The University of British Columbia Multidisciplinary Institute of Natural Therapy and Forest Therapy Hub (FTHub) celebrated an agreement of cooperation to enhance the research and the development of standards for the Forest Bathing and Forest Therapy practice. The agreement sets the basis to sharing information and research to advance the application and implementation of projects, the development of training exchanges, and to find mutually beneficial outcomes for both the practice and the research.
FTHub’s perspective on Green Health Care Education has contributed to improve the scientific basis of nature-based well-being practices through specific reports on Key Strategies to Reduce Hazards Mitigate Risk and Monitor Safety, and on Essential Characteristics of Healthy Green Spaces. FTHub has also implemented pilot projects of Forest Therapy for specific groups and populations: Nature-based Intervention and research for victims of domestic violence, Research on FTHub Method for Nature-based Interventions for mental health populations, Implementation of Green Prescription, among others.
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is one of the top 35 universities in the world, and the 2nd university for research in Canada. Its Faculty of Forestry and Conservation is the highest ranked in the world. UBC Forestry Faculty Associate Dean Guangyu Wang (Multidiscipline Institute of Natural Therapy) is a passionate researcher on national park tourism, and forest and green space related topics to human health. The UBC Forestry Faculty led by Dean Robert Kozak is one of the world’s most extraordinary institutions dedicated to teaching programs and leading-edge research focused on forests, the ways in which society interacts and coexists with them, as critical to ensuring a sustainable future health of people and the planet.
FTHub Green Care Education is inspired by the dynamic interaction between the person and their socioeconomic and environmental contexts. By a vision of nature-based well-being practices based on a method that stands on the principles of human-nature interaction and scientific evidence for Planetary Health. This collaboration agreement -while an initial exchange has also started and some UBC professors are training with FTHub- means so much to the scientific basis of Forest Therapy, aiming to set standards for a practice destined to encourage people to take responsibility for their health, that of society and the planet.
