IFTDays 2019
1st - 7th July 2019, Finland
IFTDays 2019 was held on the first week of July 2019, once again in Finland, in beautiful area of Kanta-Häme – Evo.
Seminar, July 2nd -Research meets practice
Workshop day, July 3rd – Hands on experience
Immersion days – July 4th- 7th – Experiencing forest therapy
Check out the program below.
Check out IFTDays 2019 programme:
Speakers and guides in 2019
Professor Bum-Jin Park (KR) have two PhD degrees of ‘ergonomics of forest work’ and ‘forest therapy’. He is interested in a relationship between human and forest environment. Park is researching to measurement and evaluation of therapeutic environment of forest and design of therapeutic environment of forest.
Marina Robb (UK) is founder and Managing Director of Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC, a leading outdoor learning organisation, which aims to transform education, health and family service through nature. Author of ‘Learning with Nature’, her experience includes Forest School & Training, nature-based training for adults, nature & mental health interventions, outdoor learning days and youth training programmes.
Ed Lord (UK) is a PhD Fellow – ecotherapy research – at Swansea University in Wales. Mental health nurse with 12 years experience in the NHS. Cultural geographer. Ethnographer. Former woodland manager. Green-anarchist troublemaker. Father of 3, husband to a midwife!
Dorthe Djernis (DK) is a trained psychologist specialized in stress and traumas; has been teaching mindfulness since 2009 and nature-meditation since 2012; She is at the moment finalizing a Ph.D. in nature-based mindfulness, hoping to inspire more people to reconnect with nature.
Nitin Das (IN) IFTDays Team. Nitin runs an independent film production house that specialises in creating films with socially relevant themes. Films that help in raising awareness and creating conscious communities. He is currently working on an international film project called the Healing Forest. It showcases how forests have the ability to heal people and aims to reconnect people with nature through inspiring stories and films from different corners of the world.
Ina Westerlund (FI) is a landscape architect working at Nomaji Landscape Architects. She is especially interested in nature-based planning and design that support health and wellbeing. As her master thesis she designed a plan for a health forest for the City of Lahti. In the work she studied and interpreted the restorative possibilities of forests through research-based design solutions.
Henrik Ohlsson (SE) is a PhD Candidate at Södertörn University, Stockholm. He is interested in the forest as an inner and outer phenomenon and is currently involved in an ethnographic project studying the spiritual dimensions of nature experiences in the Baltic Sea countries.
Alex Gesse (SP), Forest Therapy Guide, Mentor and Trainer. Also, works as consultant on Forest Bathing and Forest Therapy projects. Founder of Instituto de Baños de Bosque, Spain, and co-founder of the European Forest Therapy Institute team. He develops nature-based workplace wellbeing programs for companies and organizations in the continuous practice of supporting companies to reduce stress, to prevent Burnout syndrome, to improve the well-being of its collaborators and to stimulate creativity and teamwork. Alex developed the KIDS & Forest Therapy Program for adolescents at risk of social exclusion.
Katriina Kilpi (FI/BE) is an organizer of the IFTDays Event. She conducts applied research on nature´s effect on human wellbeing and advises various stakeholders on nature´s health effects. She runs her NatureMinded Consultancy from Belgium. As a Forest Mind guide, she guides young and old to enjoy unhurried and mindful time in her beloved forests.
Heidi Korhonen (FI) is an organizer of the IFTDays Event. She is a certified nature connection coach and she is in training of hypnotherapy, leading to the Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis. In addition, she runs a forest located camping site offering multiple nature related services to nourish the mind and body.
Dr Katarzyna Simonienko (PL), PhD in Psychiatry, Medical University of Bialystok, Mental Health Hospital in Choroszcz, Poland. Licenced guide of Bialowieza National Park.
Sara Malve-Ahlroth (FI) IFTDays Team. Sara is an environmental planner and sustainability expert. Her passion is to bring people closer to nature through better planning and policy practices. Her current studies in environmental psychology have deepened her love and understanding of nature.
Maaria Alén (FI) is a vocational teacher, Natural Wellness Instructor, Supervisor and Folk Healer. She specializes in Traditional Sauna Healing, especially Whisking. She is the chairperson of Finnish Folk Healer´s Society. In supervision she prefers to use nature based methods. She has developed vocational tourism studies based on the concept of Slow Finland/Finrelax.
Barbara Bańka (PL) – artists living in Białowieża Forest (POLAND). Licenset guide of Białowieża National Park, forestry engineer. Painter, illustrator, designer and writer. Popularizer of knowledge about the forest.
Heli Leppälammi (FI) IFTDays Team. Heli is IFTDays Event’s own practical nurse. Heli is a practical nurse who has passion for foot care and thinks, that walking barefoot is of course great excercise, but also a fabulous way to connect with the Earth.
Dr. Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri (LT/BE) IFTDays Team. Vitalija studies safe, sustainable and responsible use of medicinal and edible plants; how green spaces, therapeutic landscapes and traditional knowledge contribute to human connectedness with nature, to disease prevention and health promotion. She investigates the role biodiversity, city gardening, healthy nutrition, ethnobotanical knowledge and community involvement play in addressing societal, environmental and economic challenges.
Kit Berry (UK) is the author of the five book Stonewylde series, which focusses on nature and natural magic. She was inspired to write, having been a school teacher, by a strange encounter in some woods one evening. She’s also written a children’s book about nature, which is her greatest passion, and has plans for many more.
Laura White (UK) of ‘Mossy Oak Woods’ is an experienced Forest School Practitioner, a Forest Bathing Guide, a holder of Sacred Circles for women, a nature lover and Guardian of a small woodland in the South of the UK.
Josefin Wilkins (SE) – social care worker with further studies in environmental psychology. Runs company Vara med Naturen, which offers research based educational programs, workshops and guided walks designed to inspire nature connection as a tool for health and wellbeing. Since 2017, she´s been working with newcomers offering naturebased integration programs in collaboration with local municipalities.
Dr Rik De Vreese (BE) is independent researcher and contracted expert for urban forestry to the European Forest Institute. He is member of the International Steering Commitee of the European Forum on Urban Forestry (www.efuf.org). His research interests are dealing with governance and planning of urban green and urban forests, socio-cultural ecosystem services, and social representations of nature.
Ian Banyard (UK) IFTDays Team. Ian has been leading and guiding Natural Mindfulness walks since 2014, helping hundreds of people develop a healthy sense of clarity, calm, awareness, and deeper connection to nature and life. Ian is also an author, guide trainer and the creator of Nature Connection World – a new online global community with a mission to reconnect humanity with nature and our true nature.
Inu Pelli (FI) – A certified Wilderness and Nature guide, Forest Mind instructor a wild herb instructor among others. An overall outdoor enthusiast and a nature lover since a little girl! Inu runs her company FoRestful that produces and provides outdoor activities for businesses, communities and individual customers all year round, concentrating on programs that support the wellbeing that comes from spending time in nature e.g. Forest Mind.
Dr Liz O’Brien (UK) leads the Social and Economic Research Group at Forest Research and explores well-being and the cultural ecosystem benefits of trees and woodlands including a strong focus on the health benefits of engagement with trees and woodlands – physical, mental and social. She has researched groups that are excluded and disadvantaged and their engagement with woodlands and wider nature.
Reetta Karhunkorva (M.A.) (FI) works as Senior Forest Culture Specialist at Lusto – The Finnish Forest Museum. Karhunkorva has been launching the concept of human-forest relationship both in Lusto’s operations and as a tool for the forest-related organisations. She is a member of the expert group on Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage. Lusto – The Finnish Forest Museum is a national specialist museum of forest culture and the stronghold of Finns’ relationship with the forest.
D.Sc. Erja Rappe (FI) is a senior researcher in Age Institute and an adjunct professor in University of Helsinki, Finland. Erja is specialized in health and well-being effects of green environments. Her passion is to promote outdoor activities, especially among older adults.
Sanni Orasmaa (FI) Lecturer of jazz vocals in the University of Munich, Sanni’s work draws from desire to explore the role of the human voice in connection to the natural environment. The descendant of folk singers and fiddlers, she has been heard in productions throughout the global jazz scene. Sanni specifies in Nature Oriented Voice and Performance Training at her company SoundByNature and is one of the first trained Green Care specialists in Finland. (Photo: Petra Roth)
Sky Maria Buitenhuis (IR) has extensive experience supporting people to deepen their connection to nature, including our own inner nature as part of the larger natural landscape. She has worked as a facilitator for a variety of different programs as well as developing her own workshops and trainings. She is the founder of her own nature connection school in Ireland, EarthDreaming. She is also the co-founder of GIFT (Global Institute of Forest Therapy) and the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT).
Geeta Stilwell is an ANFT certified Forest Therapy Guide, Mentor and Trainer based in Portugal. She creates and facilitates restorative programs that promote wellbeing and health through forest therapy, nature connection practices, clean eating and self-care. She works all over the world with various populations that range from the general public, corporate senior and junior teams, schools, families, mental health populations and individuals recovering from situations of excess stress and burn out.