Older adults’ experiences of wellbeing through engagement with a nature-based programme: insights from Activity Theory and Blue Zones thinking

• Nature-based interventions and programmes hold real potential to effectively support older adults’ immediate and longer-term physical, social, mental, emotional, and psychological wellbeing needs. • Carefully designed, theory informed nature-based interventions and programmes may offer real potential to effectively support older adults’ immediate and longer-term wellbeing needs. • These may offer creative and complementary support amid an ever-increasing demand on traditional health and social care services, particularly as the population of older adults with complex needs continues to grow. • Exploring older adults’ own understandings of wellbeing illuminates the subjective, multidimensional and inter-related nature of wellbeing in later life. This paper examines the wellbeing experiences of participants of the Silver Saplings Adventures, a nature-based programme tailored to support older adults in rural Scotland. Through qualitative interviews with 17 women aged 64–91, the study captures how participation in Silver Saplings Adventures fostered experienced improvements in physical mobility, social connection, emotional resilience, and cognitive engagement. Participants described their experiences of the programme as transformative, offering renewed purpose and deeper community ties. Findings are interpreted through an adapted version of Activity Theory, enriched with principles drawn from the Blue Zones approach to healthy aging, highlighting the value of socially meaningful and naturally integrated activities in later life. With learnings from the current programme, this can usefully guide the development of similar nature-based programmes. By drawing on the holistic value of nature-based interventions and programmes in later life, this paper argues for their greater inclusion in public health policy and practice, particularly in under-resourced or rural contexts. The discussion offers conceptual and applied insights for designing age-friendly, wellbeing-focused nature-based programmes.