Can you please briefly introduce yourself?
I’m a family doctor based in Vancouver, Canada who also works in rural and northern communities, and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. I’ve been Director of PaRx, Canada’s national nature prescription program powered by the BC Parks Foundation, for more than five years. Being President of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment reminds me of the importance of training a planetary health lens on all I do. I’ve also been appearing as a medical expert in broadcast media for over a decade, which has been really helpful to amplify the exciting work happening in the nature and health field.
What is your own involvement with nature-based therapy, either as a practitioner or scientist?
As Director of PaRx—one of only two national nature prescription programs in the world—I definitely practise what I preach. I routinely prescribe nature through our PaRx platform to my patients. In fact, our Healthy By Nature program manager recently told me I’ve issued the most nature prescriptions of any PaRx prescriber so far! On the scientific side, I really enjoy contributing my on-the-ground and clinical knowledge to some of the most innovative and impact-driven nature-based therapy projects out there, including RESONATE and PANDA, an Australian trial looking at nature prescriptions, physical activity and cardiometabolic disease.
Do you have an example of your own NbT work that you would like to highlight?
This is my favourite topic of all time. How much time do you have? There are two features of our PaRx program I’m most proud of. The first is how we’ve intentionally built partnerships with great nature-forward and mobility organizations to tangibly reduce barriers to nature access for our patients. Our collaboration with Parks Canada, announced in 2022, gives all our prescribers the opportunity to prescribe free annual Discovery Passes to patients. It’s one of my favourites—and became a viral story that put us on the map internationally.
The second feature of our program that makes us unique is the sheer amount of support we have from the healthcare sector in Canada. PaRx has been endorsed by over 100 major health organizations across the country, including the Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Nurses Association. Today we have over 16,000 health professionals registered in our program who have collectively issued over 1 million nature prescriptions. Our program would not be where it is today without the support of our wonderful prescribers across the country.
“/…/did I mention how wonderfully kind and collaborative everyone in the project is, despite wielding some of the biggest brains on the planet?”
What makes you excited about the RESONATE project?
Getting to collaborate with some of the world’s leading nature and health researchers, and working with them to scale the field up internationally, is an absolute dream. I’ll never forget what it was like to attend the RESONATE kick-off meeting at the University of Vienna in 2023. Every time I turned around I was bumping into someone whose work I’d relied on to build the evidence base for our PaRx program.
I still remember relaying our standard recommendation in Canada that patients spend at least two hours in nature each week, at least 20 minutes each time, during a talk to the group. I didn’t put two and two together that the first author of the paper we used for the two-hour recommendation was none other than Mat White, Principal Investigator for RESONATE—until he said they intentionally wrote that paper to give clinicians like me guidelines for nature prescriptions. That was a real full-circle moment.
Also, did I mention how wonderfully kind and collaborative everyone in the project is, despite wielding some of the biggest brains on the planet?
Where do you see some of the greatest or perhaps untapped potential fornature-based therapy?
I think the greatest untapped potential worldwide lies in the healthcare sector. After many conversations with international colleagues these past few years, I’ve realized the widespread support we have in Canada for nature prescribing is not the norm elsewhere. But given that there’s one healthcare professional for about every 125 people on Earth, and they’re also the most trusted professionals on the planet, what better group to mobilize to mainstream nature-based therapies? In practice, however, whether it’s due to other clinical priorities or lack of familiarity with the evidence base, it’s proven to be more difficult than advertised. By cultivating clinical champions, providing barrier-reducing benefits to patients, and creating resources and designing studies that are very clinically focused—like Mat’s—hopefully we can overcome some of these hurdles.
What can we do to ensure that the RESONATE findings will also make a real impact and enhance the implementation of NbT?
I always say you can do the best research or launch the greatest initiative in the world, but if no one knows about it, it won’t be widely used or adopted. Being strategic around both communications and advocacy can make a world of difference when it comes to impact.
I had a recent conversation with Dr. Won Sop Shin, world-renowned forest therapy researcher. He told me his dedicated public advocacy, including in the media, around his research regarding the human health benefits of forests beyond their value for timber, resulted in a complete change in the Korean government’s approach to forests. They invited him to become Minister of the Korea Forest Service in 2013, and in 2015 enacted the Forest Welfare Promotion Act. It requires state and local governments to formulate and implement policies to ensure everyone has access to forest welfare services. Today there are dozens of government-run forest therapy centres across the country.
Needless to say, I can’t wait to see—and be part of—the real-world effects the RESONATE project will have on nature-based therapies globally.
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