological fieldwork. People notice both global and local changes and if asked for solutions, both general and specific recommendations are given. However, among the most common answers given to us on why environmental changes take place, all the most noticed changes are inter-generational. Yet, each of those generation has its own memories of the environment, and the emotions received from the natural environment of childhood accompany them throughout their lives. The intergenerational differences come in exactly on the level of emotions and feelings which the environment in which they grew up provoked in them. This emotional attraction may affect how different generations perceive environmental crises.

Based on our field experience we can suggest that some local (environmental) changes could be directed and softened if the decision-makers communicated better with the residents who are affected by these decisions. For that there is a need to improve communication between different generations, because they perceive the same environment with different emotionality.