“The beneficial health effects derived from exposure to forest environments have been known for decades, to the extent that in some countries forest therapy plays a recognized role in medical prevention, with psycho-physiological outcomes confirmed by a growing body of scientific research” [1].

The recent development of the topic of ecosystem services has led to the definition of new and often avant-garde fields, more or less connected to nature.

Among these, activities related to well-being and physical and mental health play a leading role, as they represent a truly innovative use of forest space.

However, topics that are not very “technical” and not free from prejudice, such as those related to Forest Therapy, find it difficult to enter the classic forestry discussion, which is often still quite traditionalist and not easily open to new perspectives. This is even more the case when many professionals in the field tend to see the subject as some sort of new-age trend, or worse still, a bogus claim of medical seriousness.

Yet, Forest Therapy truly represents a revolution (while still following tradition, of course) in how we perceive the role of forests, to everyone’s benefit.

Forest Therapy, as we understand it today, began to be discussed in the second half of the 19^th century in Japan. A little over a century later, it became part of the national healthcare program under the name Shinrin-yoku, meaning “forest bathing”. It’s no coincidence that this practice took shape precisely in Japan and in that specific historical and social context, as it represents a genuine complementary therapy to traditional medicine, serving as a preventive measure against work-related stress disorders.

However, its Japanese origins did not initially link it directly to the forestry and natural world as we perceive it, but rather positioned it as a kind of escape from the urban environment through a series of activities carried out mainly in city parks. Moreover, and even more importantly, it still lacked a solid medical-scientific foundation for studying the effects of such activities [2].

It was only from the early 2000s that the medical community began to take a serious and scientific interest in the subject, producing a series of findings that affirmed the relationship between forests and health. At the same time, these activities started to become known outside of Japan, and generally in the West, as practices aimed at drawing people closer to nature (or back to it) and temporarily removing them from urbanized environments.

Forest Therapy, as understood in Japan and identified in medical terms there, can only then truly be called by that name. In the rest of the world, the various activities related to forest well-being or to health benefits resulting from contact with nature, if not standardized and clearly defined within medical protocols, can certainly serve as a valid support for health, but cannot be classified as therapy in the medical sense.

Therapy, experts in the field emphasize: “has a clear socio-health connotation” [2]. Different, though not negative, is the case of forest practices aimed at personal well-being—such as forest bathing—which are more of a sociocultural service and lack a solid medical connotation or prescription

Figure 1: For proper Forest Therapy, it is recommended to use only well-defined and clean trails, possibly belonging to a well-known hiking network. Nature path under maintenance in Recoaro Terme (Vicenza, Italy). Photo: Author. 11.08.2022