Something unprecedented is happening. Forest Therapy Hub has advanced field training activities in two European projects funded by the European Union: Back to Nature and NASC -Nature Ambassadors for Sustainable Change.
Although different in scope, both initiatives place young people at the centre of processes that connect research, direct contact with nature, and community practice. These programs invite participants to recognize how personal wellbeing and ecological health are intertwined, and how learning in nature can become a shared act of care.
In Back to Nature, this means addressing today’s forms of addiction -to screens, overstimulation, and disconnection- through forest-based experiences for awareness and resilience. In NASC, it means working with young ambassadors who explore the interconnections between people, nature and place, finding belonging in the spaces they inhabit and learning how to lead local initiatives for sustainability and regeneration.
Both approaches understand learning as something that circulates, as knowledge that is lived, exchanged, and carried back into communities, as part of FTHub’s mission to translate research and training into real-world implementation through international projects that connect science, nature, and social impact.
Back to Nature: Forests as Places of Prevention
From 10 to 15 November, the Back to Nature project holds its first in-person training in Slovenia, led by Manuela Renzi and Inga Dreimane from Forest Therapy Hub. Adolescents from Slovenia, Serbia, and Latvia are taking part in this week-long immersion, designed to explore how Forest Therapy practices can contribute to addiction prevention and the development of personal and social resilience.
The project, coordinated by the Secondary School of Forestry, Woodworking and Healthcare Postojna (Slovenia), in partnership with Poenta Association (Serbia) and Forest Therapy Hub (Portugal), aims to integrate nature-based experiences, educational research, and applied health methodologies. Following a transnational meeting in Lisbon last September, the current phase marks the translation of research and planning into lived experience.
A central outcome of Back to Nature will be a Handbook on Forest Therapy for Addiction Prevention, expected by the end of 2025. The initiative is part of a broader European strategy to develop evidence-based tools for youth wellbeing, combining academic and experiential knowledge within accessible training frameworks.
NASC: Rivers, Youth, and Regeneration
Earlier in November, Forest Therapy Hub carried out the Portuguese pilot training of the NASC -Nature Ambassadors for Sustainable Change project. Led by Manuela Renzi, Sonia Juarez and Alex Gesse, the training gathered the new Portuguese Ambassadors, who will now join their counterparts in Spain to design and implement micro-actions for the regeneration of blue spaces used by local communities.
The NASC project, co-created by Forest Therapy Hub and Resilience.Earth invites young people aged 16–30 to take active roles in sustainability and climate resilience through nature connection and social leadership.
Through non-formal education and participatory methods, participants learn to design nature-based solutions and to bring local environmental issues into dialogue with mental health and community wellbeing.
After an initial training along the Fluvià River in Spain earlier this year, this second pilot along the Neiva River marks the project’s expansion into new territories, where a network of young leaders is taking shape, their work grounded in the places they inhabit.
When Learning Meets the Land
Though different in scope, Back to Nature and NASC share a clear intention to move learning out of the classroom and into living systems: forests, rivers, communities. In these spaces, youth become both observers and participants, testing research-based methodologies while building their own capacity to act in the world.
Forest Therapy Hub’s role in both projects reflects its commitment to bridging science, training, and practice within international collaborations that treat nature as its essential partner.
What is taking shape across these trainings has no precedent. It is the first time that youth learning, forest-based methods, and EU cooperation converge in this way: not only as a pioneering work to be remembered later, but as something unfolding now. A live process where change can already be seen in gestures, in voices, in the way these young people stand within their landscapes.
Ph: The FTHub
Aja agora: inscreva-se nas nossas formações de Guia de Banhos de Floresta e Profissional de Terapia de Floresta. Vamos crescer juntos, adquirindo as habilidades essenciais para conduzir experiências significativas na natureza.
