FTHub and WOWnature are celebrating a collaboration to support forests’ restoration through the growth and maintenance of trees thanks to a long-term agreement. FTHub will be donating funds from the Italy training to plant trees in special places carefully chosen by WOWnature, an online platform powered by Etifor, a spin-off of the University of Padova, that aims to restore the balance between people and nature.
This partnership is based on FTHub’s commitment regarding Planetary Emergency. We believe that a healthy human is only possible on a healthy planet. We not only train people in Ecology of Natural Systems and Ecosystemic Services, among other issues to prepare them as Forest Bathing Guides and Forest Therapy Practitioners, but we also act as an organisation towards a better forest network in the real world. We believe it is not behind a desk that we make a difference on this issue.
“Vaia” over the Alps
In 2018, the winds of storm “Vaia” brought unprecedented damage to the Alps forests and in a few hours, millions of trees were blown down causing a huge social, environmental and economic loss for local communities. “Vaia” was an unprecedented extreme event in the northeast of Italy, another clear and direct consequence of the global climate crisis.
Since then, WOWnature, through the dedicated WOWalps subproject, promoted and coordinated several ecosystem restoration projects in those alpine damaged forests. Individuals and organisations can collaborate with restoration projects by adopting a tree and growing it in one of the forests that need our help to be restored.
The Guide and the Forest
FTHub will support the activities of restoration of these forests. For each participant of Italy’s training, FTHub will be planting at least four trees, though the number of trees will vary according to WOWnature’s timely indications, as this partnership applies to the current and the next years to come. WOWnature will also be deciding in which areas trees will be planted and maintained, according to the specific needs of each year.
From September 20th-25th, for the 2021 Italian edition of the FTHub Forest Bathing Guide training, the trees will be planted in Fiemme Valley, near the training venue in Valsugana, as part of WOWnature restoration projects with FTHub. And we are very proud of it.
