Connecting people with nature improves well-being, but how people connect with natural places is not well documented. We asked 43 people (19 Aboriginal Australians, 24 non-Aboriginal people) about the messages they received from Country during an interactive experience in the remote Mungo National Park, Australia, and analysed the physical senses, emotions and cognitive processes they mentioned. The physical senses mentioned by most respondents were sight, hearing and motion (particularly walking). These senses helped people receive messages from Country and connect with place. We used the primary-process emotional systems of Panksepp [2010. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 12 (4), 533–545] as a framework to capture the emotional dimension of experience. Most people reported positive emotions; they spoke about being nurtured by the group and the land (CARE), and the intense joy (PLAY) of being part of the community, being on Country and being accompanied by Aboriginal people. However, our results indicate the framework does not capture the breadth of positive emotions, particularly those associated with connection to place and spiritual experiences. Both groups mentioned cognitive processes reflecting their beliefs, existing knowledge, or sharing and acquiring new knowledge. Our results indicate that the emotional dimension of experience has the potential to measure connection to place, and provide a subjective measure of well-being. More research is needed to document this dimension of experience, and how it changes with context. Our case study provides further insight for those who manage protected areas and seek to enrich the experience of visitors.

Most conservation research aims to inform management of environmental challenges, but scientific evidence is used inconsistently in environmental programmes and practice. We used semi-structured retrospective interviews to ask 12 environmental scientists and 14 practitioners (land managers, park rangers, project managers and planners from natural resource management agencies) about factors that facilitated and hindered the use of scientific input during 15 environmental projects. We used the common factors from interviews to develop a process model describing how scientific input informs programmes and practice. The model emphasised the social dimensions of environmental projects which are often overlooked when these projects are planned, managed and evaluated. It highlighted the pivotal role of relationships in achieving outcomes which include creating practical, useful products and tools, and robust, credible and trusted evidence. By clarifying the process of how scientific knowledge informs environmental programmes and practice, the model enabled us to provide guidance about how to undertake transdisciplinary work and suggest indicators to track progress. Although derived from environmental projects, the guidance is likely to apply to other fields, particularly where different disciplines work together.