Monika Peldavičiūtė and Austė Juozapaitytė Gruodė are the co-founders of the Lithuanian initiative “Gyvo Žalio,” working on environmental education, forest therapy, and community-based nature-based practices. They met in protests: urban trees and natural areas protection brought them together.
They also celebrate the first FTHub training in Lithuanian with the collaboration between FTHub and Gyvo Žalio taking place at Sanctum, the Baltic’s first sensory experience centre in the middle of the forest and near the capital too, from May 28 to 31, 2026, as FTHub Certified Forest Bathing Guide and FTHub Certified Forest Therapy Practitioner. Austė will also present at the upcoming IV Global Summit Science, Nature and Health.
An ongoing commitment to bring the forest, at the core of Lithuania’s identity, into contemporary life, reconnecting with a living tradition where the forest was not only a source of survival, but also of relationship and meaning.
How do we connect with nature?
Monika: “Especially around the age of 13, for me all experience in nature became kind of magic. There’s a beautiful jasmine at home under the window, which gave me a special feeling and special connection with the plant. I like to call it intensive emotions. Like intensive aliveness. Later these moments have a huge imprint in my subconscious, I think. Later in life, making some decisions, I was always looking for this intensive aliveness, an intense feeling which I could only get from connecting with nature. Choosing where to live, to have a job, I was always looking to see if I would be able to have this intensive connection with nature”.
“Sometimes people say that they go to nature for stillness and calmness. Yes, it’s one of the effects. But for me, it’s the opposite: very intensive aliveness, very intensive connection with the universe”.
Auste: “During childhood I never noticed these sensations in nature because it was so natural for me. I lived near the forest, our garden was connected to the forest. We had forest berries directly in our garden. I was telling everyone that I am so glad that I was born in Lithuania. There is so much forest, so much nature”.
“I felt that my professional activity should go in the direction of doing something with nature. I studied my bachelor’s degree in a big city and studied landscape architecture, and I saw how these big cities are dealing with green spaces, changing trees to pavements and so on. And it was the first time I understood that not everyone had the same approach to nature, the same connection to it”.
“So my path to Forest Therapy came from, not this desperation but this bad feeling that we should do something. Not everyone understands it. So I started organizing protests and when we met Monika in the same activities, it awakened me”.
“Especially Lithuanians, we call ourselves a forest country. But what does forest mean to everyone? With Forest Therapy in Lithuania, my first thought was ‘but do we all know how to be in the forest?’ Speaking with people from this big city, from companies, we understand: okay, people don’t know what to do in nature, how to connect”.
Monika: “I was working in an agency attracting investments in Lithuania, but always choosing projects connected with nature. So even from political science I was more connected to how the forests in our nation are one of our main resources. And also creating our identity. I got interested in the National forest policy, changing some laws, and we saw our Forest policy was very intensively focused only on the wood economy. Then we started looking for alternatives for the wood economy”.
“We understood that health is the most important for people and the most easy way to show what the forest gives to people. And in Health, we can actually count the benefits”.
Auste: “Forest policy needs very much energy. Lithuania is a very small country and if you bring something new, something valuable, for example forest therapy, forest bathing, it’s a good example. Not fighting against policy making but showing good examples. What can we do differently, what can we bring? We find a different approach. Not from the environmental side, but from the Health system.”
Monika: “Our main goal became to spread this culture of non wood economy to help to bring non wood economy and the recreational forest benefits to society. We did for some years lots of educational work on how nature supports our health and how we can use it. So we started by becoming Forest Bathing Guides, organizing trips and hikes and having media reports”.
“We’ve had a national award exactly for this activity, for bringing education about forests and health. And a few organizations in Lithuania managed to declare Lithuania and Forest Connection as our non Material heritage. In this big document Forest Therapy is also now a part of it”.
“Nowadays the modern person doesn’t go to the forest to survive. We go to the forest for psychological wellness. But in Lithuania the forest it’s very deep and we still have traditions, like when people go for the mushroom picking in the forest, they have their own prayer. Or when they get lost in the forest, they just do some prayer also. It’s still happening in Lithuania. That’s why it’s a living tradition, non material heritage.
Launching and deepening
Monika: “The FTHub training in Lithuania became the need for many people from different professions, and Forest Therapy Hub is not only the training but also the community. This is what people are looking for, not only the certificate but they look for a community and a platform where they can continue learning, continue having connections, continue to be in the professional field”.
“And usually if you start down this road, you need to have like-minded people with whom you can share knowledge and look how it’s going, the struggles we meet. The training is taking place in the first Baltic center of nature experiences and sensory experiences (Sanctum). It’s a modern center created with very beautiful innovative architecture, with the goal of experiencing nature with all the senses, actually in the middle of the forest: from every place in the building you see almost 360º of forest all around. And it’s close to Vilnius”.
Auste: “So it’s a very amazing approach to have the online and a 4-day training. In a very short amount of time, with mostly practical content, to be in a group of people for four days fully together.
“We have been working for six years or more leading sessions with very different groups. From children to elderly people, to companies. And what I see is that new guides must learn how to guide every different group. What is the group, the mindset, how do children or elderly understand nature?
“For example, children with technology are in full control all day. You know, they can control everything on their phone. And I noticed that when we go to nature, they feel scared. They don’t feel very comfortable firstly because they can’t control their surroundings. We can’t control sounds, wind… So it’s a very different approach”.
“But our body remembers. Every organ remembers nature. We don’t need to have extra energy to try not to think, to change our mindset and so on”.
Ph: Courtesy Monika Peldavičiūtė and Austė Juozapaitytė Gruodė
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