How do you instil the love of nature?

I was astonished recently when I was talking with a group of new undergraduates about conservation in Britain. I asked them, ‘Where would you go and watch wildlife in Britain?” There was a long awkward pause. Eventually, one offered an answer “The zoo?”
 
The same students are quite comfortable with the idea that conservation relies on local support to work, and that may require some level of education, awareness raising, familiarisation. But we talk in this way about people far removed from our University bubble, like people in Africa, or farmers. I hadn’t realised just how divorced (at least some) young people are getting from the natural wonders from our country. I recently asked a much larger group of around 160 students, how many had been on safari etc to see wildlife overseas – about a third. How many go birdwatching or similar in the UK? One and a half (a nervously half raised hand, whether it was half lowered due to being seen as embarrassingly geeky or half raised because they have looked at the blue tits in their garden, I don’t know. New students namecheck David Attenborough (and why not), not Springwatch or Countryfile. Yet sights such as wintering geese flying into from their feedings grounds, a peregrine diving at a pair of rooks in a grass field, and a flock of waxwings on a suburban bush are lovely as anything I have seen around the world.  
 
My concern is that biodiversity is not exactly thriving in policy circles. The whole tone of Brexit and trade deals carries a whiff of reduced environmental standards (sorry, I meant less Government spending, interference and red tape), which academic ecology is getting hung up about ecosystem services, and not conservation for conservation’s sake. So we can’t take for granted that we will continue to have a great chance of seeing red kites, green woodpecker and bullfinch on a farmland walk (this morning’s haul at our University farm near Tadcaster). Individual farmers, supply chain companies and NGOs are all working to keep wildlife in our countryside, but ultimately it will only work if lots of people actually value the kind of casual contact with nature that you get on a country walk. Schools obviously have a key role, but with increasing pressure to cut costs they can do only so much. Can we make Britain a trendy place to go to see our natural beauty?