The Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey (MENE) was established in 2009 to provide a comprehensive dataset on people’s relationship with the natural environment, capturing data from a representative sample of the English adult population on an annual basis, allowing trends to be monitored.
MENE asks questions on people’s attitudes to the natural environment and about their participation in environmental activities, including their visits to natural environments. More recently, questions about children’s visits to the natural environment have also been included in the survey (Hunt et al. 2016.)
Natural England commissioned the MENE survey and various analyses of the data to monitor changes in use of the natural environment over time, at a range of different spatial scales and for key groups within the population.
The results, including the findings from this studying, are used by Natural England, its partners and data users to:
- Inform on-the-ground initiatives to help them link more closely to people’s needs.
- Evaluate the impact and effectiveness of related policy and initiatives.
- Measure the impact of and inform policy relating to the natural environment.