The main figures behind the Health Forest are biologist Adela Pajunen (PhD) and geographer Marko Leppänen (MSc). It is our dream to invite people back to their connection with nature.
What do we have in common? Many things, one of them being a common dream.
Both of us have for years been leading people of different ages and conditions to experience nature. We are driven by the wish that children, the elderly and the exhausted would have plenty of opportunities to access nature.
Another of our dreams is that magnificent nature areas would be recognised and preserved as health forests.
We are inspired by the thought that you would be supported by nature and remember what it felt to be in a woodland as a child – and start reaching towards your adventure.
Our method is based on scientific research and a profound understanding of nature and human health. We are down-to-earth, playful and easy to understand. We regard observations and knowledge of nature as an important gate to nature connectedness, an immeasurable source of wellbeing.
As trainers we have been described as innovative and knowledgeable. We are commended on the fact that our contents rely on solid practical experience. We promote our cause strongly through books and other texts.
Adela Pajunen
I am inspired by moments where a therapeutic process takes place between a person and nature. My role is caring, motivating and innovative. I have an endless thirst for knowledge of nature and wellbeing.
I have advocated the utilisation of the health impacts of nature full time since 2012: I have organised training courses for workplaces, taken exhausted people to forest, created nature trails, and written books. I have been engaged in the conception and launch of Health Forest, which I am still training and developing.
My mental landscape was influenced already in early age by the fact that my one grandmother had her summer home in Lapland and the other near Helsinki in Nuuksio lake area (nowadays a famous National Park). Our family spent plenty of time in both of these places. After high school I was trained to be a wilderness guide and in that year I experienced personally the healing effect of nature. Later I became a teacher of biology. In that job my favorite thing was to take pupils to hikes. For my doctoral thesis I spent summers in the Siberian tundra. In there I was completely immersed in nature, left behind by a helicopter which would pick us up a month later.
I am a biologist (Ph.D.) and naturopath. I am passionate about the health impacts of wild plants.
Marko Leppänen
My gift to the world is the ability to tell stories about nature that open people’s eyes and hearts. Writing is my thing, but sometimes I also offer training. I am fascinated by places, and I’m especially interested in the impact that different places have on people.
In 2001, in my role as a journalist I interviewed professor of psychology Kalevi Korpela who is a Finnish pioneer in research on the health impacts of nature. That was an important epiphany for me, and ever since then I have harvested information on the subject and observed the impact of nature on myself.
I have designed health nature trails and health forests. This has included terrain analyses, routing, nature management, concepting of checkpoint contents, planning of structures, and user monitoring. My seat of learning for these tasks has been the nature trail of Vartiosaari, voted as the best in Finland, which I have co-established and co-managed over the course of more than 20 years.
My nearby test laboratory is a woodland estate in Sipoo, which I have managed for years with the aim of increasing biodiversity and people’s recovery at the same time. I grew up on the south coast of Finland, and therefore the sea is part of my mental landscape. When I was younger, I also worked as a nature ranger in the archipelago.
I am a qualified geographer (MSc). In my free time I love having adventures in various interesting places. I’m also learning Buddhism and enjoy having a sauna.
