Albi Sole
Executive Director, Outdoor Council of Canada
The Outdoor Council of Canada, a national non-profit organization promoting and enabling outdoor education and activity, highlights the need to rebuild our connection with our forests.
Truly, the path to health and happiness is paved with positive connections to ourselves, our community, and our environment. The urban and wilderness paths that wander through forests naturally nurture those connections.
In the green embrace of the forest, the clutter of daily life falls away and our inner life finds the space for us to connect to ourselves. The absence of technological distraction and the inherently collaborative nature of outdoor recreation create the most fertile soil for connecting with friends. By being in the forest we connect to the forest.
Connection is a two-way path. We must commit ourselves to respect and nurture the other, but the other must have the capacity to do the same. In this, the forest excels.
Alas, as we’ve urbanized, our connections to the forest have weakened, and both us and the forest have suffered greatly.
