Participation in natural environment related activities

Most Australians enjoy the benefits of the natural environment. In 2011-12, nearly three quarters of Australian adults (73%) took part in some activity that involved contact with nature in the last 12 months. The most popular of these activities was visiting a national park or botanic garden (52%), followed by a nature walk or bush walk (42%). Just under one third of Australian adults (31%) visited a wildlife park or zoo, and one quarter took a camping or nature holiday (25%) (Table 2 and Graph 1).



Of those people who participated in activities involving contact with nature, 93% did so for enjoyment, followed by social reasons (59%) and exercise (49%). Environmental reasons such as support for local environment and nature conservation were less common reasons for participation in natural environment related activities (15% and 10% respectively) (Table 3 and Graph 2).