Page - 306 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

306 13.5.2 Supporting Capacity Building As disparate as the aforementioned capacities for clarity, competence building and emotional stability may seem at first, they share a common foundation: the ability to maintain attentional vitality (Basu 2015). Mental clear-headedness is a precondi- tion for human effectiveness (Kaplan 1995) and thus vital to behavioural entrepre- neurship. Envisioning future situations and, more importantly, imagining groups of behaviours that need to be adopted together for an effective response will need to be done while in the presence of the radically changing biophysical and behavioural contexts outlined above, the desperate needs of others and unmet personal needs. It is here that the enormous adaptive significance of mental vitality becomes clear. It allows for pausing to insert our own intentions between the demands of the immediate environment and the future for which we are seeking to prepare a response (De Young 2010). With this ability, future citizens could envision multiple futures without undue confusion, contemplate alternate priorities and explore alter- natives instead of jumping to first conclusions. In addition, and most relevant here, it allows imagining which combinations of behavioural responses will work well together. The importance of this ability cannot be overstated. Without this ability, future citizens could not override automatic functioning whether based on innate stimulus-driven patterns (e.g. inherited inclinations) or learned patterns (e.g. habit- ual responses). In short, the entrepreneurial thought, craft and action needed to respond well will depend on citizens maintaining their mental vitality. Yet, preserving mental vitality is difficult even in the best of times since handling all the information we crave, as well as dealing with the onslaught of unbidden information, easily leads to our being overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. The challenge is all the more formidable under the premise of this chapter. Yet, while the cognitive demands placed on behavioural entrepreneurs will certainly tax their men- tal well-being, research has repeatedly highlighted the restorative effect of time spent in natural settings (see Marselle Chap. 7, this volume; Marselle et  al. Chap.  9, this volume; Kaplan and Berman 2010; Kaplan and Kaplan 2009). This leads to a fascinating, if somewhat counterintuitive, aspect of the new biophysical context. It is possible that life will become less affluent, less easily mobile and less consumer- based. At the same time, everyday life may become more locally oriented with everyone more involved in their own provisioning. Thus, slowly over time, daily access to nearby nature may increase. Given that such access can improve mental, physical, social and spiritual well-being (see Cook et  al. Chap. 11, this volume; Irvine et  al. Chap. 10, this volume), the very restoration needed to effectively respond to the new context will be available within that same context. Mental vitality is a state-of-mind essential to entrepreneurial behaviour but there is also a need for citizens to derive a motive from such engagement. Fortunately, the motives necessary to support behavioural entrepreneurship are embedded in the very challenges involved and are well-studied. It turns out that humans are intrinsi- cally motivated to pursue capacity building (De Young 1996, 2000; Howell 2013; O’Brien and Wolf 2010; Sheldon et  al. 2011; Van der Werff et  al. 2013). Chawla R. De  Young