It is our dream to enhance people’s connection to nature throughout the world. We believe that this will also strengthen the connection to fellow human beings. You can help us by spreading the word on Health Forest!
Everyone can take part in their own way. By looking after themselves with the aid of nature, by sharing experiences, by encouraging their close ones or clients, by writing, photographing and sharing information, by providing financial support.
We have compiled different ways of supporting, taking part and passing on the message about Health Forest.
Give a gift of a nature prescription to yourself or to a friend
A nature prescription means that you encourage your friend, a close one, your client (or yourself!) to utilise nature in support of wellbeing and recovery.
In order for it to work, a nature prescription must be something sufficiently concrete (i.e. you may recommend, for example, a certain location). It is also essential to recall the experience afterwards: how did it go, what impacts did you notice?
Buy and gift our books!
It is our day job to work on Health Forest: we write books, train Health Forest guides, and share information about the beneficial method, e.g. to healthcare and social welfare professionals.
Support our work: buy our books for yourself or as a gift.
Take a trip to a Health Forest
We have trained Health Forest guides who offer Health Forest activities. Get in touch and ask about available walks or groups.
Become a trained Health Forest guide
The course provides basic skills to lead Health Forest walks.
The two-day course gives you an intensive package of practical experiences gained during the ten-year journey of Health Forest.
You will learn, for example, route planning, conducting exercises and impact assessments. You will receive plenty of tips for nature activities for all age groups, as well as profound things to think about with regard to the connection between people and nature.
The course is mainly aimed at professionals in the nature, education, tourism or wellbeing sectors who have basic skills to run nature excursions.
The next course will be held in Helsinki in the spring 2025.
Enrol as a Health Forest friend
Are you taking your friend or close one to visit nature or do you bring moss indoors for a convalescent to smell? Do you hear the call that by offering experiences of connecting to nature to someone else you will also get these experiences yourself?
Join our team of people who believe that there is a lot of unharnessed potential in the world in connecting with nature and in the health impacts of nature, and that the healthcare services themselves cannot resolve all the ill-health and loneliness that are increasing according to many indicators. It needs all of us to take part.
The Health Forest Friend activity aims to help the exhausted and those who are convalescing or have mobility issues to get outside and into the forest. With and for the support of you, me and all of us.
Create a health nature trail
A health nature trail helps you relax, refresh and recharge.
When designing a health nature trail, various revitalising nature locations and landscapes are taken into account. The checkpoints along the path provide selected and inspiring information about nature and the wellbeing offered by a natural environment. Along the path there are simple exercises to complete in order to enhance the connection to nature.
There are health nature trails currently, for example, in Vartiosaari and Pornaistenniemi in Helsinki and in Liessaari in Lohja. Health nature trails have also been established on private land, even on the land of summer cottages.
Buy a piece of Health Forest!
Save and protect nearby forests! Donate to the Health Forest campaign of the Natural Heritage Foundation. The funds are spent on buying forests that are close to residential areas and suitable for recreational use.
When the Natural Heritage Foundation was founded, there was something very triumphant, free, anarchic about it. Forests would be bought directly for protection purposes (so far 5,000 hectares already). We have been involved in the project for decades, providing appreciation and support, rejoicing about gaining new areas. Therefore, we are touched that nearby recreation areas and wellbeing obtained from nature now have their dedicated fundraising campaign.
