When exploring, our primal senses kick in to alert us to anything that moves.  It could be food or danger, but either way we need to know about it so we can choose fight or flight.  Beyond that it’s pretty easy to focus on some pursuit whether it be tracking an animal through the woods […]

I’ve talked about the importance of the outdoors and general communing with nature in maintaining health in previous posts.  The people in Ireland are taking the notion even further. The Green Prescription A group called Nature, Health, and Wellbeing Ireland is initiating a program called the Green Prescription Initiative.The initiative runs along the lines of Shinrin-Yoku and the Nature prescription […]

Sometimes quotations from famous people have a great impact upon us.  There are a few reasons: the fame or intelligence of the author suggests that their quote is particularly important or credible and has authority behind it the quote seems poignant and sincere the quote is original – although sometimes it’s hard to find the person […]

We hear and see a lot about the air pollution in Chinese cities, but what we don’t hear about is the rising environmental awareness that such problems inspire or the long range plans that China has to bring people and nature together.  These efforts are exemplified in the second China Nature Education Forum (CNEF) that was […]

Today,  I’d like to ask your support for The Children & Nature Network (C&NN).  C&NN invests in change makers to build networks that support the health and vitality of cities, provide green job opportunities for young leaders, strengthen family connections in the outdoors, and collect expertise and research to increase awareness and fuel grassroots campaigns worldwide.  Many of the stories we have […]

Virtually everyone that enjoys exploring the outdoors as an adult had one or more defining outdoor experience as a kid.  Families often provide that experience with camping trips, days at the beach, hikes in the mountains and so on.  Various organizations are also instrumental in providing these experiences.  Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire and others offer […]

I wrote a blog post about the concept of Forest Kindergartens awhile back.  Soon Seattle, Washington, will have a similar school for pre-school kids . Tiny Trees plans to open six schools in 2016, with room for 32 kids in each school. Three more will open later. Building a Partnership for Pre-School The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department recently indicated […]

The Outdoor Industry Association recently released a poll they had commissioned.  The poll asked 500 likely voters in Colorado and 500 likely voters in Nevada a series of questions.  The questions were designed  to try to determine how important public lands are to people in those states and how this interest might play out in […]

Roxanne Quimby is a successful businesswoman, most noted for co-founding Bert’s Bees personal care products company, a philanthropist and conservation advocate.  When she sold Bert’s Bees, she purchased 120,000 acres of forested land in Maine.  Now she would like to donate 70,000 acres of that land to the citizens of the United States as a […]

  I recently took a hike on the Badger Lake Trail in the Sky Lakes Wilderness of south-central Oregon with a group of friends.  Nothing unusual about that and we’ll have a story and video about the trip in the eMagazine before too long.  What was unusual is that, as a group of six, we […]