The holiday season has begun in Berlin, and this year the zoo is celebrating by turning itself into a jungle-themed Christmas garden.
Visitors can walk along a two kilometre route illuminated by cheery lights and accompanied by festive music.
The centrepiece to the garden is an illuminated castle that’s more than 400 years old.
But you can get more out of this than hot chocolate and sweets. – studies have shown a wide-range of benefits for people connecting to the natural world.
And one environmental psychologist says it’s proven to make people happier.
“Try to think of the value nature has for us and to establish a human-nature connection. We tend to forget that we are strongly dependent and interdependent and a part of nature,” Armin-Laszlo Halbach from the Research Institute for Sustainability at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam says.
“It helps you restore all the resources you need to process information, to make decisions and positive effects on your mood.”
Such benefits can be particularly useful in the winter months when people tend to stay indoors for longer. And with climate change, some scientists say people getting out into the natural environments around them is more important than ever.
And with the sun now setting at 4pm in Berlin, the zoo is giving people a chance to shine lots of festive light into the darkness.
Visitors have a chance to see the Christmas garden until January 14th.
Source: Euro News
