Sounds of future past
Nature ‘benefits mental health and promotes environmental protection’
The climate emergency is, if you dwell on it (or can bear to even think about it), pretty terrifying. Although, we can’t be quite sure how much damage we have already done to our planet – we can only speculate on what future, if any, the human race has.
So perhaps the one positive thing about Forest 404 – a post-apocalypse podcast drama series – is that there are actually any people to muse on what the planet must have looked like, back in “the Slow Times”.
Set at some point in the future after our climate disaster, the BBC series focuses on Pan – played by Pearl Mackie (above), she is no stranger to sci-fi on screen as companion to Peter Capaldi’s Dr. Who. The lead character discovers a 21st-century recording of a rainforest – and has no idea what it is.
The snippets of archive sound that she discovers are integral to the plot and can be listened to as ‘bonus episodes’ – soundscapes of nature from our present day but alien to the podcast’s characters, such as rainforest and whales, which may lu ll the listener toast ate of calm( although with the one entitled ‘Daria’s Nightmare’, maybe not so much).
Each episode also comes with a discussion episode – in one, inventor and futurist E ls a Sotiriadis muses on whether the country could or should be run by AI, while‘ How Will Humans Die Out ?’ sees anthropologist Michael River a tackle that rather doomy subject.
The series, which began in 2019, even doubled up as an interactive experiment.
Researchers found that these sounds of nature such as bird song, as featured on Forest 404, could help people’ s mental health, but this could be under threat as the environment suffers.
The study analysed data from more than 7,500 people collected as part of the series.
People listened to a range of environments ranging from coastal and woodland settings in the UK to a tropical rainforest in Papua New Guinea.
Researchers made changes to the sounds by varying the features that could be heard.
They found that participants reported therapeutic effects from listeningto landscape sounds such as breaking waves or falling rain.
Hearing wildlife in these environments – birdsong in particular – increased the potential of the sounds to provide relief from stress and mental fatigue, the study found.
Alex Smalley, who led the research at the University of Exeter, said: “As towns and cities fell quiet in recent lockdowns, many people rediscovered the natural sounds around them.
“Our findings suggest that protecting these experiences could be beneficial for both mental health and conservation behaviour.
“But they also provide a stark warning that, when it comes to nature, memories matter .”
The study also indicated the outcomes could be strongly influenced by people’ s past experiences.
Those who had memories triggered by the sounds found them more restorative, and this increase in therapeutic potential was linked to their desire to protect the soundscapes for future generations.
However, when there were no wildlife sounds – suggesting a decline in environmental quality – the potential for psychological benefits reduced, with people’s motivation to protect those ecosystems appearing to follow suit.
HearForest404atbbc.co.uk/ programmes/p06tqsg3